The Chiri Yukie Memorial Museum

After my walk along the cliffs this morning, I walked into town to the Chiri Yukie Memorial Museum, where I had been briefly introduced to Yokoyama-san the day before. I spent a pleasant rest of the morning going through the two display rooms in the museum. First, I went through the downstairs, which is a timeline of Chiri Yukie’s brief life with many primary documents, including school transcripts and many letters. Yokoyama-san guided me through the exhibit, and then I went through again more slowly, reading and taking notes on the descriptions. The upstairs contained displays of books, written both by and about Chiri Yukie and her work transcribing and translating Ainu oral tradition. It was inspiring to hear how she was the only Ainu female to graduate from the Noboribetsu area mandated Japanese elementary and middle schools. And to learn how her biographic circumstances allowed her to become fluent in both her native Ainu language and Japanese. 

I was most moved by how much of an impact this girl managed to make on Ainu research, not only through her published and unpublished contributions, but also through her inspiration to future researchers (including two of her brothers who have prolifically published about Ainu oral tradition and Ainu names of geographic features in Hokkaido). And she managed to make such an impact before dying at the mere age of 18. She was younger than I upon her death, but had already made a significant contribution to not only her disappearing people and their culture, but to academia in Japan (whereas I am yet just a student and have yet to make my mark on society).