| NOTA |
(★)(´NI-238´ es mismo libro.)(1.Such a large amount of folklore material in the Ainu language has been collected that it is extremely difficult to make a selection of the representative pieces. In this volume I have included mainly materials from the Saru Ainu of Hidaka. They are the most numerous group of Ainu, and their culture may have preserved many of the more archaic features. All of the selections in this volume have been translated directly from the Ainu originals in the extensive materials collected by pioneers in the study of Ainu epics. I did not use any source materials which did not give the texts in the original language because I believe that a true translation can be made only by a translator who knows the original language and translates directly from it. [From ´´PREFACE´´] 2.This is a collection of English translations of thirty-three epic songs of the Hokkaido Ainu. Except for one selection, all of them were collected during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Most of them were obtained from female Ainu reciters by two Japanese scholars, Kindaichi Kyoosuke and Kubodera Itsuhiko. The reader may be surprised to find that all of the songs without exception use first-person forms of diction. They are, so to speak, monologues or self-revelatory utterances in which a personage describes his or her experiences and adventures from the subjective point of view. The speakers who tell their stories in these songs may be either gods [kamui] or humans [ainu]. These are the two main orders of beings recognized by the Ainu [the word ´ainu´means ´human being´], and this is why I have chosen the title ´Songs of Gods, Songs of Humans.´The title describes the contents of the book exactly : the book contains, literally, songs sung by gods and songs sung by humans. The audiences intended for the songs may also be beings in either of the two categories. The songs of the gods may be intended to be heard by gods as well as by humans, and the songs of the humans may be sung to audiences consisting of gods or of humans. [From ´´INTRODUCTION´´]) |
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