三石 みついし Mitsuishi
Shin-Hidaka, Hidaka region, Hokkaidō
Ainu spellings: Nit-us-i
The Japanese spelling suggests three stones, and the article ties the name instead to the single rock upstream.
Location
42.2468, 142.5735 · Coordinates: OpenStreetMap Nominatim, 2026-09-10, on 三石橋. Open in OpenStreetMap
Referents
- settlement Mitsuishi in Shin-Hidaka, formerly Mitsuishi town
- mountain Hōraisan, the great rock about 2 km up the Mitsuishi River from its mouth, called Imanit, the roasting skewer rock. A torii stands there and the rock can be climbed to the top, where an old shrine and pines stand
Analyses
nit-us-i
ニツウシ ‘place where the skewer rock is’ proposedProponent: zenibako_trek（小樽銭函地名歴史研究会） (zenibako_trek (Otaru Zenibako Place-Name and History Society))
The rock called Imanit is said to be the skewer with which the culture hero Okikurmi speared and roasted a whale, when people did not yet know the use of fire. Traditions in which Okikurmi teaches the roasting skewer and the use of fire are told at Noboribetsu, Biratori and Oshamanbe as well. Tradition says that every plant of Hokkaidō grows on the rock, and the Ainu offered inaw there.
nit and us are dictionary items in the senses used and the rock carries the Ainu name Imanit. The step from Imanit to a name of the shape nit-us-i is the author's.
Pit-ushi
‘The place of pebbles’ proposed- Pit ‘pebble’
- ushi ‘place of’
Proponent: John Batchelor
Batchelor's reading and gloss as printed in 1905; the segmentation is his, and several of its elements answer to no dictionary headword.