The Requiem of the Ainu People

Trans­lated from French

Much like the Amerindian na­tions, what re­mains to­day of the Ainu peo­ple — once so re­mark­able and so ar­dently de­voted to free­dom — finds it­self wretch­edly con­fined to a hand­ful of abo­rig­i­nal vil­lages. It fades away in si­lence, aban­doned to a fate it scarcely de­serves. Be­fore Ja­pa­nese hege­mony, its vast ter­ri­tory spread out, how­ev­er, in the man­ner of a ma­jes­tic tree. The great is­land of Hok­kaido — then called Ezo — formed its mas­sive trunk, from which two dis­tinct branches sprang forth. One, in­clin­ing to­ward the north­west, was none other than the is­land of Sakhalin — Ki­ta-Ezo or “North­ern Ezo”; the oth­er, to­ward the north­east, traced the rosary of the Kuriles — Oku-Ezo or “Ezo of the Outer Reach­es” — strung all the way to the tip of Kam­chat­ka.

At the Confines of the Known World

For nearly a mil­len­ni­um, Japan had no se­ri­ous no­tion of these is­lands con­cealed be­neath mytho­log­i­cal mists. The lit­tle it knew of them came from the sin­gu­lar wares it re­ceived through barter — shark oil, ea­gle feath­ers, medic­i­nal lichen, strange gar­ments sewn of bark in sum­mer and of seal­skin in win­ter — or from dis­tant, un­re­li­able hearsay, which de­scribed the is­land chiefs as gi­ants “most wicked and given to sor­cery,” ca­pa­ble, at their will, of “pro­duc­ing rain and rais­ing storms”¹Matsumae-shi (De­scrip­tion of Mat­sumae) by Mat­sumae Hi­ron­a­ga, 1781, un­pub­lished in French.. It was not un­til 1604 that a daimyo was in­vested at Mat­sumae; but he con­tented him­self, as it were, with stand­ing guard.

“Neg­li­gi­ble and ne­glected,” these is­lands were also the only part of the Pa­cific to es­cape the tire­less ac­tiv­ity of Cap­tain Cook. And on that ac­count, they aroused the cu­rios­ity of La Pérouse, who, since his de­par­ture from France, had burned with im­pa­tience to be the first to land there. In 1787, the frigates un­der his com­mand an­chored off Sakhal­in, and the French, hav­ing gone ashore, came into con­tact with “a race of men dif­fer­ent from the Japane­se, the Chi­ne­se, the Kam­chadals, and the Tar­tars, from whom they are sep­a­rated only by a chan­nel.” Cap­ti­vated by their gen­tle and spon­ta­neous man­ners as much as by their un­com­mon in­tel­li­gence, La Pérouse did not hes­i­tate to com­pare them to the best-e­d­u­cated Eu­ro­peans. He re­counts with won­der how an is­lander, un­der­stand­ing his re­quests, seized a pen­cil to trace on pa­per a rig­or­ously ex­act map and in­di­cate “by strokes, the num­ber of days’ jour­ney by ca­noe.”

Then came the Meiji Restora­tion, which would over­turn the age-old equi­lib­ria of Ezo, per­haps even more than those of Japan it­self. Through a bru­tal pol­icy of land clear­ance and col­o­niza­tion, com­pounded by au­thor­i­tar­ian dis­pos­ses­sions, the cen­tral ad­min­is­tra­tion sub­jected the Ainu to the guardian­ship of a step­mother that erased even the name of their land. In this forced marginal­iza­tion, their rich oral lit­er­a­ture, trans­mit­ted from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion in the sanc­tu­ary of their mem­o­ry, with­ered un­til it was no more than grand­par­ents’ rem­i­nis­cences. For­got­ten were the chants de­voted to an­ces­tors (ainu-yukar)²Of the prac­tice of these ver­si­fied recita­tions (yukar), only rare tes­ti­monies have sur­vived: “If one is to be­lieve a Ja­pa­nese draw­ing from the 17th cen­tu­ry, the re­citer (yukar-kur) ap­pears orig­i­nally to have chanted his text ly­ing near the hearth, beat­ing time by strik­ing him­self on the bel­ly. The last tes­ti­monies […] show the re­citer, in re­al­ity most of­ten a wom­an, seated cross-legged at the edge of the hearth and beat­ing time by strik­ing the rim of the fire­side with a stick. The lis­ten­ers do like­wise, reg­u­larly ut­ter­ing ac­com­pa­ny­ing cries.”, the di­vine epics (kamuy-yukar), and the tales (uwepeker) in which a vaguely per­son­i­fied na­ture came alive: the Sea that nour­ish­es, the For­est that shel­ters, the Bear Cub raised in the vil­lage with in­fi­nite care… As Ku­bodera It­suhiko laments: “Apart from a few el­ders, the Ainu no longer use their lan­guage. They speak Ja­pa­nese.”

