In September 1905, the year before Chiyo was born, Sakhalin island below the 50° north parallel became Japanese territory under the Treaty of Portsmouth.

[6] When Chiyo was born in 1906, the southern Poronay basin including Shisuka was a Nivkh enclave among settlements of Sakhalin Ainu and Oroks.

[1][11][12][note 3] Chiyo also had a third child; she hoped to be reunited her eldest son Igrain (イガライヌ; Japanese: 一郎, romanized: Ichirō) in Hokkaido, but he was exiled to Siberia and died in a Soviet camp.

[1][13] Preserved at the Hokkaido Museum of Northern Peoples are photos of Chiyo's performances, along with her three wooden idols, shaman's belt, rattle, and tambourine beater.

[6] Chiyo's main written work is "Gilyak Folklore" (Japanese: ギリヤークの昔話) (1992),[14] posthumously published, which she dictated to Robert Austerlitz between 1956 and 1958.