Harukor: An Ainu Woman's Tale (Voices from Asia)

Voices from Asia

by Honda Katsuichi, David L. Howell (Foreword), Kyoko Selden (Translator)

In this engaging tale, Honda Katsuichi reconstructs the life of an Ainu woman living on the northern island of Japan over five hundred years ago. Harukor's story, created from surviving oral accounts of Ainu life and culture as well as extensive scholarly research, is set in the centuries before the mainland Japanese nearly destroyed the way of life depicted here.

In the first person, the fictional Harukor tells us of her childhood, her adolescence, and her motherhood, drawing on tales and songs performed by her grandmother and other bards. She describes festivals, weddings, childbirth and midwifery, traditional healing methods, battles, and funerals in detail. Her story is followed by the adventures of her oldest son, Pasekur, which end by foreshadowing an early Ainu rebellion against Japanese encroachment.

Amply illustrated and prefaced by an extensive introduction to Ainu history, the natural surroundings, and the sources used to construct Harukor and her world, this volume is a unique portrait of Ainu gods and humans, of matters sacred and mundane, and of the distinctive Ainu respect for nature's bounty.

Genres: History, Japan, Nonfiction, Indigenous, Japanese Literature, Asia, Anthropology

354 pages, Paperback

First published March 13, 2000

Reviews

[Shomeret · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was led to Harukor by Honda Katsuichi after I read his book The Nanjing Massacre, and searched for others by him available in English. Harukor is from the perspective of an Ainu woman. The book is categorized as fiction, but there is a great deal of introductory background material. I considered this fortunate since I knew little about the Ainu before picking up Harukor . Honda decided to write a novel about the Ainu because nothing is definitely known about the way they lived in pre-history. The Ainu are the original inhabitants of Japan. It didn't surprise me that their history is very similar to that of Native Americans. I wondered if they are related to any North American peoples.

The religion of the Ainu is animistic. Everything has a spirit. This includes objects. I enjoyed a story that is told in the novel dealing with the dancing spirit of a cooking pot. Yet another story in which six men are beheaded simultaneously by one sword was very much over the top for me.

The ending of Harukor segues into their recorded history. It begins the tale of the conflict-ridden relationship between the Ainu and the Japanese. Honda says that he meant to finish it, but I didn't find any other books by him about the Ainu in English. Perhaps there is another that is still untranslated.

I did learn something about the Ainu from Harukor ,but I suspect that this is just the beginning of my research into their history and culture.

For my complete review see http://www.maskedpersona.blogspot.com

[Serdar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nice work of "fictive anthropology," I guess you could call it -- a speculative first-person tale about the life of an Ainu woman several hundred years ago, constructed from available evidence about such lives. (Read this as background for the TV show "Golden Kamuy", but it was enjoyable in its own right.)

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Summary:
This book was a very valuable resource for my research into Ainu culture. It's well referenced, has a range of photos and illustrations and teaches a lot of Ainu words. The book is split into a few parts, with the first providing a historical explanation of Ainu and their culture and the other part is a fictional story the author wrote based on a particular Ainu person's life. The story is used as a medium to express and demonstrate a lot of different concepts in Ainu culture and is really well done. This book is incredibly valuable.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Ainu or Indigenous culture.

The main message I took from this book is the role of tusu in Ainu culture. Tusu is basically shamanism or a kind of magic and there are respected people referred to as tusukur who help with a range of spiritual and practical matters.

Some notable points:
- To the Ainu, there was no fundamental break between the human and natural realms: humankind was indistinguishable from nature as manifested in the gods and their activities. Ainu who respected nature and honoured the gods that inhabited it were rewarded with bountiful catches of salmon, plentiful hunts of deer and bear, and abundant crops, while those who failed to do so were punished with hard times.

- The availability of iron utensils, particularly cooking pots and swords, through trade with the Wajin to the south made pottery manufacture obsolete, and so the Ainu abandoned it. The Ainu obtained many other commodities from the Wajin as well, including rice, cloth, lacquer ware, and even pottery, which by the fourteenth century was being mass-produced in central Honshu and traded all along the Japan Sea coast.

- The Ainu believed in a supernatural sword called ipetam (sword that devours human) and thought that once drawn the sword could not help but kill someone close to it.

[Linh · Rating 3 out of 5]

very interesting read. Katsuichi did an amazing job providing details of the life of an ainu in an easy to swallow story format. It was presented in such a way that I almost felt like someone was telling me a real life "yukar". definitely worth picking up if you're interested in japanese culture of any sort.

[Rkazmierski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interested in Japanese culture? This is a great book about a fictional character who is part of the indigenous people of Japan known as Ainu. It is very long, but worth the read since there aren't many books of this kind.