The Sacrificial Fervor of Chiri Yukie

It was to ward off this fate that Chiri Yukie emerged. Torn be­tween her mod­ern Ja­pa­nese ed­u­ca­tion and the her­itage of her grand­moth­ers — il­lus­tri­ous re­citers — know­ing her­self con­demned by ill­ness, this Ainu woman de­voted her ex­ceed­ingly brief ex­is­tence to tran­scrib­ing in Latin script and trans­lat­ing into Ja­pa­nese thir­teen di­vine epics, be­com­ing the “young girl who cap­tured the gods” as a “gift to her peo­ple”³To bor­row the fine phrase of the scholar Mar­vin Nauen­dorff.. Her heart ceased to beat at the age of nine­teen, mere hours af­ter the com­ple­tion of her man­u­script Ainu shin’yô-shû (Col­lec­tion of Ainu Chants)⁴Re­jected forms:
Chants des dieux aï­nous (Chants of the Ainu Gods).
Mytholo­gie ainu (Ainu Mythol­ogy).
Ainu shin’y­ooshuu.
Ainu shiny­oushu.. Her aunt, Imekanu⁵Re­jected forms:
Imekano.
Kan­nari Mat­su., and her broth­er, Chiri Mashiho, sub­se­quently took up the torch, pub­lish­ing im­pos­ing con­tin­u­a­tions. In her pref­ace, whose ac­cents ring like a tes­ta­ment, Chiri Yukie in­tones the thren­ody of “those con­demned to van­ish” (horo­biyuku mono):

“Where have all those peo­ple gone who lived in peace in the moun­tains and on the plains? The na­ture that had ex­isted since an­cient times is grad­u­ally dis­ap­pear­ing. The few of us who still re­main open wide, as­ton­ished eyes be­fore the evo­lu­tion of the world. […] Oh, piti­ful sil­hou­ette in the act of per­ish­ing, forced to cling to the clemency of oth­ers!”

Tsushi­ma, Yûko (ed.), Tombent, tombent les gouttes d’ar­gent : Chants du pe­u­ple aï­nou (Fall, Fall, the Drops of Sil­ver: Chants of the Ainu Peo­ple), trans. from Ja­pa­nese by Flore Coumau, Rodolphe Diot, Cather­ine Vansin­te­jan, Pauline Vey, and Rose-Marie Maki­no-Fay­olle, Paris: Gal­li­mard, “L’Aube des pe­u­ples” se­ries, 1996.

The Resistance Through the Spirit of Nukishio Kizô

In per­fect coun­ter­point to this fu­neral eu­lo­gy, Nuk­ishio Kizô⁶Re­jected forms:
Nuk­ishio Hôchin.
Nuk­ishio Hô­maku. re­fuses the prophecy of ex­tinc­tion. Through his 1934 man­i­festo, As­sim­i­la­tion and Ves­tiges of the Ainu (Ainu no dôka to sen­shô), he awak­ens pride in the Ainu name, which, in the lan­guage of his peo­ple, means “hu­man be­ing.” Ex­co­ri­at­ing the “or­di­nary man” (ningen) blinded by self­ish­ness, he calls for the ad­vent of the “vir­tu­ous man” (hito, 人). Un­der­tak­ing a po­etic ex­e­ge­sis of this last ideogram, whose two strokes prop each other up to keep one an­other from falling, the in­tel­lec­tual reads therein the very al­le­gory of our con­di­tion: the hu­man be­ing has a “need for vig­or­ous and con­stant mu­tual sup­port in or­der to re­main stand­ing.” It is in this ac­tive fra­ter­ni­ty, el­e­vated to the rank of virtue, that he glimpses the hope of a paci­fied so­ci­ety in which “vir­tu­ous men re­spect the power of na­ture.”

