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Imekanu
, also known by her Japanese name , was an Ainu missionary and epic poet. Along with her niece, Yukie Chiri, she wrote down and preserved numerous Ainu yukar she learned from her mother. Life and work Imekanu belonged to an Ainu family of Horobetsu in Iburi Subprefecture, Hokkaidō, Japan. She began to learn her repertoire of Ainu poetry from her mother, Monashinouku, a seasoned teller of Ainu tales who spoke very little Japanese. After converting to Christianity, Imekanu worked for many years for the Anglican Church in Japan as a lay missionary under the missionary John Batchelor, well known for his publications on Ainu language and culture. Batchelor introduced Imekanu to Kindaichi Kyōsuke, the most prominent Japanese scholar in this field, in 1918. After retiring from missionary work in 1926, Imekanu began to write down yukar known to her from Ainu tradition and continued to do so until her death. These texts in the Horobetsu dialect of Ainu amounted to 20,000 pages in ...
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Yukie Chiri
was a Japanese transcriber and translator of Yukar (Ainu epic tales). Life Yukie Chiri was born into an Ainu family in Noboribetsu, Hokkaidō during the Meiji era. At the time, increasing immigration of Japanese people to Hokkaidō forced the Ainu into being relocated and, in many cases, having their means of livelihood being taken from them. The Japanese outlawed bear sacrifice as cruel, and stigmatized other cultural differences. The Ainu were viewed as a backward people, and it was the policy of the government to assimilate them into the Japanese way of life. The Ainu themselves, for the most part, saw this as the best (and perhaps only) way to survive the changing times. Chiri herself expressed more astonishment than resentment. She wrote, "In a twinkling the natural landscape as it had been since the ancient past has vanished; what has become of the folk who joyfully made their living in its fields and mountains? The few of us fellow kinspeople who remain simply stare wid ...
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Chiri Yukie
was a Japanese transcriber and translator of Yukar (Ainu epic tales). Life Yukie Chiri was born into an Ainu family in Noboribetsu, Hokkaidō during the Meiji era. At the time, increasing immigration of Japanese people to Hokkaidō forced the Ainu into being relocated and, in many cases, having their means of livelihood being taken from them. The Japanese outlawed bear sacrifice as cruel, and stigmatized other cultural differences. The Ainu were viewed as a backward people, and it was the policy of the government to assimilate them into the Japanese way of life. The Ainu themselves, for the most part, saw this as the best (and perhaps only) way to survive the changing times. Chiri herself expressed more astonishment than resentment. She wrote, "In a twinkling the natural landscape as it had been since the ancient past has vanished; what has become of the folk who joyfully made their living in its fields and mountains? The few of us fellow kinspeople who remain simply stare wide ...
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Kutune Shirka
The ''Kutune Shirka'' (Ainu: ), known in Japanese as or simply , is a sacred ''yukar'' epic of the native Ainu people of Japan. The Ainu title refers to a magic sword wielded by the story's protagonist. It is one of the most important, if not the most important, piece of Ainu literature. There have been several translation efforts since its compilation, into Japanese and other languages. Background Like most epics, the plot of the ''Kutune Shirka'' is long and covers many events. This ''yukar'' is approximately 10,000 words long.Shibatani, M. (1990) ''The languages of Japan''. Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN, 0-521-36918-5 The epic itself tells the tale from a first-person narrative, as is usual in Ainu oral tradition, where the storyteller takes on the role of the protagonist. Like other Ainu epics, the ''Kutune Shirka'' is recited with a rhythm of two stressed beats per line. This was enacted by the reciter, who would tap a stick every beat.
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Yukar
( ain, ユカㇻ) are Ainu sagas that form a long rich tradition of oral literature. In older periods, the epics were performed by both men and women; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when Ainu culture was in decline, women were generally the most skillful performers. Traditional tales describe floating worlds with , or the land of the humans (as opposed to , the land of the gods), resting on the back of a fish whose movements cause earthquakes. Translation history Professor Kyōsuke Kindaichi collected and translated them into Japanese. In August 2006, the reported in its article that Japan's Agency of Cultural Affairs () would discontinue funding by fiscal year 2007 of the project to translate and transcribe the compilations of Imekanu, , which consists of 92 stories written in romaji with the tenth story lost and 49 stories left untranslated. It is said that the stoppage was because of Shigeru Kayano's death in May 2006. In 1999, a multi-national group of ...
