The Most Revered of Foxes Knowledge of Animals and Animal Power in an Ainu

Kamui yukar (chants of spiritual beings) are one among over twenty genres of Ainu oral performance. Highly rhythmical, kamui yukar are sung in the first person voice of the spiritual being whose story is told. Normally these spiritual beings are natural phenomena, usually animals. This article examines and translates the third kamui yukar, the Chant of the Fox About Itself recorded by Chiri Yukie in her 1976 collection, the Ainu shin’yōshū. It looks at the general characteristics of foxes and the human-fox relationship within the Ainu world view and argues that the fox of this chant (identified as a black fox; Ainu: shitunpe) is a different and more powerful order of being than the red fox (Ainu: chironnup) that is the subject of most other Ainu fox chants and lore. It argues that the special powers seen in the shitunpe reflect the Ainu understanding of the connection between more powerful animal spiritual beings and the particular location in the landscape where they are understood to dwell.