The oral blueprint
The yukar of the indigenous Ainu people are vast oral epics, some containing over 7,000 verses. For centuries, they were transmitted without writing, performed from memory during long winter nights. The structure of these epics reveals a system of memorization, built on techniques independently discovered by the oral poets of ancient Greece. Analysis of the yukar shows they are not improvised; they are carefully composed and recalled using a system of repeated phrases and structural patterns. This is the same conclusion reached by early 20th-century scholars studying the Iliad and the Odyssey.
The core of this system is the formula, a repeated phrase that fits a specific metrical pattern in the verse. Like Homeric Greek, the Classical Ainu language of the epics has a distinct rhythm. Performers used these ready-made phrases—describing a hero's sword, a god's appearance, or a recurring action—for composition and memory. The yukar are categorized into heroic epics about human protagonists and mythic epics, called kamuy yukar, which are told from the first-person perspective of the kamuy, or spirit-deities. In kamuy yukar, a recurring refrain called a sakehe is used, which helps maintain the rhythm and gives the performer time to recall the next verse. These refrains are often onomatopoeic, imitating the cry or movement of the god being portrayed.
From voice to text in Nibutani
The town of Nibutani in the Saru River basin is a center for the preservation of Ainu culture, and it was here that many oral traditions were documented. The performance of a yukar is a rhythmic chant. The singer often keeps time by tapping a wooden baton, or repni, on the hearth or another object, adding a percussive beat to the vocal melody. Some epics, like the famous Kutune Shirka, can take hours to perform in their entirety.
For generations, this literature existed only in performance. This changed with the work of Ainu transcriber Yukie Chiri. Growing up surrounded by master performers, including her aunt Imekanu, Chiri became fluent in both Japanese and the classical Ainu of the epics. In collaboration with Japanese linguist Kyosuke Kindaichi, she meticulously transcribed and translated 13 kamuy yukar. Her manuscript, the Ainu Shin'yoshu (A Collection of Ainu Epics of the Gods), was completed in 1922 just hours before her death at the age of 19. This work was the first time an Ainu person published the traditions in written form, preserving part of this oral library. Today, the Nibutani Ainu Culture Museum offers visitors a chance to hear audio performances of the yukar, linking the present day to this ancient oral science.