Ainu Morpheme Explorer
← Place names

Biratori, Hidaka region, Hokkaidō

平取

びらとり Biratori

The names of the town were collected by the author with the place-name notes displayed on the chairs of the Biratori Ainu culture museum as a starting point.

Ainu spellings: Pira-utur

Analyses

pira-utur

ピラトル

received reading

between the cliffs

Proponent: 定説

The two cliffs are Hayopira and Kuopira, which face each other at the Biratori bridge. Hayopira is hay-o-pira 'nettle cliff' and Kuopira ku-o-pira 'cliff of the set bow'; a UFO group built a facility on the Hayopira cliff, which stands abandoned with an Okikurmi statue, a mural and a lookout.

zenibako_trek2025 「平取（びらとり）」
Analysis details
Confidence: low

Both parts are dictionary words in the senses used and the two cliffs are named and identified. The article reports the reading without discussion, and the landform is the only support it gives.

Piratoru kotan

proposed

The village by the path of the cliff lake

Proponent: John Batchelor

The village is said to have been so called because of a large lake which once existed near the place. The remnant of the lake, which I myself saw some 26 years ago, has now been completely washed away by the floods.

Batchelor1905 § V "Place Names Considered", s.v. Biratori
Analysis details
Confidence: low

Batchelor's reading and gloss as printed in 1905; the segmentation is his, and several of its elements answer to no dictionary headword.

Related names

  • 去場 さるば — sar-pa 'the upper part of the reed plain', the ground above the Saru plain at Tomikawa. zenibako_trek2025
  • 看看 かんかん — kankan 'intestines'. Names of this shape occur in several places, all at rivers that meander in tight bends. zenibako_trek2025
  • 遍名古礼 ぺなこり — pena-kor-i 'the place upstream'. Both the Penakori and the Penakore rivers carry the name. It is also the source of the family name of the yukar reciter Kawakami Matsu. zenibako_trek2025
  • 荷負 におい — ni-o-i 'place where there are many trees'. zenibako_trek2025
  • 貫気別 ぬきべつ — nupki-pet 'muddy river'. Nukkibetsu-yama at the Rusutsu resort has the same source, and a Nupkibetsu river runs at Onbetsu in Kushiro. zenibako_trek2025
  • 芽生 めむ — mem 'spring'. The place is now an artificial lake behind the Biratori dam. zenibako_trek2025
  • 長知内 おさちない — o-sat-nay 'river whose mouth dries'. A pattern found all over Hokkaidō, given to rivers whose mouths run dry in low water. zenibako_trek2025
  • 幌毛志 ほろけし — From Horokeshiomappu, poro-kes-oma-p 'the big one at the end'. Also written 幌消末峰. The Tomiuchi line once ran there. zenibako_trek2025
  • 振内 ふれない — hure-nay 'red river'. zenibako_trek2025
  • 仁世宇 にせう — nisey, the landform where both banks of a river rise in cliffs. Niseko is the best-known name built on it. zenibako_trek2025

Sources