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Akan-Mashū NP, Hokkaido
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In an Ainu kamuy-yukar told around Lake Akan, an owl guardian ignores a famine until a jay’s funny rebuke makes him look. The owl then asks the sky deity to send deer—one well-timed joke changes a village’s fate.
Even a 6 cm marimo can take 150–200 years to form. Each sphere is not one plant but countless branching algal filaments; lake waves roll it, helping shed mud and expose it to light.
Akan’s Marimo Festival began in 1950 after drought damaged the algae. Residents urged people to return marimo taken from the lake, and Ainu kamuy-nomi became part of the conservation effort.
The landscape itself carries the names: Lake Mashu is known as Kamuy-to, “Lake of the Gods,” and its neighboring peak, Mashu-dake, as Kamuinupuri, “Mountain of the Gods.”
At Akan’s Ainu Kotan, yukku ohaw brings together simmered deer and seasonal wild greens; amam is cooked with beans, millet and wild garlic. These dishes make the surrounding woodland’s harvest part of a meal.
In the Ainu worldview, ramat (spirit) can dwell in animals, plants, natural forces and tools; kamuy refers to beings especially powerful or important to people. They visit in earthly forms, so respect and gratitude help sustain a reciprocal relationship.
In traditional Ainu belief, a hunted animal could be a kamuy visiting in bodily form. Sending rites thanked the spirit with offerings such as shaved sticks, dumplings and dried salmon, hoping it would return to the human world.
Winter preservation created a surprising snack: potatoes left beneath snow freeze and ferment naturally, then are kneaded into cakes and grilled as potce-imo. The dish remains part of Akan’s Ainu food heritage.
In the traditional Ainu home, or chise, the front-facing window was considered a way for kamuy to enter and leave. Akan’s reconstructed Ainu Living Memorial Museum lets visitors see how belief shaped the home’s layout.
Ainu speakers around the region called the black woodpecker cip-ta-cikap-kamuy, “boat-carving bird god.” Its large tree cavities were linked to the idea of hollowing logs to make boats.
Akan’s Ainu Kotan took shape in 1959, when Ainu families from around Hokkaido moved onto land provided rent-free by the Maeda Ippeien Foundation. It remains a neighborhood where people live, create and pass on culture.
The now-extinct Ezo wolf was revered as Horokeu-kamuy, a “hunting god.” Akan’s Lost Kamuy brings this absent animal to the stage through a blend of traditional Ainu dance, contemporary movement, 3D imagery and surround sound.
A 2021 Akan theater production drew on oina, a kamuy narrative told by Ainu elder Yae Shitaku. Her granddaughter, Tomoko Taira, carried the story onto the stage, accompanied by the traditional tonkori instrument.
