, also known by her Japanese name , was an

Ainu Ainu or Aynu may refer to: *Ainu people, an East Asian ethnic group of Japan and the Russian Far East *Ainu languages, a family of languages **Ainu language of Hokkaido **Kuril Ainu language, extinct language of the Kuril Islands **Sakhalin Ainu la ...

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

and

epic poet An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. ...

. Along with her niece,

Yukie Chiri was a Japanese transcriber and translator of Yukar (Ainu epic tales). Life Yukie Chiri was born into an Ainu people, Ainu family in Noboribetsu, Hokkaidō during the Meiji (era), Meiji era. At the time, increasing immigration of Japanese peopl ...

, she wrote down and preserved numerous Ainu

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 genera ...

she learned from her mother.

Life and work

Imekanu belonged to an Ainu family of Horobetsu in

Iburi Subprefecture is a subprefecture of Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan. Geography Located in south-central Hokkaido, Iburi stretches East-West and North-South. Iburi covers an area of . Iburi borders Oshima Subprefecture to the West, Shiribeshi, Ishikari, and ...

Hokkaidō is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The la ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. 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 The ''Nippon Sei Ko Kai'' ( ja, 日本聖公会, translit=Nippon Seikōkai, lit=Japanese Holy Catholic Church), abbreviated as NSKK, sometimes referred to in English as the Anglican Episcopal Church in Japan, is the national Christian church rep ...

as a lay missionary under the missionary

John Batchelor John Calvin Batchelor (born April 29, 1948) is an American author and host of ''Eye on the World'' on the CBS Audio Network. His flagship station is New York's 710 WOR. The show is a hard-news-analysis radio program on current events, world his ...

, well known for his publications on Ainu language and culture. Batchelor introduced Imekanu to

Kindaichi Kyōsuke Kindaichi ( ja, 金田一) is a surname and place name in Japan. Real people with the surname *Kyōsuke Kindaichi (1882–1971): Linguist specializing in the Ainu language *Haruhiko Kindaichi (1913–2004): Linguist and professor emeritus at Tokyo ...

, 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 134 volumes. 72 of these volumes were destined for Kindaichi and 52 volumes for Imekanu's nephew

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. ...

, a researcher specializing in Ainu linguistics.

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 ...

, Imekanu's niece and Chiri Mashiho's sister, grew up with Monashinouku and Imekanu, and she learned many of the Ainu yukar along with them. She wrote down thirteen yukar from this tradition, translated them into Japanese, and prepared a bilingual edition which appeared in 1923. This was the first publication of Ainu traditions by an Ainu author. Three of these yukar later appeared in English translation, alongside works by others, in

Donald L. Philippi Donald L. Philippi (October 2, 1930 – January 26, 1993) was a noted translator of Japanese and Ainu, and a musician. Born in Los Angeles, Philippi studied at the University of Southern California before going to Japan in 1957 on a Fulbright scho ...

's ''Songs of Gods, Songs of Humans'' (1979). Kindaichi published Imekanu's version of the epic ''

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 ...

'', alongside a version by Nabesawa Wakarpa, with commentary, in his two-volume study of the Ainu yukar in 1931. He published a seven-volume collection of Imekanu's epics, with his own Japanese translations, in 1959-1966.

Bibliography

*Kindaichi Kyōsuke, ''Ainu jojishi yūkara no kenkyū''. 2 vols. 1931. *Kindaichi Kyōsuke, ''Ainu jojishi yūkara shū''. 7 vols. 1959-1966. *Donald L. Philippi, ''Songs of Gods, Songs of Humans: The Epic Tradition of the Ainu''. University of Tokyo Press, 1979; North Point, 1982. . (Biography of Imekanu, p. 19; translations from Chiri Yukie's materials, pp. 89, 108, 137.) *Chiri Yukie, ''Ainu shin'yō shu''. 1923. {{Authority control 1875 births 1961 deaths Oral epic poets Yukar Japanese Ainu people Japanese Anglican missionaries Recipients of the Medal with Purple Ribbon Anglican missionaries in Japan Japanese women poets People from Hokkaido