Ae-oyna-kamuy

Ae-oyna-kamuy (アエオイナカムイ) or Oyna-kamuy (オイナカムイ) for short is an Ainu kamuy (god) and culture hero. In Ainu mythology, he is credited with teaching humans domestic skills, and for this reason he is called Ainurakkur (アイヌラックㇽ, father of the Ainu or father of humanity), and otherwise known as Okikurmi.

Names

Oyna[lower-alpha 1] or Ae-oyna-kamuy/Ayoyna-kamuy, who in Ainu tradition is a culture hero or culture-giving deity (人文神, jinbunshin), is otherwise known by the names Ainurakkur or Okikurmi/Okikirmiy[lower-alpha 2] according to some sources.[3][4]

Aynurakkur and Okikurmi may have originally been distinguished, but seem to have become conflated after a body of similarly plotted narratives became attached to them.[5]

Etymology

Oyna-kamuy literally signifies "god who is passed on (in lore)" (Kindaichi)[6] or "god of the sacred tradition, oyna" (Donald Philippi).[4] But the name has also construed to mean "god who engages/participates in shamanism " by Chiri.[7]

The Ae- prefix is "we", thus Ae-oyna-kamuy means "god whom we pass on (in our lore)"[6][lower-alpha 3] or "god concerning whom we sing the oyna".[4] In formal grammatical terms, Ae-oyna-kamuy has also explained as a morphological derivation with the addition of a "pronominal affix" (prefix).[6][lower-alpha 4]

Ainurakkur signifies "he who has a human smell".[9] The name, which contains the element rak meaning "smells of~", is literally "human who smells like human" hence "humanlike person" according to Kindaichi.[10][11] The implication is that this is a half-god, half-human (Ainu:arke ainu arke kamui) being or divinity, as explained by Kindaichi[6] and his disciple Kubodera.[12][lower-alpha 5] While the term kur strictly means "person",[13] various glossators take this implicitly to mean a deity,[12] as is the case with Chiri[lower-alpha 6][14][11] and others.[15]

Okikurmi is glossed as "he (who) wears a fur/leather robe with a shiny hem" by Chiri.[17][9][lower-alpha 7]

Depiction

Ae-oyna-kamuy is described as a large man wreathed in smoke.[22] When the smoke parts, he is seen to be surrounded by flames from his waist to his feet, and wearing a coat of elm bark and a sword. He also wields a magical spear of mugwort. The flames he is wreathed in indicate his virtuous character.

Mythology

There are a number of myths of Ae-oyna-kamuy's origin, arising from different Ainu tribes.[22] He is said to be begotten by Pakor-kamuy (パコロカムイ, the god of the year or the god of smallpox) on an elm tree (Chikisani) on Mount Oputateshike according to a version collected at Shiunkot village,[23] while other traditions name the father as the sun or thunder.[22]

Ae-oyna-kamuy is taught by Kamuy-huci, the hearth deity, and descends from the heavens to impart his knowledge to humanity. He is responsible for teaching weaving to the Ainu women and carving to the men. He is credited with teaching techniques of fishing, hunting, gathering, architecture, medicine, and religious ritual, and is associated with law and singing.[22] He also fights several battles on behalf of humanity; in one instance, he destroys a personification of famine with his spear of mugwort,[22] then creates herds of deer and schools of fish from the snow on his snowshoes.[22]

Eventually, Ae-oyna-kamuy, disappointed at the decline of the Ainu, departs for another country; some myths say he returns to the heavens.

In one myth, when he returns to the heavens, the gods send him back because he reeks of humans. Then he leaves his clothes on earth in order to return. It is said that his old sandals turned into the first squirrels.

