堀株 ほりかっぷ Horikappu
Kyōwa and Tomari, Shiribeshi region, Hokkaidō
Ainu spellings: Horka-p
The Horikappu is the salmon river of the Iwanai plain. The Ainu of Shiribuka fished it, and Japanese interest shifted from salmon to herring, which took the centre of the district to Omunai and the harbour there.
Location
43.0702, 140.5423 · Coordinates: OpenStreetMap Nominatim, 2026-09-10, on 堀株村. Open in OpenStreetMap
Referents
- river The Horikappu River, which drains almost the whole Iwanai plain. Before Meiji it was called the Shiribuka. Going up it and turning left at Penke-shimatsukenai (Shimatsukenai) gives the road over the Inaho pass to Yoichi, a route between Yoichi and Iwanai from early times.
- settlement The district at the river mouth, by the Horikappu harbour. Ainu-period sites lie there.
Analyses
horka-p
ホㇿカㇷ゚ ‘the place that doubles back’ received readingProponent: zenibako_trek（小樽銭函地名歴史研究会） (zenibako_trek (Otaru Zenibako Place-Name and History Society))
The name is for the stretch near the mouth where the river made a large meander. The old channel and the dunes at the mouth are still traceable.
horka and the nominalizing -p are both carried in the proposed senses. The referent, the meander at the mouth, is read from the landform.
Related names
- 尻深 しりぶか — The older name of the same river and of the district. zenibako_trek…
- 幌似 ほろに — Midway up the river, by the Kyōwa town office and the former Horoni station; poro-ichan 'large salmon spawning bed', worn down. Salmon were taken there in quantity, and a Japanese otesakuba was laid out. 志利辺津日誌 records フシココタン nearby: 「此所昔人家有し由なり、今はなし。」 zenibako_trek…
- 島付内 しまつけない — At the Kunitomi crossroads on the Yoichi mountain road; a bamboo-grass hut stood there, where people coming down from the hills in spring spent a night. The name is glossed 'the sideways stream'. zenibako_trek…
- 茶津 ちゃつ — casi 'stockade'. Inside the grounds of the Tomari nuclear plant. The great chief Kannekuruma of the Kanbun years, who commanded the Ainu from Cape Raiden to Furubira, had his stockade here; the Ainu also told that it was 義経様の城跡. zenibako_trek…