カムイルオマ かむいるおま Kamuy-ru-oma-i
Iwanai, Shiribeshi region, Hokkaidō
Ainu spellings: Kamuy-ru-oma-i, Kamuy-ru
The name is recorded on the Raiden coast beside, and separately from, Raiden itself.
Referents
- cape Cape Kasupeno, on the Raiden coast. 伊能大図 and 今井測量原図 give exactly the same coordinates for the name, one cape and one bay away from the Yūnai River.
Analyses
kamuy-ru-oma-i
カムイルオマイ ‘place where the god's road is’ proposedProponent: 榊原正文
This coast was known as a hard passage: walking along the shore was next to impossible and the road went inland by way of the hot spring now called Asahi-onsen. On this reading the name was given to a wall of cliff no human could pass, on the view that only the kamuy travel there, and the referent is taken to be the Yūnai River. The source gives no division of the name.
Objections
- 伊能大図 and 今井測量原図 both put the name at Cape Kasupeno, a cape and a bay away from the Yūnai River. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
What the reading turns on is the road: an impassable wall of cliff, placed at the Yūnai River, which the maps contradict.
kamuy-ru-oma-i
カムイルーオマイ ‘place where the god's road is’ proposedProponent: zenibako_trek（小樽銭函地名歴史研究会） (zenibako_trek (Otaru Zenibako Place-Name and History Society))
At the point of Cape Kasupeno an intrusive dyke runs out through the reef as a natural walkway, level enough to walk along and looking man-made until it is examined. At high water the sea would cover the rock on either side and leave the path. The author takes this to be the road the name is for, a landmark that can be seen on the spot. The same structure occurs at the Makitsumi-iwa of Benkei just behind, and again at Yūnai-zaki.
Evidence
- documents
伊能大図 and 今井測量原図 agree on the coordinates, which fall on Cape Kasupeno.
- topography
The dyke at the point forms a continuous walkable ledge through the reef; the author notes that no particular attention has been drawn to it elsewhere.
kamuy, ru and oma are dictionary words in the proposed senses and the phrase is grammatical; the segmentation is shared with the competing reading, so what the grade turns on is the identification of the road, which rests on the author's observation of the dyke.
Attestations
- カモエルヲマ map Edo period 東西蝦夷山川地理取調図zenibako_trek…
- カムイルー ヤマイ document Edo period 西蝦夷日誌
カムイルー ヤマイ（岩平、七町）
zenibako_trek… - カムイルオマ map Edo period 伊能大図
今井測量原図 places it identically.
zenibako_trek…
Related names
- 弁慶の薪積岩 べんけいのまきつみいわ — At Oyakobetsu, a plate of exposed rock of the same intrusive structure. The same dyke shows at Cape Kasupeno, at Yūnai-zaki and at Abushita. zenibako_trek…