Th e Living World of Ainu Shin’yōshū Chiri Yukie’s SARAH M. STRONG This content downloaded from 130.195.21.27 on Tue, 21 Aug 2018 01:15:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Ainu Spirits Singing This content downloaded from 130.195.21.27 on Tue, 21 Aug 2018 01:15:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 130.195.21.27 on Tue, 21 Aug 2018 01:15:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Ainu Spirits Singing The Living World of Chiri Yukie’s Ainu Shin’yōshū Sarah M. Strong University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu This content downloaded from 130.195.21.27 on Tue, 21 Aug 2018 01:15:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms © 2011 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 16 15 14 13 12 11 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Strong, Sarah Mehlhop. Ainu spirits singing : the living world of Chiri Yukie’s Ainu shin’yōshū / Sarah M. Strong. p. cm. Includes English translation of 13 Ainu chants. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8248-3512-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Chiri, Yukie, 1903–1922. 2. Chiri, Yukie, 1903–1922. Ainu shin’yōshū. 3. Folk songs, Ainu. I. Chiri, Yukie, 1903–1922. Ainu shin’yōshū. English. II. Title. PL495.9.C45Z87 2011 894’.6—dc23 2011019339 An earlier version of the author’s translation of Chant 3 (“Chant of the Fox About Itself: Haikunterke Haikoshitemturi”) was published as “The Most Revered of Foxes: Knowledge of Animals and Animal Power in an Ainu Kamui Yukar,” in Asian Ethnology 68.1 (2009): 45–47. University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Designed by Publishers’ Design and Production Services, Inc. Printed by Edwards Brothers, Inc. This content downloaded from 130.195.21.27 on Tue, 21 Aug 2018 01:15:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms This book is dedicated to the “beloved ancestors” of Chiri Yukie and to my own parents, Evelyn Chapman Mehlhop and Donald Leigh Mehlhop (1915–2006) This content downloaded from 130.195.21.27 on Tue, 21 Aug 2018 01:15:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 130.195.21.27 on Tue, 21 Aug 2018 01:15:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xv Chapter 1 Chiri Yukie and the Origins of the Ainu Shin’yōshū 1 Chapter 2 The Living World of the Ainu Shin’yōshū 45 Chapter 3 The Ainu Social Landscape 81 Chapter 4 Weighty Animal Spirits and Important Game Animals 105 Chapter 5 Symbolic and Ordinary Animal Spirits 139 vii This content downloaded from 130.195.21.27 on Tue, 21 Aug 2018 01:15:51 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Contents Chapter 6 Chiri Yukie’s Ainu Shin’yōshū 193 Notes 249 Works Cited 289 Index 301 viii This content downloaded from 130.195.21.27 on Tue, 21 Aug 2018 01:15:51 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Preface I was introduced to the life of the Ainu writer Chiri Yukie (1903–1922) and to her collection of Ainu chants of spiritual beings, the Ainu shin’yōshū, rather abruptly on an occasion that I remember well and in a manner that made these topics deeply intriguing to me. Professor Andō Toshihiko, a specialist in environmental education, had kindly agreed to give a guest lecture to my small class of Bates College students who were completing a semester of study in Tokyo in the fall of 1998. At the conclusion of his talk, which focused on the history of green space use and protection in Tokyo, Professor Andō told the students that there were two writers he wanted to recommend because he felt that they portrayed the natural environment of Japan most effectively and compellingly in their works. The first name, Miyazawa Kenji (1896–1933), came as no surprise. I was already aware of Miyazawa’s poems and stories set in the rural land- scapes of northern Japan and informed by his Buddhist worldview, his knowledge of early twentieth-century science, and his delightful and often whimsical animism. The second name Professor Andō offered, however, was entirely new to me: Chiri Yukie. Professor Andō explained briefly that she was of Ainu descent (in other words she was a member of a group indigenous to northern Japan and other areas of northeast Asia) and that she had transcribed and translated some of the oral traditions of the Ainu people. It was her collection of these oral traditions that Professor Andō was recommending. Our group was scheduled to leave Japan and return to the United States in early December, not long after Professor Andō’s talk. While aware that oral traditions represented a very different kind of literary ex- ix This content downloaded from 130.195.21.27 on Tue, 21 Aug 2018 01:15:53 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms