Yukie Chiri

Who was Yukie Chiri?

Yukie Chiri was a Japanese transcriber and translator of Yukar.

She was born into an Ainu family in Noboribetsu, a town in Hokkaidō, the northernmost prefecture of Japan, at a time in Japan's history when increasing immigration of Japanese to Hokkaidō was resulting in the Ainu being relocated into separate communities and, in many cases, their means of livelihood being taken from them. The Japanese outlawed bear sacrifice as cruel, and stigmatized other cultural differences. The Ainu were viewed as a backward people, and it was the policy of the government to assimilate them into the Japanese way of life. The Ainu themselves, for the most part, saw this as the best way to survive the changing times. Chiri herself expressed more astonishment than resentment. She wrote, "In a twinkling the natural landscape as it had been since the ancient past has vanished; what has become of the folk who joyfully made their living in its fields and mountains? The few of us fellow kinspeople who remain simply stare wide-eyed, astonished by the state of the world as it continues to advance."