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Ainu People
The Ainu are the indigenous people of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, including Hokkaido Island, Northeast Honshu Island, Sakhalin Island, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula and Khabarovsk Krai, before the arrival of the Yamato Japanese and Russians. These regions are referred to as in historical Japanese texts. Official estimates place the total Ainu population of Japan at 25,000. Unofficial estimates place the total population at 200,000 or higher, as the near-total assimilation of the Ainu into Japanese society has resulted in many individuals of Ainu descent having no knowledge of their ancestry. As of 2000, the number of "pure" Ainu was estimated at about 300 people. In 1966, there were about 300 native Ainu speakers; in 2008, however, there were about 100. Names This people's most widely known ethnonym, "Ainu" ( ain, ; ja, アイヌ; russian: Айны) means "human" in the Ainu language, particularly as opposed to , divine beings. Ainu also ...
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Yukar
( ain, ユカㇻ) are Ainu sagas that form a long rich tradition of oral literature. In older periods, the epics were performed by both men and women; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when Ainu culture was in decline, women were generally the most skillful performers. Traditional tales describe floating worlds with , or the land of the humans (as opposed to , the land of the gods), resting on the back of a fish whose movements cause earthquakes. Translation history Professor Kyōsuke Kindaichi collected and translated them into Japanese. In August 2006, the reported in its article that Japan's Agency of Cultural Affairs () would discontinue funding by fiscal year 2007 of the project to translate and transcribe the compilations of Imekanu, , which consists of 92 stories written in romaji with the tenth story lost and 49 stories left untranslated. It is said that the stoppage was because of Shigeru Kayano's death in May 2006. In 1999, a multi-national group of ...
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John Batchelor (missionary)
Archdeacon John Batchelor D.D., OBE (20 March 1855 – 2 April 1944) was an Anglican English missionary to the Ainu people of Japan until 1941. First sent under the auspices of the Church Mission Society of the Church of England, Batchelor lived from 1877 to 1941 among the indigenous Ainu communities in the Northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. He was a charismatic and iconoclastic missionary for the Anglican Church in Japan and published highly regarded work on the language and culture of the Ainu people. Batchelor only reluctantly left Japan at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1941. Early life and missionary career John Batchelor was born in Uckfield, East Sussex son of William Batchelor, a local tailor and parish clerk. Batchelor attended Uckfield Grammar School and with the support of the Rev. E.T. Cardale was accepted as a candidate for study at the Church Missionary Society College, Islington. On 22 September 1875, Batchelor set out with a group of Church ...
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Chiri Mashiho
Mashiho Chiri () (February 24, 1909 June 9, 1961) was an Ainu linguist and anthropologist. He was best known for creating Ainu-Japanese dictionaries. Biography Chiri was born on February 24, 1909 in what is now Noboribetsu, Hokkaido, Japan. His older sister is Yukie Chiri and his aunt is Imekanu. Though they were both native Ainu speakers, Chiri was not. He was taught Japanese, and learned the Ainu language when he was in high school. He graduated from the Hokkaido Muroran Sakae High School. He had excellent grades, but couldn't afford go to college. Instead he worked at a local government office. Later, Kindaichi Kyosuke recognized his intelligence and invited Chiri to stay at his house in Tokyo and attend the . Chiri took him up on his offer, and graduated in 1933. He then studied at the Tokyo Imperial University and graduated from the literature department in 1937. He was the first Ainu to enter the university. He earned a master's degree at the same university. Chiri t ...
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Anglican Missionaries In Japan
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the largest branches of Christianity, with around 110 million adherents worldwide . Adherents of Anglicanism are called ''Anglicans''; they are also called ''Episcopalians'' in some countries. The majority of Anglicans are members of national or regional ecclesiastical provinces of the international Anglican Communion, which forms the third-largest Christian communion in the world, after the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. These provinces are in full communion with the See of Canterbury and thus with the Archbishop of Canterbury, whom the communion refers to as its ''primus inter pares'' (Latin, 'first among equals'). The Archbishop calls the decennial Lambeth Conference, chairs the meeting of primates, and is the p ...
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Japanese Anglican Missionaries
Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspora, Japanese emigrants and their descendants around the world * Japanese citizens, nationals of Japan under Japanese nationality law ** Foreign-born Japanese, naturalized citizens of Japan * Japanese writing system, consisting of kanji and kana * Japanese cuisine, the food and food culture of Japan See also * List of Japanese people * * Japonica (other) * Japonicum * Japonicus * Japanese studies Japanese studies ( Japanese: ) or Japan studies (sometimes Japanology in Europe), is a sub-field of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on Japan. It incorporates fields such as the study of Japane ... {{disambiguation Language and nationality disambiguation pages ...
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