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November 10, 1875 – April 6, 1961, also known by her Japanese name , was an Ainu people missionary and epic poetry. Along with her niece, Yukie Chiri, she wrote down and preserved numerous Ainu yukar she learned from her mother.
After retiring from missionary work in 1926, Imekanu began to write down yukar known to her from Ainu tradition and continued to do so until her death. These texts in the Horobetsu dialect of Ainu amounted to 20,000 pages in 134 volumes. 72 of these volumes were destined for Kindaichi and 52 volumes for Imekanu's nephew Chiri Mashiho, a researcher specializing in Ainu linguistics.
Chiri Yukie, Imekanu's niece and Chiri Mashiho's sister, grew up with Monashinouku and Imekanu, and she learned many of the Ainu yukar along with them. She wrote down thirteen yukar from this tradition, translated them into Japanese, and prepared a bilingual edition which appeared in 1923. This was the first publication of Ainu traditions by an Ainu author. Three of these yukar later appeared in English translation, alongside works by others, in Donald L. Philippi's Songs of Gods, Songs of Humans (1979).
Kindaichi published Imekanu's version of the epic Kutune Shirka, alongside a version by Nabesawa Wakarpa, with commentary, in his two-volume study of the Ainu yukar in 1931. He published a seven-volume collection of Imekanu's epics, with his own Japanese translations, in 1959–1966.
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