Harukor: An Ainu Woman's Tale (Voices from Asia)

By Rick Smith

In this engaging tale, Honda Katsuichi reconstructs the life of an Ainu woman living on the northern island of Japan over five hundred years ago. Harukor's story, created from surviving oral accounts of Ainu life and culture as well as extensive scholarly research, is set in the centuries before the mainland Japanese nearly destroyed the way of life depicted here. In the first person, the fictional Harukor tells us of her childhood, her adolescence, and her motherhood, drawing on tales and songs performed by her grandmother and other bards. She describes festivals, weddings, childbirth and midwifery, traditional healing methods, battles, and funerals in detail. Her story is followed by the adventures of her oldest son, Pasekur, which end by foreshadowing an early Ainu rebellion against Japanese encroachment. Amply illustrated and prefaced by an extensive introduction to Ainu history, the natural surroundings, and the sources used to construct Harukor and her world, this volume is a unique portrait of Ainu gods and humans, of matters sacred and mundane, and of the distinctive Ainu respect for nature's bounty.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520210190
• ISBN13: 9780520210196
• Release Date: March 2000
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 350 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 1.3" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Equal parts period novel and anthropological text

I usually don't care for historical fiction because the history depicted in most of these novels is often inaccurate, and the author almost always presents an ethnic minority, a conquering nation (that has somehow been vindicated by history) or both in an absurdly romanticized context. I enjoyed this book because it contained no inaccuracies that I was aware of, and because the Ainu of the story were portrayed with a relative...

A good introduction to Ainu culture

Harukor is a good introduction to Ainu culture that does a credible job of presenting Ainu culture as a culture both like and unlike others, without sentimentalizing the Ainu or depicting them as primitive. The introduction is particularly good as a general overview to Ainu culture (as far as it can be reconstructed) for the period ending in the late 17th century when the Ainu were increasingly subjugated to the expansive...