Ezo-tsūji (Japanese–Ainu Interpreters) in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries: The Case of Uehara Kumajirō

Abstract

The Ezo-tsūji were interpreters in Early Modern Japan between the Japanese and the Ainu, the indigenous people of Ezo (ranging from the northern island of present-day Japan to Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands). This chapter discusses the remarkable Ezo-tsūji, Uehara Kumajirō (上原熊次郎, ?–1827), a local Japanese citizen initially hired by Japanese merchants to supervise the Ainu’s labour and interpret the Ainu language. Later, he was recruited as an official tsūji and, due to the contemporary geopolitical situation between Ezo and Russia, also became a tsūji of Russian language. Although Ezo-tsūji have been studied in the contexts of Hokkaido history and Ainu studies, Uehara’s work as an Ezo-tsūji remains unexplored from the perspective of translation and interpreting studies. This chapter provides a historical case study of Uehara’s work with a focus on two topics: his translation in the first Japanese–Ainu dictionary published in 1792, and his involvement as tsūji in the case of the Russian captain V. M. Golovnin, who was captured in 1811 in Ezo. Uehara’s works, while atypical for an Ezo-tsūji, are specific examples of tsūji influenced by the socio-cultural, political and diplomatic context.

This chapter is partly based on a conference paper titled ‘A Practice of Translation by Ezo-Tsūji, Japanese–Ainu Interpreter in the Pre-modern Japan’, which the author read at the Third East Asian Translation Studies Conference at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 30 June 2019.