“About the Old Woman of Swamps”
Culture: Ainu | Narrator: Unidentified | Source: Batchelor (1924:59)
Entry by Michelle Scalise Sugiyama
Story
This is the story of the old woman of swamps. The Creator of the world formed sixty mattocks of black stone and with them made the world.
After He had finished making the world He threw the sixty mattocks into a little valley where they completely rotted. But the juice turned itself into the Old Woman and Aunt of Swamps.
They live in the tree swamps and tree plains and they make people think of evil deeds and cause them to become ill. Again, they also enter into bears and kill people.
Therefore these things are truly dreadful, fearful creatures. And again, they also enter into the minds of people and drive them mad. Besides, when they walk about at night they make a noise like the rubbing together of birch bark.
Traditional Ecological Knowledge
Zoology
This story indicates that bears are capable of killing humans, and that this danger can be mitigated by avoiding swamps. This is seen in the claim that the Old Woman of Swamps lives in tree swamps and tree plains, and sometimes enters the minds of bears. The implication is that bears frequent these areas.
Brown bears (Ursus arctos) | Photo by Klaus Jost
Physical Geography
This story contains information about the nature and location of swamps. The observation that the mattocks completely rotted tells us that swamps contain decomposing plant matter, and the observation that the “juice” turned itself into monsters (the Old Woman and Aunt of Swamps) tells us that swamps contain moisture. The information that the mattocks were thrown into “little valleys” and that the swamp monsters live on “tree plains” tells us where swamps occur, and also that they contain trees. The story also contains the important warning that swamps are dangerous places: as Batchelor notes, “The whole story is intended to warn people to keep out of swamps” (1924:60). Although this danger is attributed to a supernatural source (monsters), swamps do indeed pose a number of threats. Besides the risks of encountering bears or drowning, swamps are difficult to navigate and traverse, and their high concentrations of mosquitoes put humans at risk of contracting malaria. Thus, the reference to swamp monsters who make people ill or drive them mad may be a reference to malarial fever, which can cause delirium.
Technology
The story notes that the world was formed using mattocks of black stone, indicating what material to use for making the blade of this implement. “Black stone” might be a reference to obsidian, a volcanic rock widely used by foraging peoples for knives, arrow and spear points, and other tools.
Mattock | Photo by Stemonitis
The Land and The People
Ainu Man | Photo by Baron Raimund von Stillfried
The Ainu are an Indigenous people of Hokkaido, southern Sakhalin, and the southern Kuril Islands. Their language is an isolate, bearing no genealogical relationship to other languages or language families. The word Ainu is an autonym, meaning “men” or “humans.” Toward the end of the nineteenth century, when Japan began colonizing Hokkaido, there were approximately 17,000 Ainu on the island. Traditionally, they lived in permanent dwellings located on river terraces. Settlements typically consisted of one to ten houses, although some were larger. Each dwelling was occupied by a nuclear family and unmarried or widowed relatives.
The homeland of the Ainu is mountainous, with many volcanoes and frequent earthquakes. Rivers and wetlands are abundant, and the region is heavily forested. Common species include oak, lime, chestnut, birch, magnolia, spruce, fir, and pine. Winters are long and cold, with heavy snowfall, while summers are short and mild.
The Ainu utilized five ecological zones. Rivers were fished for salmon, the main dietary staple, in summer and autumn. River banks and terraces provided a variety of wild plants, harvested from spring through autumn. Deer, another important staple, was hunted along river terraces and hillsides in autumn and early winter. The mountains provided bear, which was hunted in the spring and fall, and elm bark for clothing, which was collected in spring.
Although Ainu settlements were permanent, men moved into the mountains during the spring and autumn hunting seasons, which lasted a month or so. Women and children remained in the village gathering plant foods. Some groups migrated to fish camps at major fishing grounds during the cherry salmon spawning season. Both men and women fished, but each sex used different techniques.
Hokkaido contains many lakes, rivers, and wetlands, and malaria was widespread throughout Japan until 1900. The Ainu believed that illness was caused by angry gods, or kamui. This is consistent with their view that “all animal and plant resources were kamui deities in their temporary guises, and every topographical feature, such as a hill and river, was their activity field” (Watanabe 1972:456). This view may explain the association of “monsters” with dangerous water features in Ainu tradition. For example, one legend warns that the eddies along a certain river are inhabited by water nymphs, who capsize boats and drag passengers down to their death (Batchelor 1892:254). Other tales speak of large lakes with monster fish that ambush unwary humans and swallow them whole (Batchelor 1892:279).
Both stories and songs were used to transmit information about water features: “The Ainu have a song or tradition which teaches all these things, and which they use to warn the women and children against presuming to go too far on a river in a boat” (Batchelor 1892:255). Learning the lay of the land was an important part of boys’ education: “they were taught the names and shapes of certain mountains and hills, the names and courses of the chief rivers and streams, so that they might not get lost when out on a hunting expedition. They also had to learn the secret and quickest routes to different places” (Batchelor 1892:110). Tales of swamp, river, and lake monsters indicate that Ainu children were also warned about hazards presented by the local topography, and encouraged to avoid them. Stories were also used to teach moral precepts–such as reverence for old people–that bolstered the warnings issued by elders (Batchelor 1892:113).
Map
Ainu territory traditionally included Hokkaido, Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, and northern Honshu.
References
Batchelor, J. (1892). The Ainu of Japan. London: The Religious Tract Society.
Otsuru, M. (1960). Malaria studies in Japan after World War II. Part I. Epidemiological aspects of postwar malaria. The Japanese Journal of Experimental Medicine, 30(1), 23-32.
Pilsudski, B. & Majewicz, A. (1998 [1905]). The collected works of Bronislaw Pilsudski. Volume 1: The aborigines of Sakhalin. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Watanabe, H. (1968). Subsistence and ecology of northern food gatherers, with special reference to the Ainu. In R. B. Lee & I. DeVore (Eds.), Man the hunter, 69-77. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Watanabe, H. (1972). The Ainu. In M. G. Bicchieri (Ed.), Hunters and gatherers today, 448-484. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.