Chapter 149Oral-Literary Genres and Their Regional Names
Functional classifications, the four-way Chitose comparison, performance features, overlapping regional labels, and narrative perspective.
149.1 Ways of classifying oral literature
Ainu oral literature includes songs, wordplay, prayers, negotiation, and several kinds of narrative. Classification depends on whether form, performance, or purpose takes precedence. Endō notes the absence of a single accepted scheme and adopts Nakagawa's functional grouping into songs, word games, chants, and narratives Endō (2022: §2).
The frequently cited division into prose tales, divine epics, and heroic epics concerns the narrative repertoire. It does not include all verbal arts, and it requires regional qualifications even within narrative Endō (2022: §§2.1–2.4).
149.2 A Chitose comparison
Satō's Chitose account compares four narrative forms, including irupaye, a telling of heroic material in a prose style Satō (2008: 259–260).
| Form | Melody | Recurring refrain | Beat tapped with a stick |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heroic epic, yukar | Present | Absent | Present |
| Irupaye | Absent | Absent | Absent |
| Divine epic, kamuy yukar | Present | Present | Absent |
| Prose tale, uwepeker | Absent | Absent | Absent |
Satō describes heroic epics and irupaye as long, divine epics as shorter, and prose tales as intermediate. He explicitly treats these lengths as rough guides. His heroic-epic exception is an opening eyororpe formula; he suggests, without establishing, that it might preserve an earlier refrain Satō (2008: 259–260).
Endō describes divine refrains as associated with individual stories, with variation between traditions. Many are opaque, while some suggest the protagonist's identity. Heroic performance may instead use a narrator's own melody, tapped rhythm, and listeners' responses Endō (2022: §§2.4.2–2.4.3). See Chapter 151 (Sakehe, Refrains, and Verse Structure) and Chapter 169 (Glossed Openings from Abuta and Horobetsu Verse).
149.3 Regional names and overlapping labels
Endō gives uepeker for southwestern prose tales and tuytak across much of central and northeastern Hokkaido. Southwestern divine epics are commonly called kamuy yukar, eastern ones oyna, and middle-Saru ones menoko yukar Endō (2022: §§2.4.1–2.4.2).
The same labels can identify different forms elsewhere. Southwestern oyna names a sacred biography in which a culture hero narrates, without a divine epic's refrain. Menoko yukar also occurs for heroic epics whose protagonist is a woman. Those uses require the locality and performance form to be specified Endō (2022: §§2.4.3–2.4.4).
Regional heroic-epic names include eastern sakorpe and Samani yayerap. Endō also distinguishes legends or experiential lore, called upaskuma, ucaskuma, or ikopepeka. These prose accounts lack the fixed opening and closing patterns of prose tales Endō (2022: §§2.4.3–2.4.4).
149.4 Narrative perspective and grammatical person
Many tales present events through a protagonist's ‘I’, sometimes identifying that speaker in a closing formula. Other tales use third-person narration, including many Pananpe–Penanpe stories and stories adapted from Japanese tradition Endō (2022: §2.4.1).
The grammatical forms corresponding to narrative ‘I’ vary. The opening below uses exclusive first-person plural morphology for a singular protagonist in Chiri Yukie's divine-epic collection.
‘One fine day, in my marsh, I had only my eyes and mouth sticking out and was looking around, when…’
Nakagawa 2024: 603; Horobetsu, Example 1308, citing Chiri Yukie 1923:76, fifth tale
An opening excerpt ending with a connective. The plural forms have singular reference in the narrative.
Nakagawa contrasts this collection's consistent use of the exclusive series, outside other characters' dialogue, with mixtures of exclusive and fourth-person forms in Kannari Matsu's Horobetsu material and Kikuchi Kura's Bihoro material. The collection therefore cannot define an obligatory person pattern for every divine epic Nakagawa (2024: 603–604). The constructional and historical analyses are compared in Chapter 150 (Narrative Person and Reported Speech).