Introduction -- "Initial Book": This is a book on what happened before Nobunaga's march on Kyoto. Ota Izumi composed this -- Book I. Ota Izumi no Kami composed this. And it records the life of Lord Oda Danjo no Jo Nobunaga from Eiroku 11 [1568], the Year of the Dragon -- Book II. Ota Izumi no Kami composed this. Eiroku 12 [1569], the Year of Earth Junior and the Serpent -- Book III. Ota Izumi composed this. Genki 1 [1570], the Year of Metal Senior and the Horse -- Book IV. Ota Izumi composed this. Genki 2 [1571], the Year of Metal Junior and the Sheep -- Book V. Ota Izumi no Kami composed this. Genki 3 [1572], the Year of Water Senior and the Monkey -- Book VI. Ota Izumi no Kami composed this. Genki 4 [1573], the Year of Water Junior and the Bird -- Book VII. Ota Izumi no Kami composed this. Tensho 2 [1574], the Year of Wood Senior and the Dog -- Book VIII. Ota Izumi no Kami composed this. Tensho 3 [1575], the Year of Wood Junior and the Boar -- Book IX. Ota Izumi no Kami composed this. Tensho 4 [1576], the Year of Fire Senior and the Rat -- Book X. Ota Izumi no Kami composed this. Tensho 5 [1577], the Year of Fire Junior and the Ox -- Book XI. Ota Izumi no Kami composed this. Tensho 6 [1578], the Year of Earth Senior and the Tiger -- Book XII. Ota Izumi no Kami composed this. Tensho 7 [1579], the Year of Earth Junior and the Rabbit -- Book XIII. Ota Izumi no Kami composed this. Tensho 8 [1580], the Year of Metal Senior and the Dragon -- Book XIV. Ota Izumi no Kami produced this. Tensho 9 [1581], the Year of Metal Junior and the Serpent -- Book XV. Ota Izumi no Kami composed this. Tensho 10 [1582], the Year of Water Senior and the Horse -- Index
Shincho-Ko ki, the work translated here into English under the title "The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga," is the most important source on the career of one of the best known figures in all of Japanese history--Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582), the first of the "Three Heroes" who unified Japan after a century of fragmentation and internecine bloodshed. The other two of the triad, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598) and Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616), also make frequent appearances in this chronicle, playing prominent although clearly subordinate roles. So the chronicle also is an important source on their early careers, as it is on a constellation of other actors in Japan's sixteenth-century drama. The chronicle's author, Ota Gyuichi, was Nobunaga's former retainer and an eyewitness of some of the events he describes. He completed his work about the year 1610
Indigenous peoples throughout the globe are custodians of a unique, priceless, and increasingly imperiled legacy of oral lore. Among them the Ainu, a people native to northeastern Asia, stand out for the exceptional scope and richness of their oral...
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Indigenous peoples throughout the globe are custodians of a unique, priceless, and increasingly imperiled legacy of oral lore. Among them the Ainu, a people native to northeastern Asia, stand out for the exceptional scope and richness of their oral performance traditions. Yet despite this cultural wealth, nothing has appeared in English on the subject in over thirty years. Sarah Strong's Ainu Spirits Singing breaks this decades-long silence with a nuanced study and English translation of Chiri Yukie's Ainu Shin'yoshu, the first written transcription of Ainu oral narratives by an ethnic Ainu.The thirteen narratives in Chiri's collection belong to the genre known as kamui yukar, said to be the most ancient performance form in the vast Ainu repertoire. In it, animals (and sometimes plants or other natural phenomena)-all regarded as spiritual beings (kamui) within the animate Ainu world-assume the role of narrator and tell stories about themselves. The first-person speakers include imposing animals such as the revered orca, the Hokkaido wolf, and Blakiston's fish owl, as well as the more "humble" Hokkaido brown frog, snowshoe hare, and pearl mussel. Each has its own story and own signature refrain. Strong provides readers with an intimate and perceptive view of this extraordinary text. Along with critical contextual information about traditional Ainu society and its cultural assumptions, she brings forward pertinent information on the geography and natural history of the coastal southwestern Hokkaido region where the stories were originally performed. The result is a rich fusion of knowledge that allows the reader to feel at home within the animistic frame of reference of the narratives. Strong's study also offers the first extended biography of Chiri Yukie (1903-1922) in English. The story of her life, and her untimely death at age nineteen, makes clear the harsh consequences for Chiri and her fellow Ainu of the Japanese colonization of Hokkaido and the Meiji and Taisho governments' policies of assimilation. Chiri's receipt of the narratives in the Horobetsu dialect from her grandmother and aunt (both traditional performers) and the fact that no native speakers of that dialect survive today make her work all the more significant. The book concludes with a full, integral translation of the text