@Chiri Yukie Memorial Museum
Has Ainu culture disappeared? No, it is alive and strong.
- 11 October 2023
- 12:00pm – 1:15pm
- Online
- https://dajf.org.uk/event/has-ainu-culture-disappeared-no-it-is-alive-and-strong
- +44 (0)20 7486 4348
- events@dajf.org.uk
- Tweet
Chiri Yukie (1903-1922) published Ainu Shin’yōshū (Collected Ainu Mythological Tales) in 1923. It was the very first book published by an Ainu person in the Ainu language, and it remains the most widely read work of Ainu literature to this day. A lot has changed in the last 100 years for the Ainu and their surrounding environment, but the importance of Ainu Shin’yōshū has not changed in any way; if anything, the thoughts that Chiri entrusted to this book have been coming into full bloom in recent years.
Professor Nakagawa, a renowned researcher into the Ainu language, has been recording Ainu literature across Hokkaido since 1976. Ainu tales are typically passed down orally through the generations. Professor Nakagawa visited Ainu speakers, asked them to “tell him a story” and recorded them and gradually transcribed the recordings. He has contributed immensely to broadening our understanding of the Ainu language and culture.
In this talk, on the 120th anniversary of Yukie Chiri’s birth and the 100th anniversary of her book, Professor Nakagawa will discuss the enchanting world of Ainu tales and the ongoing movement to revive Ainu language and culture.
Reference:
Chiri Yukie was born in 1903 and spent her childhood in Noboribetsu, Hokkaido. Her father Takakichi and mother Nami were Ainu from Chiri and Kanenari. At the age of 7 she moved to Asahikawa, where she lived until the age of 19 with her mother Nami’s elder sister Matsu Kannari and her grandmother Monasinouk. Yukie is known as the author of Ainu Shin’yōshū (Collection of Mythological Ainu Tales), the first written collection of Ainu tales. This collection of 13 Kamui Yukar (Mythological Tales), written in the Ainu language with an introduction and a facing translation, is highly regarded. In May 1922 she moved to Tokyo, but her brief life came to an end at the age of 19 on 18 September that year, as a result of heart disease. Yukie had a firm consciousness of and pride in her ethnicity as an Ainu, and made it her life’s mission to pass on the Ainu language. Her work and the spirit it represents have continued to have a profound effect on many people after her death.
About the contributors
Hiroshi Nakagawa
Hiroshi Nakagawa, Professor Emeritus of Chiba University’s Faculty of Letters, has been working to document, research and teach about the Ainu language for over 40 years. He has also been involved in editing a dictionary of Ainu dialects. From the very beginning of the hit manga series Golden Kamuy, Nakagawa has served it as a language supervisor and consultant on the details of Ainu culture. He received the Dr. Kyosuke Kindaichi Memorial Award for research into Ainu language and culture for his Dictionary of Ainu: Chitose Dialect (Sofukan, 1995). His many publications include Ainu no Monogatari Sekai [The World of Ainu Tales] (Heibonsha Library, 1997), Katariau Kotoba no Chikara [The Power of Talking Together] (Iwanami Shoten, 2010), and Ainu Bunka de Yomitoku ‘Golden Kamuy’ [‘Golden Kamuy’ seen through the prism of Ainu Culture] (Shueisha Shinsho, 2019). He also worked on a revision of the latest edition of Ainu Shin’yōshū, published this year.
