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.