[1] As is customary for the time period, her personal name is unknown, and her title is taken from Sakanoue, the village in which she resided; ‘Iratsume’ is an archaic moniker for ‘young lady,’ ‘maiden,’ or ‘daughter’.
[5] After her brother’s death in 731,[13] Sakanoue became the de facto head of the Ōtomo house and would manage its affairs until her nephew Yakamochi came of age.
[4][12] Parents Spouse(s) and issues Ōtomo no Sakanoue is the foremost female poet of the Man'yōshū, and the third-best represented overall, regardless of gender, having a total of 84 poems included in the collection.
[14] Paula Doe suggests that, as his mentor, Sakanoue exerted considerable influence on his early poetry and literary sensibility, evident in his choice to include so many examples of her work.
[2] Her longest, a banka (an elegy in chōka form),[16][17] was composed upon the death of the Korean nun Rigan, who had been a guest of the Ōtomo household since Sakanoue’s youth.