アイヌ口承文芸テキスト集 17 : 白沢ナベ口述 カムイユカㇻ アテヤテンナ：六つ首の狐

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[ABSTRACT] Summary: This text was told by the late Ms. Nabe Shirasawa (1905-93, born in Chitose), on Dec. 4, 1987. The genre kamuyyukar “mythic epic” of the text is usually narrated with sakehe “a phrase for refrain” and this one’s sakehe is ateyatenna, which is usually used in the Fire Goddess’s tales, but the protagonist of this tale is Okikurmi, a human-shaped god. This tale is an Ainu version of the story named as “The Crab and the Monkey”, a well-known folktale in Japan. Three variants of it were recorded in Saru region, two of which are coincided with this text in terms of that the foe is the six-headed monster. Probably this Ainu version had come from Japanese tradition, but the first half of the Japanese version, i.e. the episode of quarrel for foods between the monkey and the crab, is omitted in the Ainu versions, and the monkey is replaced by a six-headed monster. Also this text has an ending episode that the monster was hard to die and Okikurmi minced its body, poured hot ash on it and gave the meat to fallen trees, then he could slay the monster completely. It is a formulaic motif seen in many Ainu folktales. Outline of text: I, Okikurmi lived alone. One day I was searching the mountains with my special power and found that the fox monster with six heads was coming to my home. Then I placed a chestnut-man in my hearth, a thick-needle-man on the mat, a crab-man in the water barrel, a mortar-man on the top of the front door and a mallet-man against a side of the house. I myself climbed up on the top of the house and lay on it. In the evening the six-headed fox came down from the forest with his six heads narrating and singing different tales and songs. he entered my house finding no one there, and he poked the fire up, then the chestnut-man burst into his eyes. He fell over on the thick-needle-man, who stang his bottom. He rushed to the water barrel and was bitten by the crab-man. Running out from the door, he was crushed by the mortar-man. Then I descended from the top of the house, grabbed the mallet-man and pounded the monster with it, but it won’t die easily. I minced up the monster’s body, but the minced meat was going to gather to rebuild himself. When I poured hot ash onto the pieces of the meat, they stopped to gather. Then I brought the meat to rotten fallen woods and had them eat it, so that the monster died completely.