In Search of Departed Souls

Just as old Ezo has van­ished, so too, with these Ainu — broth­ers of the crash­ing tor­rents and of the wind’s lament through the fo­liage — do there threaten to fade the “syl­van and bar­barous theophagy”; the “myth­i­cal com­mu­nion with the in­vis­i­ble”; the wild moors peo­pled with glo­ri­ous mem­o­ries and kamuy gods; and, at last, the “pri­mor­dial in­tu­itions cen­ter­ing upon the idea of ramat — the spir­it, the se­cret in­ti­ma­cy, the heart of man and of things”⁷So justly de­scribed by Fosco Marai­ni.. We are los­ing our own share of an­i­mism in a nat­u­ral world that never ceases to shrink. It is ur­gent to try to re­cover it, like those shamans of old who would launch them­selves on a quest to re­cap­ture the de­parted souls of the dy­ing be­fore they should dis­si­pate for­ev­er.

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Further Reading

On Assimilation et vestiges des Aïnous : Manifeste précurseur autochtone (Assimilation and Vestiges of the Ainu: Pioneering Indigenous Manifesto)

Quotations

“Dear Utari [broth­ers and sis­ter­s], only the most vig­or­ous among us know the true mean­ing of the word Ainu. Al­though we are struck by in­jus­tice and con­demned to die in­ex­orably, be proud of your past, rise up and take courage! […] By killing us, so­ci­ety kills it­self as well; end­lessly we must re­sist, but our will is un­shak­able, rise up and take courage! […]

Dear Utari, at the mo­ment we cross the val­ley of death, God ex­tends to us an af­fec­tion­ate and sin­cere hand, […] ad­vance unit­ed, help­ing one an­oth­er, rise up and take courage! […] Let a song of glory re­sound unto the heav­ens and to the four cor­ners of the earth, rise up and take courage!”

Nuk­ish­io, Kizô, As­sim­i­la­tion et ves­tiges des Aï­nous : Man­i­feste précurseur au­tochtone (As­sim­i­la­tion and Ves­tiges of the Ainu: Pi­o­neer­ing In­dige­nous Man­i­festo), trans. from Ja­pa­nese by Saku­rai No­rio in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Lu­cien-Lau­rent Cler­cq, pref. by Daniel Chartier, Québec: Presses de l’U­ni­ver­sité du Québec, “Jardin de givre” se­ries, 2023.

Downloads

Sound Recordings

• Mu­raki Miyuki, Ryôma Mogi, and Itô Satomi on the Ainu. (Ra­dio Tai­wan In­ter­na­tional (R­TI)).
• Noémi Gode­froy on the Ainu. (France Cul­ture • Cen­tre de recherches sur le Japon (CR­J)).
• Pierre Souyri and Lau­rent Ne­spoulous on the Ainu. (France Cul­ture).

Printed Works

• Ex­cerpt from As­sim­i­la­tion et ves­tiges des Aï­nous : Man­i­feste précurseur au­tochtone (As­sim­i­la­tion and Ves­tiges of the Ainu: Pi­o­neer­ing In­dige­nous Man­i­festo) in the trans­la­tion by Saku­rai No­rio in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Lu­cien-Lau­rent Clercq (2023). (Presses de l’U­ni­ver­sité du Québec (PUQ)).

On Le Japon avant les Japonais : Étude ethnographique sur les Aïnou primitifs (Japan Before the Japanese: An Ethnographic Study of the Primitive Ainu)

Quotations

“When the Supreme God had brought forth grasses and trees from the earth, the di­vine Aioina cre­ated the first Ainu, that is to say, the first man.

He fash­ioned his body from earth, made his hair from chick­weed, and his spine from a wil­low stem. That is why, when one grows old, the back bends like a bowed branch of a tree.”

Bé­nazet, Alexan­dre, Le Japon avant les Japon­ais : Étude ethno­graphique sur les Aï­nou prim­i­tifs (Japan Be­fore the Japane­se: An Ethno­graphic Study of the Prim­i­tive Ainu), Paris: bu­reaux de la “Re­vue des idées,” 1910 [tales drawn from The Ainu and Their Folk-Lore by John Batch­e­lor, 1901].

Downloads

Sound Recordings

• Mu­raki Miyuki, Ryôma Mogi, and Itô Satomi on the Ainu. (Ra­dio Tai­wan In­ter­na­tional (R­TI)).
• Noémi Gode­froy on the Ainu. (France Cul­ture • Cen­tre de recherches sur le Japon (CR­J)).
• Pierre Souyri and Lau­rent Ne­spoulous on the Ainu. (France Cul­ture).

