Because the weather was so nice and I had found the books that I wanted to borrow from the library, Seino-san graciously offered to take me on a guided tour of some of the Ainu geographic features further along the coast towards the town of Muroran. This whole area used to be inhabited by different Ainu kotan (villages) and the Ainu history is still reflected in the many area names. For example, there is an small bay/inlet along the coast of Muroran called itanki, which is the Ainu word for rice/tea bowl. The inlet is so named because the clams in the area form bowl-shaped burrows from packed sand which sometimes wash up onto the beach.
On the way back, we drove inland from the coast a little ways to a spot that is likely to have been the area where Chiri Yukie lived with her grandmother (a story teller) and aunt. This is where she mastered her native language and heard most of the chants, nursery rhymes, and other oral traditions that she later recorded.
I went to Seino-san's house where his wife cooked a splendid meal (and I picked up some more reference books to read).
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