Explanatory notes
  1. The term oyna also refers to a type of mythological song, like the yukar.[1] Hence the qualifying the appellation as "Oyna-kamuy" or Oyna-deity serves to distinguish.
  2. Okikorumi.[2]
  3. Kindaichi also gives renderings that are more long-winded, i.e. wareware no nagaku denshō shite wasururu bekarazu kami (我々諸人の永く伝承して忘るべからざる神, "god whom we should long pass on and never forget"),[6] or wareware no bandai ītsugi kataritsugite wasurerarenai kami (我々の万代言い継ぎ語り継ぎて忘れられない神, "god whom we should pass on by talk and story-telling over a myriad generations and never forget").[8]
  4. Kindaichi actually called it a katsuyō-kei (活用形, "conjugated form"), but conjugation applies to verbs and not nouns.
  5. Kubodera glosses the name as ningen no nioi ga suru kami (人間の匂いがする神=半神半人の神, "god who smells of human=half-god half-human deity")).
  6. Chiri phrases as hito kusai kami (人くさい神, lit. "god who reeks of human"), which is to be taken to mean a god who is human-like in behavior, or god upon whom human nature has rubbed off.
  7. Batchelor defines term ur(u) here is defined as "skin",[18] and Philippi gives "leather robe". But ur includes skins and of sea mammals and birds, and even fish-skin.[19][20] as we as "fur" (Japanese: kegawa) or "fur coat".[21] Also, the Japanese word kawagoromo typically denotes "fur robe".

References
Citations
  1. Nakagawa (1996), pp. 154–155, 162.
  2. Munro (1996), p. 15.
  3. Nakagawa (1996), p. 158.
  4. Gulik, Willem R. van (1982). Irezumi:The Pattern of Dermatography in Japan. Mededelingen van het Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden, 22. Leiden: Brill Archive. p. 205–206. ASIN B0006ED624.
  5. Kindaichi, Kyōsuke (1933), Ainu bungaku アイヌ文学 [Ainu literature] (in Japanese), Kawade shobo, p. 72
  6. Kindaichi (1960), p. 434.
  7. Chiri (1952), p. 69.
  8. Kindaichi (1960), p. 450.
  9. Phillipi (2015), p. 187.
  10. Kindaichi (1960), pp. 450, 291.
  11. Arakawa, Hiroshi (1981), Kodai nihonjin no uchūkan 古代日本人の宇宙観, Kaimeisha, p. 69
  12. Kubodera, Itsuhiko [in Japanese] (1968), "Ainu no kenchiku girei ni tsuite" アイヌの建築儀礼について, Hoppō bunka kenkyū 北方文化研究, 北海道大学文学部附属北方文化硏究施設 (3): 245
  13. Batchelor, John (1905). "kuru/guru/gur". An Ainu-English-Japanese Dictionary アイヌ・英・和辭典 (2nd ed.). Methodist Publishing House. p. 252.
  14. Chiri (1952), pp. 59–60.
  15. Watson, Mark K. (2014), Japan's Ainu Minority in Tokyo: Diasporic Indigeneity and Urban Politics, Santa Barbara, California: Routledge, p. 5, ISBN 9781317807568 apud Honda, Katsuichi (2000), Harukor: An Ainu Woman's Tale, translated by K. Selden, pp. 34–48
  16. Chiri (1936), pp. 88–89 "Bunrui ainugo jiten 分類アイヌ語辞典", p. 88 (ref. 3). AinuMuseum digital version:Plants §144.
  17. Chiri gives suso no kirakira suru koromo wo mi ni tsukeru kami (裾のきらきらする衣を身につける神, "god who wears a glittering-hemmed robe");[7] or kiki (kirakira suru) -ur (kawa goromo wo) -mi (kite iru) ("kiki (きらきらする) -ur (皮ごろもを) -mi (着ている), "wearing a glittering skin robe").[16]
  18. Batchelor, John (1905). "uru". An Ainu-English-Japanese Dictionary アイヌ・英・和辭典 (2nd ed.). Methodist Publishing House. p. 484.
  19. Kindaichi (1960), p. 15.
  20. Kindaichi, Kyōsuke (1941), Ainu Life and Legends, Board of Tourist Industry, Japanese Government Railways, p. 27
  21. Patrie, James (1982), The Genetic Relationship of the Ainu Language, University Press of Hawaii, p. 19, ISBN 9780824807245
  22. Ashkenazy (2003), pp. 109–110.
  23. Irimoto, Takashi (1997), Yamada, Takako; Irimoto, Takashi (eds.), "Ainu Shamanism: Oral Tradition, Healing, and Dramas", Circumpolar Animism and Shamanism, Hokkaido University Press, p. 26, ISBN 9784832902527
Bibliography
  • Etter, Carl. Ainu Folklore: Traditions and Culture of the Vanishing Aborigines of Japan. Chicago: Wilcox and Follett, 1949.
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