Photo: Wikipedia, "Chiri Yukie", URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yukie_Chiri_and_Imekanu.jpg
CHIRI Yukie is on the left side of this picture with her aunt KANNARI Matsu on her right side.
Kamui yukar is an epic of the gods passed down by the Ainu people. It is a form of spiritual chanting and storytelling, traditionally practiced by women.
The kamui in Ainu means deities, and yukar is used as a verb which means “to imitate”, here it is used as storytelling.
The kamui yukar were presumably religious in nature.
Kinda’ichi Kyosuke (1882-1971), is a Japanese linguist known for his research of Ainu language and its epics.
According to him, it was women that traditionally assumed the shaman in Ainu tradition. Chanting kamui yukar possibly represents a female shaman possessed by a god’s soul. This incarnated god tells his story himself through the shaman’s voice.
This is why the performers chant / recite it in the first person.
The kamui yukar is only transmitted orally as oral prose. Traditionally, it was not transcribed because the Ainu people did not have their own writing system.
Consequently, it is academically explained that the texts and melodies change according to the choice of each performer. It is difficult to imagine how much variety there is between performances.
Chiri Yukie (1902-1922), famous for the "Ainu Shin-yō-shū (A Collection of the Ainu Epics of the Gods)" publisehd in 1293, was born into a family that passed down kamui yukar and is said to have grown up listening to her grandmother's versions.
Yukie's book was a sensational work for its time, as it documented the traditionally unwritten oral literature of the Ainu and translated it into Japanese at a highly acclaimed literary level.
In this, stories about thirteen dieties are introducted and translated in Japanese by the author.
Below, you have the integral text of her book.
Comments