Printed Works

• Trans­la­tion of Le Japon avant les Japon­ais : Étude ethno­graphique sur les Aï­nou prim­i­tifs (Japan Be­fore the Japane­se: An Ethno­graphic Study of the Prim­i­tive Ainu) by Alexan­dre Bé­nazet (1910). (Bib­lio­thèque na­tionale de France (B­n­F)).
• Trans­la­tion of Le Japon avant les Japon­ais : Étude ethno­graphique sur les Aï­nou prim­i­tifs (Japan Be­fore the Japane­se: An Ethno­graphic Study of the Prim­i­tive Ainu) by Alexan­dre Bé­nazet (1911). (Google Book­s).
• Trans­la­tion of Le Japon avant les Japon­ais : Étude ethno­graphique sur les Aï­nou prim­i­tifs (Japan Be­fore the Japane­se: An Ethno­graphic Study of the Prim­i­tive Ainu) by Alexan­dre Bé­nazet (1911), copy. (Google Book­s).

On Tombent, tombent les gouttes d’argent : Chants du peuple aïnou (Fall, Fall, the Drops of Silver: Chants of the Ainu People)

Quotations

“I thought of play­ing a trick on him
And sat my­self down on the doorstep
I cried out
”Tôroro han­rok han­rok!“⁸Im­i­ta­tion of the croak­ing of a frog.

Then, the young man
Raised the hand that held the knife
He saw me and smiled gen­tly
As he said to me
”Is that your song?
Is that your song of joy?
I would like to hear more“
I re­joiced and cried out
”Tôroro han­rok han­rok!“”

Tsushi­ma, Yûko (ed.), Tombent, tombent les gouttes d’ar­gent : Chants du pe­u­ple aï­nou (Fall, Fall, the Drops of Sil­ver: Chants of the Ainu Peo­ple), trans. from Ja­pa­nese by Flore Coumau, Rodolphe Diot, Cather­ine Vansin­te­jan, Pauline Vey, and Rose-Marie Maki­no-Fay­olle, Paris: Gal­li­mard, “L’Aube des pe­u­ples” se­ries, 1996 [chants drawn no­tably from the Ainu shin’yô-shû (Col­lec­tion of Ainu Chants) by Chiri Yukie, 1923; from the Ainu jo­jishi: Yûkara-shû (Ainu Epic Po­ems: Col­lec­tion of Yukar) by Imekanu in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Kindaichi Kyô­suke, 1959–1975; from Chiri Mashiho chosaku-shû (Works of Chiri Mashiho), 1973–1976; and from the Ainu jo­jishi: Shin’yô sei­den no kenkyû (Ainu Epic Po­ems: A Study of Ka­muy-yukar and Oina) by Ku­bodera It­suhiko, 1977].

Downloads

Sound Recordings

• Mu­raki Miyuki, Ryôma Mogi, and Itô Satomi on the Ainu. (Ra­dio Tai­wan In­ter­na­tional (R­TI)).
• Noémi Gode­froy on the Ainu. (France Cul­ture • Cen­tre de recherches sur le Japon (CR­J)).
• Pierre Souyri and Lau­rent Ne­spoulous on the Ainu. (France Cul­ture).

On « De la poésie populaire chez les Aïno » (On Popular Poetry Among the Ainu)

Quotations

“This [god of thun­der] who dwells here in soli­tude, what good thing does he tell us? We know not; here he comes, ad­vanc­ing and gaz­ing be­fore him. He casts his eyes upon our coun­try, upon the river and upon the sea. There, a soli­tary rock rises into the air; upon the sum­mit of the rock, the thun­der (lit., the thun­der drag­on) rolls, while the night (lit., the night drag­on) rises from our city over the neigh­bor­ing cities. Now, his plea­sure is to walk alone. But he shall not tarry much longer (be­fore re­turn­ing); for, at this very mo­ment, while he lingers, […] in the out­skirts of our vil­lage, the beams and joists are vi­o­lently shak­en.”

Charencey, Hy­acinthe de, « De la poésie pop­u­laire chez les Aïno » (On Pop­u­lar Po­etry Among the Ainu), Re­vue ori­en­tale et améri­caine, vol. 7, 1862, pp. 196–201 [chants drawn from the Ezo hô­gen: Mosh­io­gusa (The Lan­guage of the Is­land of Ezo: Sea­weed, or Mis­cel­la­nies) by Ue­hara Ku­ma­jirô and Abe Chôz­aburô, 1792].

