Yukar

Yukar (Ainu: ユカㇻ) are Ainu sagas that form a long rich tradition of oral literature. In older periods, the epics were performed by both men and women; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when Ainu culture was in decline, women were generally the most skillful performers.

Traditional tales describe floating worlds with "Ainu Mosir", or the land of the humans (as opposed to "Kamuy Mosir", the land of the gods), resting on the back of a fish whose movements cause earthquakes.

Professor Kyōsuke Kindaichi collected yukar and translated them into Japanese.

In August 2006, the Asahi Shimbun reported in its article that Japan's Agency of Cultural Affairs (Bunkacho) would discontinue funding by fiscal year 2007 of the project to translate and transcribe the yukar compilations of Imekanu, Kannari Matsu Notebooks (金成マツノート, Kan-nari Matsu Nōto), which consists of 92 yukar stories written in Romaji with the tenth story lost and 49 stories left untranslated. It is said that the stoppage is because of Shigeru Kayano's death in May 2006.