In August, 2004 Hiroshi Hoshino, Tetsuya Yamada and I organized a folklore expedition to the Khabarovsk district Nanai area villages named Troitskoe, Djari, Naihin, Daerga, Dada and Lidoga. The ...purpose of our expedition was collecting “ningman” (heroic epic tales and other animal tales = fabulat), myths, legends and mysterious stories (true tales = memorat).We aimed at listening to tales, which the speaker wished to tell us most of all. In fact, it often happened so that precious information for the study of folklore simply “jumped out” in course of our casual conversations. Quite an unexpected result as it is, virtually every informant related interesting stories about shamans to us, which leads towards further investigation of a close relationship between folktales and shamanism. We could not foresee either that it would be possible at all to hear tales related to Japan. As far as I can judge, the latter had been recorded for the first time ever, which will serve as a precious data for examining the relationship between the Japanese folklore and the Nanaian folklore. One major factor which has resulted in that there are no longer any performers of nanaian heroic epics “ningman” relates to World War II. The fact that male performers are no longer alive and the resulting crisis of the heroic epos being on the verge of disappearance must also be classified as victims of war. Nowadays when elderly women capable of telling the “ningman”are still alive, we have to hurry to record them. Speaking of the fieldwork, we were fortunate to become acquainted with many remarkable people within a short period of time. It has become possible through the agency of Larisa Petrovna Passar, Director of the Museum of Regional Studies located in the village of Troitskoe. She generously helped us in all our endeavours; including taking care of home-stay premises as well as the moving by car arrangements.
