Yukar

The Yukar (ユーカ ラ) are Ainu sagas that form a long tradition of Ainu oral literature. In the periods of great epics they were made by men and women; During the 19th and early 20th centuries, when Ainu culture was waning, women took over. Dr. Kyōsuke Kindaichi collected them and translated them into Japanese.

The tales describe floating worlds with "Ainu Mosir", or the land of humans (as opposed to "Kamui Mosir" or the land of the gods), resting at backs of a large fish whose movements cause earthquakes.

In August 2006, the Japanese daily Asashi Shimbun announced in an article that Japan's Agency for Cultural Activities (BUNKACHO) would in 2007 stop funding the translation project of "Kan-Nari Note Matsu" ("金成マツノート"), of 92 Yukar stories translated into romaji with the tenth tale missing and 49 tales untranslated. It is said to have been due to the death of Ainu activist Shigeru Kayano in May 2006.

In 1999 a multi-national group of educators and translators started the "U-e-peker" with the intention of translating Ainu tales into English, and two books by Shigeru Kayano ("The Ainu: A Story of Japan's Original People (Tuttle Publishing 2004)", " 34;The Ainu and the Fox (RIC Publications 2006)."Future projects include publishing an illustrated version of "Ainu Shin'yōshū" ("アイヌ神謡集& #34;), an anthology of stories from the Ainu oral tradition first translated into Japanese by Chiri Yukie (1903-1922), the niece of Kannari Matsu, a girl who helped her from Kindaichi until her death at age 19.

Perhaps the only book of Ainu epic songs in English is "Songs of Gods, Songs of Humans: The Epic Tradition of the Ainu" by Donald L. Philippi. Philippi translated 35 songs sung by women, most of them by Imekanu.

In Spanish, the collection of Ainu epics compiled by Yukie Chiri under the title Ainu Shinyōshū was translated in its entirety under the title Songs of Ainu Gods.

Bibliography and references

• Donald L. Philippi, Songs of Gods, Songs of Humans: The Epic Tradition of the Ainu. University of Tokyo Press, 1979; North Point, 1982. ISBN 0-691-06384-2.
• Chiri Yukie. Songs of Gods Ainu. Bilingual Edition ainu-castellano. Japanese translation, preliminary study and notes: Gustavo Beade. Buenos Aires: Duino, 2021. ISBN 9789878683287