Mintuci

What it is

The mintuci is a water being of Ainu folklore, the storytelling of the Ainu people of Hokkaido in Japan. It is described as half person and half beast, living in lakes and rivers, and it counts as a kamuy, the word for a spirit or god in Ainu belief. Writers on Japanese folklore file it among the yōkai, a broad class of supernatural beings, and rank it as a close relative of the kappa, the water imp of the mainland. It is said to stand about as tall as a child of three to thirteen, with purplish or reddish skin like a sea turtle's and bird-like feet, or in some tellings hooves. Some are man-eaters of ill temper; others, called pirika mintuci, the good ones, live in the mountains and help people.

Where it comes from

The name's road is disputed. Many take mintuci to be an Ainu borrowing of mizuchi, a Japanese name for the kappa that also belongs to a dragon. John Batchelor, a British missionary who compiled an Ainu dictionary around 1900, built the word instead from Ainu mimi, flesh, and tumunci, devil, and filed the creature among the kosimpuk, words glossed as fairy or daemon. Some Ainu elders said mintuci was the mainland Japanese name for the kappa, the proper Ainu term being Shiri-sham-ainu, a person of the mountainside. One myth has it born in the god Okikurumi's time: to fight the smallpox divinity Patum-kamui he braided 61 mugwort puppets, the Chishinap-kamuy; all drowned but one, and the drowned became the mintuci kamuy. A plainer account blames smallpox on Japanese traders' ships in the Edo period; the Ainu then made the weed dolls themselves.

How it is done

Dealings with the mintuci follow the courtesy owed a spirit. Its chieftain, mintuci-tono, is said to bear a bow and arrows, to aid humans in need and to give bows as gifts, asking in return offerings of sake and hei ornaments. The gift is meant to be a simplified kind, not the inaw usually offered to the gods. A mintuci who helped a chieftain on the Saru River asked for a banquet. Where drownings mounted, people are said to have begged the spirit to move away, and in Chikabumi near Asahikawa an adopted husband of this kind was driven out. Small dolls of braided mugwort, the Ti-sinap-kamuy, were made for protection from smallpox.

What it is for

Belief gives the mintuci two faces. As a deity governing the fish it can fill nets: an Ishikari story has it grant a bountiful catch while taking several lives by drowning each year, until people begged it to move to Shizunai, after which the drownings stopped and the catch fell. Hunters say it rewards them with game in plenty. It is held to guard whole communities, and Asahikawa and the Saru River were said to prosper under its protection. A golden tobacco case it gave was kept as an amulet against night raids. A mintuci who married into a house of daughters brought fortune until he left, taking the village's food spirit and bringing famine.

Peoples and places

The creature is known across Ainu country in Hokkaido, under shifting local names. Chitose says mimtuci, Ishikari mintoci, and Tokachi and Kurshiro hundoci. In Ikeda, on the eastern Tokachi Plain, the hundoci shows itself as a small old person of no clear sex, grunting 'hunn'. Tales anchor it to particular waters: the Ishikari River, where drownings were blamed on it; the Saru River and Asahikawa, where it acted as guardian; the Shibichari River, where an expelled one is said to have settled. A fog-night legend belongs to Kushiro. According to some elders, people on the Japanese mainland used the name mintuci for the kappa.

What people believe

The mintuci belongs to the world of the kamuy, the many spirits of Ainu religion, here as a deity governing the fish. Most are said to be of evil disposition, and to disembowel and devour anyone they catch. They hunt by dragging people and livestock underwater, the same prank laid on the kappa. Possession is feared: a woman possessed by one may try to seduce men. A Kushiro tale tells of a foggy night when a walker meets a silent figure ahead who will not answer; it walks on until the walker spots strange bird-like footprints, and at that moment its shadow slips behind and pulls him into the water. Alongside these are the pirika mintuci, the good ones of the mountains.

Compare and confuse

The kappa is the nearest cousin: the mintuci is called a variant of it, and traits such as the arms that shorten or tear away when pulled, and the draggings under water, are told of the kappa elsewhere in Japan, which leads some to think that lore travelled. The elders' naming of it as the mainlanders' kappa, with a bald head and a mountainside home, hints at a link with the Japanese mountain deity Yama-no-Kami.

Questions people ask about Mintuci

Good reading and sources

• Mintuci on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data