Today's Ainu: Tales from Hokkaido

Today's Ainu: Tales from Hokkaido PDF Author: Kinko ITO
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781097800766
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
This is a book about the life stories of the contemporary Ainu people living in Hokkaido, Japan. It is based on the author's on-going, in-depth, ethnographic study, which began in 2011. The Ainu are an indigenous minority group whose ancestors lived in the northern part of Honshu, Hokkaido, the southern part of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Chapter 1 introduces the readers to the basic information and statistics about the Ainu population, a few sociological concepts of race and ethnic groups, and the state of the Ainu today. Chapters 2 to 5 cover the history and the world of the Ainu depicted in GOLDEN KAMUY, a very popular Japanese comic and anime, my first encounter with the Ainu culture when I was a child living in Japan, and my first trip to the Ainu country in 2011. Chapters 6 to 13 tell the life stories of my Ainu informants and the brief introduction to the Ainu language and religion. My narratives vary from one section to another. Parts of this book reads like a series of interviews in popular magazines while other parts read more like a textbook. The book contains more than 100 beautiful photos that pertain to Hokkaido, the Ainu people, and their culture, history, and traditions.

Today's Ainu: Tales from Hokkaido

Today's Ainu: Tales from Hokkaido PDF Author: Kinko ITO
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781097800766
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 148

Get Book

Book Description
This is a book about the life stories of the contemporary Ainu people living in Hokkaido, Japan. It is based on the author's on-going, in-depth, ethnographic study, which began in 2011. The Ainu are an indigenous minority group whose ancestors lived in the northern part of Honshu, Hokkaido, the southern part of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Chapter 1 introduces the readers to the basic information and statistics about the Ainu population, a few sociological concepts of race and ethnic groups, and the state of the Ainu today. Chapters 2 to 5 cover the history and the world of the Ainu depicted in GOLDEN KAMUY, a very popular Japanese comic and anime, my first encounter with the Ainu culture when I was a child living in Japan, and my first trip to the Ainu country in 2011. Chapters 6 to 13 tell the life stories of my Ainu informants and the brief introduction to the Ainu language and religion. My narratives vary from one section to another. Parts of this book reads like a series of interviews in popular magazines while other parts read more like a textbook. The book contains more than 100 beautiful photos that pertain to Hokkaido, the Ainu people, and their culture, history, and traditions.

People from the Sky

People from the Sky PDF Author: Frances Carpenter
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Ainu
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
These tales of the aboriginal Japanese people are concerned with their gods and the origins of their customs.

Our Land Was A Forest

Our Land Was A Forest PDF Author: Kayano Shigeru
Publisher: Westview Press
ISBN: 9780813318806
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
This book is a beautiful and moving personal account of the Ainu, the native inhabitants of Hokkaido, Japan's northern island, whose land, economy, and culture have been absorbed and destroyed in recent centuries by advancing Japanese. Based on the author's own experiences and on stories passed down from generation to generation, the book chronicles the disappearing world—and courageous rebirth—of this little-understood people.Kayano describes with disarming simplicity and frankness the personal conflicts he faced as a result of the tensions between a traditional and a modern society and his lifelong efforts to fortify a living Ainu culture. A master storyteller, he paints a vivid picture of the Ainus' ecologically sensitive lifestyle, which revolved around bear hunting, fishing, farming, and woodcutting.Unlike the few existing ethnographies of the Ainu, this account is the first written by an insider intimately tied to his own culture yet familiar with the ways of outsiders. Speaking with a rare directness to the Ainu and universal human experience, this book will interest all readers concerned with the fate of indigenous peoples.

Aino Folk-tales

Aino Folk-tales PDF Author: Basil Hall Chamberlain
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Ainu
Languages : en
Pages : 78

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Book Description


The Song the Owl God Sang

The Song the Owl God Sang PDF Author: Yukie Chiri
Publisher: Bjs Books
ISBN: 9780992600600
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 62

