Mashio Chiri was born on February 24, 1909 at Aza Noboribetsu, Horobetsu, Hokkaido. At an early age, Mashio was described as being a “genius”. He attended one of the most prestigious schools in all of the Japanese society, First High School. According to an excerpt taken from the American Anthropologist, he mastered Russian and Spanish in only 4 weeks. Following his attendance at First High School, he decided that he wanted to become the scholar of Ainu. This required a tremendous amount of work, but with Mashio’s exceptional abilities in both language and mathematics, he was able to attend Tokyo University.
Halfway into his master’s program he quit and went to Sakhalin, where he chose to focus on not just the Hokkaido Ainu form of language, but others as well. It was during this period where he accomplished his most famous work, Classified Dictionaries of the Ainu Language. This piece also won the award called the Asahi Bunkasho, an award that is usually given to those of higher age, Chiri won it at the age of forty-six.
Unfortunately, in 1961, Chiri died at a very young age of fifty-two due to a heart disease. Throughout all of his accomplishments, it was the meaning behind what he did that portrayed him as the man that he was. As taken from Public Anthropology, he is said to have had a goal to “produce research on the Ainu language which would convey kotodama or the soul of the language”. For reasons as such, he pursued the beautiful language of Ainu to not only understand it for himself, but for others to understand as well.
References:
Obituary taken from American Anthropologist V.75 pp.870-873
Public Anthropology Journal archive”
Former link, http://www.publicanthropology.org/Archive/AA1973.htm (September 2006)
Written by: Students in an Introduction to Anthropology Class, Minnesota State University, Mankato, Minnesota