Mukkuri Hawehe - Jew's Harp and Vocal Music of the Ainu

Este disco contiene la colección más completa de melodías y canciones tradicionales de Mukkuri del pueblo ainu.

El Mukkuri es el instrumento más importante de los ainu, una minoría que vive en las islas del norte (Hokkaido) de Japón. Se toca tirando bruscamente de una cuerda unida a un lado del instrumento. Esta técnica no muy fácil de aprender también se conoce en otras regiones de Asia.

This record contains the most comprehensive collection of traditional Mukkuri melodies and songs of the Ainu people.

The Mukkuri is the most important instrument of the Ainu, a minority people living on the northern islands (Hokkaido) of Japan. It is played by jerkily pulling a string attached at one side of the instrument. This not-quite-easy to learn technique is known in other regions of Asia, too.

Early Ainu music was associated with festival singing and dancing, and was related with spirit deities (kamui) and animals such as the bear, whale, owl and the sea turtle. The playing of the musical instruments was used in the context of telling epics stories, praying, greetings, magic spells or just for enjoying themselves. Many songs are accompanied by hand-clapping alone, or the singers form a circle or perform a pantomimic dance (eg bird dance). They may use a characteristic form of throat singing called “rekuhkara”: It is like a game that involves two women facing each other, with one forming a tube with her hands and chanting into the mouth of the her partner. The technique is essentially one where the "giver" provides the voice and the "receiver", holding her glottis closed, uses her vocal tract to modulate the sound stream  The main styles of Ainu music or chants are epic and narrative songs called yukar and the upopo.

01. A Bear with a Cub
02. Dedicated to the Rivers of the World
03. Ikammukka Sauke
04. Water Striders' Rimse (dance)
05. Itasankata
06. Winter Forest
07. The Forest is Thawing
08. Karakara
09. A Talk between Friends
10. Footsteps of the Spring
11. Saoi
12. Cuckoo
13. Storm
14. Kapiw Upopo
15. Lakes
16. Ara Huu-ya
17. Spring Steam
18. View of a Garden
19. Urara Suye
20. Frog's Chorus
21. Kamuy Ihumke upopo
22. Kamuy Upopo
23. Hoiyapna
24. Kamuy Rimse
25. Hanro Ussa
26. Pasture
27. Ni ka ta Kuikui
28. A Talk between Mother and Daughter
29. Ihoren
30. The Sea is Rumbling
31. Kotankor Kamuy