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Book Description
Among the vanishing cultures of the world, the Ainu of north-east Asia stand out for the startling richness of their oral literature. These thirteen beautiful Ainu chants were collected by Chiri Yukie in 1922 -- the first Ainu literature to be written down by an Ainu. This book presents new English translations of Chiri's remarkable work. Originally written in "yukar" form, a type of chant used by female storytellers among the Ainu villages of Hokkaido, these stories tell of the relationship between mankind and the world of spirits. Each "yukar" is narrated by a spirit -- fox, whale, frog, or even shellfish. Most important is the owl god, Kotankor Kamui, whose two long songs describe the covenant between humans and the spirits who provide them with food. Other tales focus on the balance of nature, on the respect due between animal spirits and people, and on the strength of Okikirmui, the human hero. The Ainu oral tradition was in danger of dying in the early 20th century, when the teenaged Chiri Yukie resolved to begin writing down these chants. Descended from a line of female storytellers, she devised a way of representing Ainu language in the Roman alphabet, and made Japanese translations of the most important tales. Although she died at 19, the thirteen tales she had written down went on to become a sensation. Her clear and beautiful yet intricate and emotive Japanese translations brought Ainu culture to a wide audience in Japan and created a movement to record and preserve Ainu belief in a living state. In many ways, the idea of trying to learn from and preserve tribal wisdom goes back to Chiri's book. Chiri's work includes the best-known passages of Ainu literature: Chiri's original introduction, an elegy to the vanishing Ainu way of life, and the tale 'Silver drops fall around, golden drops fall around'. This translation tries to preserve the rich texture of Chiri's versions in English, while remaining absolutely true to the details of the original. A clear introduction to Chiri, her book, and its language is provided, giving the reader a vivid insight into this startlingly sophisticated spiritual tradition.

The Ainu

The Ainu PDF Author: Shigeru Kayano
Publisher: PeriplusEdition
ISBN: 9780804835114
Category : Ainu
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
An introduction to the Ainu people of Hokkaido, Japan's original inhabitants, including their history, customs, clothing, food, habitats, and beliefs.

Ainu

Ainu PDF Author: Kayano Shigeru
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781437965469
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 32

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Book Description
Introduces readers to the Ainu people of Hokkaido, Japan¿s original inhabitants. The author is Japan¿s best known Ainu and his mission is to save the Ainu language and culture. The Ainu lived in an enchanted world filled with gods and spirits until their peaceful paradise was shattered by Japanese attempts to dominate them. The Ainu¿s rich history and culture, and their changing way of life is depicted through the eyes of a young Ainu boy. The narrative is interspersed with folktales and riveting encounters with gods. Features vivid descriptions of customs, clothing, food, habitats and beliefs. The full-color illustrations capture the natural surroundings of the Ainu and their historical relations with the Japanese. Translated from the Japanese ed.

Sakhalin Ainu Folklore

Sakhalin Ainu Folklore PDF Author: Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description


Hokkaido

Hokkaido PDF Author: Ibrahim Jalal
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789888552900
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
The first comprehensive history Japan's northern home island, Hokkaido, blending accounts from the indigenous Ainu, Japanese, and Westerners. Written in an easy-to-read style, this book will appeal to those who new to the topic of Japan as well as offering those who are well acquainted with the country an in-depth look at this often overlooked part of Japanese history.

Aino Folk Tales

Aino Folk Tales PDF Author: Basil Hall Chamberlain
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781493778768
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 78

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Book Description
The Ainu are an ethnic minority in Japan, living primarily on the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido, although there were also small populations of Ainu living on the island of Sakhalin and in the Kuriles until the end of World War II, when the Soviet Union took control of Sakhalin and the Ainu there fled. Until the Meiji Restoration of 1868, when Japan took formal possession of Hokkaido and began the systematic integration of the Ainu into the Japanese nation, the Ainu lived almost exclusively as hunter-gatherers north of the always advancing frontier of Japanese agriculture. 'Traditional' anthropological wisdom holds that the Ainu are descended from the aboriginal inhabitants of Japan who were gradually dispossessed of their land by the invading Japanese and their superior civilization. This view is held up by the fact that the Ainu generally do not look Japanese, by the apparently radical differences between the two languages, and by the large number of Ainu place-names in Japan proper. More recent anthropology, however, sees a far greater continuity between the two cultures, with many deep and ancient similarities. Ainu literature was traditionally of an exclusively oral variety, and very little was reduced to writing in any language before the 19th century. Many of the stories occur in more or less lengthy poems known as yukar, which are an epic-like form. Many of the stories presented in this book also occur in the context of much longer and deeper stories, which is not made apparent; more than likely because the importance or even existence of the yukar was unknown to the author. Basil Hall Chamberlain was well-known as one of the pioneering translators and interpreters of things Japanese in his time. (He also translated the Shinto classic Kojiki.) Like many philologists, his interest in the Ainu was purely academic, centering mainly on the light that knowledge of the Ainu could shed on Japanese place-names and prehistory. Like many of the Japanese among whom he lived and worked, his opinion of the Ainu was quite mean, and his comments in the Prefatory Remarks sound downright inflammatory today, a fine specimen of Victorian racism.