Downloads

Sound Recordings

• Mu­raki Miyuki, Ryôma Mogi, and Itô Satomi on the Ainu. (Ra­dio Tai­wan In­ter­na­tional (R­TI)).
• Noémi Gode­froy on the Ainu. (France Cul­ture • Cen­tre de recherches sur le Japon (CR­J)).
• Pierre Souyri and Lau­rent Ne­spoulous on the Ainu. (France Cul­ture).

Printed Works

• Trans­la­tion of « De la poésie pop­u­laire chez les Aïno » (On Pop­u­lar Po­etry Among the Ainu) by Hy­acinthe de Charencey (1862). (Google Book­s).
• Trans­la­tion of « De la poésie pop­u­laire chez les Aïno » (On Pop­u­lar Po­etry Among the Ainu) by Hy­acinthe de Charencey (1862), copy. (Google Book­s).
• Trans­la­tion of « De la poésie pop­u­laire chez les Aïno » (On Pop­u­lar Po­etry Among the Ainu) by Hy­acinthe de Charencey (1862), copy 2. (Google Book­s).
• Trans­la­tion of « De la poésie pop­u­laire chez les Aïno » (On Pop­u­lar Po­etry Among the Ainu) by Hy­acinthe de Charencey (1862), copy 3. (Google Book­s).
• Trans­la­tion of « De la poésie pop­u­laire chez les Aïno » (On Pop­u­lar Po­etry Among the Ainu) by Hy­acinthe de Charencey (1862), copy 4. (Google Book­s).
• Trans­la­tion of « De la poésie pop­u­laire chez les Aïno » (On Pop­u­lar Po­etry Among the Ainu) by Hy­acinthe de Charencey (1862), copy 5. (Bib­lio­thèque na­tionale de France (B­n­F)).

On « Les Aïnou des îles Kouriles » (The Ainu of the Kuril Islands)

Quotations

“In the most an­cient times, two Ainu broth­ers went to Kam­chatka to hunt. It was win­ter. One day, the younger of the two broth­ers, hav­ing gone out to hunt, ven­tured too far into the moun­tains and lost his way. The wind was blow­ing, the snow was fall­ing thick, and the hour was late. Night was draw­ing near. Anx­ious, he looked on all sides for a shel­ter in which to rest. Find­ing none, he was be­gin­ning to de­spair when he saw be­fore him a hole in a rock. Glad of this en­coun­ter, and think­ing he might spend the night in this cave, he en­tered it. It was the dwelling of a bear. The bear im­me­di­ately emerged from the back of the cave and, ad­dress­ing the new­com­er: ”What have you come to do here?“”

Torii, Ryûzô, « Les Aï­nou des îles Kouriles » (The Ainu of the Kuril Is­lands), trans. from Ja­pa­nese by Ernest-Au­guste Tulpin, Jour­nal of the Col­lege of Sci­ence, Im­pe­rial Uni­ver­sity of Tokyo, vol. 42, 1919.

Downloads

Sound Recordings

• Mu­raki Miyuki, Ryôma Mogi, and Itô Satomi on the Ainu. (Ra­dio Tai­wan In­ter­na­tional (R­TI)).
• Noémi Gode­froy on the Ainu. (France Cul­ture • Cen­tre de recherches sur le Japon (CR­J)).
• Pierre Souyri and Lau­rent Ne­spoulous on the Ainu. (France Cul­ture).

Printed Works

• Trans­la­tion of « Les Aï­nou des îles Kouriles » (The Ainu of the Kuril Is­lands) by Ernest-Au­guste Tulpin (1919). (Google Book­s).
• Trans­la­tion of « Les Aï­nou des îles Kouriles » (The Ainu of the Kuril Is­lands) by Ernest-Au­guste Tulpin (1919), copy. (Google Book­s).
• Trans­la­tion of « Les Aï­nou des îles Kouriles » (The Ainu of the Kuril Is­lands) by Ernest-Au­guste Tulpin (1919), copy 2. (Google Book­s).
• Trans­la­tion of « Les Aï­nou des îles Kouriles » (The Ainu of the Kuril Is­lands) by Ernest-Au­guste Tulpin (1919), copy 3. (Google Book­s).
• Trans­la­tion of « Les Aï­nou des îles Kouriles » (The Ainu of the Kuril Is­lands) by Ernest-Au­guste Tulpin (1919), copy 4. (Amer­i­can Li­braries).
• Trans­la­tion of « Les Aï­nou des îles Kouriles » (The Ainu of the Kuril Is­lands) by Ernest-Au­guste Tulpin (1919), copy 5. (Google Book­s).

Bibliography

• « Compte rendu sur Słownik narzecza Ainów za­mieszku­ją­cych wyspę Szum­szu, w łańcuchu Kuryl­skim (Dic­tio­n­naire du di­alecte des Aï­nous habi­tant l’île Choum­chou, dans l’archipel des Kouriles) » (Re­view of Dic­tio­nary of the Di­alect of the Ainu In­hab­it­ing the Is­land of Shumshu, in the Kuril Archipelago), Anzeiger der Akademie der Wis­senschaften in Krakau (Bul­letin in­ter­na­tional de l’A­cadémie de Cra­covie), July 1891, pp. 231–243. (Google Book­s).
• Berque, Au­gustin, La Riz­ière et la Ban­quise : Coloni­sa­tion et change­ment cul­turel à Hokkaïdô (The Rice Paddy and the Ice Field: Col­o­niza­tion and Cul­tural Change in Hok­kaido), Paris: Pub­li­ca­tions ori­en­tal­istes de France, 1980.
• Fleuri, Jo­hann, « Hokkaido, la fierté aï­noue » (Hokkaido, Ainu Pride), Géo, no. 513, No­vem­ber 2021, pp. 76–85.
• Gode­froy, Noémi, Au­tour de l’île d’Ezo : Évo­lu­tion des rap­ports de dom­i­na­tion septen­tri­onale et des re­la­tions avec l’é­tranger au Japon, des orig­ines au 19^e siè­cle (Around the Is­land of Ezo: Evo­lu­tion of North­ern Re­la­tions of Dom­i­na­tion and of Re­la­tions with For­eign­ers in Japan, from the Ori­gins to the 19th Cen­tury), doc­toral the­sis, Paris: In­sti­tut na­tional des langues et civil­i­sa­tions ori­en­tales (I­NAL­CO), 2013. (Hy­per ar­ti­cles en ligne (HAL)).
• Leroi-Gourhan, Ar­lette and Leroi-Gourhan, An­dré, Un voy­age chez les Aï­nous : Hokkaï­do, 1938 (A Jour­ney Among the Ainu: Hokkaido, 1938), Paris: A. Michel, 1989.
• Macé, François, « Épopée : le Japon » (Epic Po­et­ry: Japan), Dic­tio­n­naire des gen­res et no­tions lit­téraires (Dic­tio­nary of Lit­er­ary Gen­res and Con­cepts), Paris: En­cy­clopæ­dia uni­ver­salis and A. Michel, “En­cy­clopæ­dia uni­ver­sal­is” se­ries, 1997.
• Macé, François, « Ry­thmes hu­mains et ry­thmes di­vins dans les épopées des Ainu » (Hu­man Rhythms and Di­vine Rhythms in the Epics of the Ainu), Diogène, no. 181, Jan­uary–­March 1998, pp. 29–38.
• Maraini, Fos­co, Ti­bet se­cret (Se­cret Ti­bet), trans. from Ital­ian by Juli­ette Bertrand and Sabine Vali­ci-Bo­sio, Paris: Arthaud, 1990.
• Mon­tan­don, Georges, La Civil­i­sa­tion aï­nou et les Cul­tures arc­tiques (Ainu Civ­i­liza­tion and Arc­tic Cul­tures), Paris: Pay­ot, 1937. (Google Book­s).
• Naert, Pier­re, La Sit­u­a­tion lin­guis­tique de l’aï­nou (The Lin­guis­tic Sit­u­a­tion of the Ainu Lan­guage), Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1958.
• Ros­ny, Léon de, Mœurs des Aïno, in­su­laires de Yéso [E­zo] et des Kouriles : ex­trait des ou­vrages japon­ais et des re­la­tions des voyageurs eu­ropéens (Cus­toms of the Ainu, Is­landers of Yezo [E­zo] and the Kuriles: Ex­cerpted from Ja­pa­nese Works and the Ac­counts of Eu­ro­pean Trav­el­ers), Paris: Im­pr. de H. Car­i­on, 1857. (Google Book­s).