雄冬 おふゆ Ofuyu
Ofuyu, Hamamasu, Ishikari, and the boundary with Mashike, Rumoi region, Hokkaidō
Ainu spellings: Ohuy, Uhuy, Ohuy-oma-p
Edo-period records write the name with o throughout and place it at the settlement, from which it passed to a cape. The surveyed maps carry a longer form, Ohuy-omap, north of the present monument, between the Ofuyu and Iwao settlements. Which cape the name belongs to has stayed unsettled since Matsuura predicted a dispute over the boundary.
Location
43.7474, 141.3494 · Coordinates: OpenStreetMap Nominatim, 2026-09-10, on 雄冬. Open in OpenStreetMap
Readings in the place-name tables: ウフイ Uhuy
Referents
- settlement The settlement at Ofuyu harbour, where Edo-period pictorial maps show a rest house, a barn and fishing huts
- cape Ofuyu cape, at the northern end of Ishikari bay, once counted among the three great capes of Hokkaidō. Which cape it names has never been fixed: the Geographical Survey and Google put it at Tanpake, the Imai survey map has the sharp cape by the inlet just beyond the Hamamasu tunnel, and Matsuura's Amenoho Nisshi has Enawo cape, which is still the boundary between Hamamasu and Mashike
- mountain Mt. Ofuyu, written ウフイヌプリ on the Hokkaidō government survey sheet of about 1887
Analyses
uhuy
ウフイ ‘it burns’ received reading- uhuy ‘burn’
Proponent: 山田秀三 (Yamada Hidezō)
Yamada writes in Hokkaidō no Chimei that a large red rock layer is exposed conspicuously in the sea cliff and suggests that the place was called uhuy for that. Drone footage of the cape shows the cliff face vividly red.
Objections
- uhuy is an intransitive verb, and a verb standing alone rarely becomes a place name. A cliff of that colour is usually named more directly, hure-pira 'red cliff'. No Edo-period record writes the name with u. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
The word is a dictionary verb and the red cliff is there; the name as given has no head noun, and the vowel does not match the older spellings.
uhuy-p
ウフイㇷ゚ ‘the place that burns’ received readingProponent: 永田方正 (Nagata Hōsei)
Nagata supplies the formal noun p so that the name has the shape place names take. The Hokkaidō government survey sheet of about 1887 carries Uhuip at the settlement, perhaps reflecting this reading, which has been the received one since, repeated in the Wikipedia article on the cape, which gives both 'uhuy, to burn' and 'uhuy-p, the place that burns'. The burning place is taken to be the cliff at the cape.
Objections
- The u of Uhuip appears in no Edo-period record, where the name is written Ohuy throughout. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
Grammatical, with both parts dictionary items; the vowel of the first syllable is the point at issue, and the article notes that u and o are often confused in place names.
uhuy-nupuri
ウフイヌㇷ゚リ ‘burning mountain’ proposedProponent: 更科源蔵 (Sarashina Genzō)
Sarashina writes that Ofuyu comes from uhuy-p, the thing that burns, given to a place erupting and sending up smoke, and that this is either Mt. Ofuyu or somewhere near Ofuyu that was smoking. uhuy-nupuri is the term for a volcano; Tarumae-zan in Tomakomai is one.
Objections
- There is no active volcano in the Mashike massif or around it and no recent volcanic activity. Volcanism there is dated to roughly 7.2 to 1.8 million years ago, so a place erupting and smoking cannot be said to have existed within the record. The steam at Iwao hot spring is the nearest thing to it. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
Both parts are dictionary words and the compound is the ordinary term for a volcano; the referent required is missing from this coast.
o-puy-oma-p
オプイオマㇷ゚ ‘place where marsh marigold is at the river mouth’ proposedProponent: zenibako_trek（小樽銭函地名歴史研究会） (zenibako_trek (Otaru Zenibako Place-Name and History Society))
puy is the rock hole and also the root of the Ezo marsh marigold, a ranunculus of streams and wet ground whose stems are eaten before flowering and whose root is dug afterwards. Names of the shape Puyusi and Puitausu occur across Hokkaidō at places where the root is dug for food. The author reaches the reading from Buyoshi, the name of a tunnel in the red-rock section and, earlier, of the country inland where the Buyoshi post station stood on the Mashike mountain road; that ground was called Puyusi. He allows that both readings can stand: the burning place has been accepted for two centuries, the cliffs and capes there do look as if they burn, and an original Opuy may have come to be read Uhuy, which then settled as the sense of the name.
Variants
- o-puy-us-i ‘place where marsh marigold grows thickly at the river mouth’ — The other shape the author offers, on the pattern of puy-us-i, the name of the places where the root is dug.
Evidence
- morphological pattern
A name of the shape X-oma-p means 'the place where X is', and X is a noun for a thing. A verb such as uhuy 'burn' does not stand there, so uhuy-oma-p is ungrammatical as it stands. The recorded Ohuy-omap therefore calls for a noun in the first slot.
- documents
Matsuura's Nishi Ezo Nisshi records on the Mashike mountain road: 'the source of Horo-Puyusinai (small stones flowing); named for the many ryūsensō, puy, in this place'. The author asks whether that plant was the marsh marigold, and cites a YAMAP report of marsh marigolds flowering near the water source at Ōbetsukari.
- documents
The Kankokuroku of 1857 states that the settlement was called Ofuyu and that the cape took its name from the settlement, and the surveyed maps carry Ohuy-omap while the older ones leave the cape unnamed. The name is therefore taken to have belonged first to the settlement, then to Enawo cape, and then to the more conspicuous cape further south.
The reading answers the grammatical problem in Ohuy-omap and matches the o of every Edo-period spelling, and the plant name is a dictionary word. The link to the marsh marigold runs through the place name Buyoshi and Matsuura's note on a plant called puy, neither of which names the species; the author himself leaves the burning reading standing beside it.
Attestations
- ヲフイ document 19th century 天之穂日誌（松浦武四郎）
ヲフイ 大焼山の下也。ヲフイは焼ると云事。焼山岬によって号けり。扨当時は惣じて此辺の名をヲフイと云て是より十八丁北なるエナヲサキをヲフイ岬と心得て居ること也。然れどもヲフイと云うは此処、境目とする地は則エナヲサキの事なり。後世恐らくは此境目論所とならん。
Matsuura glosses Ohuy as 'to burn' and reports that people applied the name Ofuyu cape to Enawo cape, eighteen chō to the north, while he holds the boundary point itself to be Enawo cape.
zenibako_trek… - オフイ document 1857 観国録（石川和助）
オフイ岬より七～八町許にて僅に人居を置り。番屋一棟及ひ板倉納屋等あり。此処を「オフイ」と云。岬名 是より得る也。
The settlement carries the name and the cape takes it from the settlement. The same source puts the Tamaki, that is Tanpake, cape and the Ofuyu cape side by side.
zenibako_trek… - ヲフイヲマフ map 19th century 今井測量原図; 伊能大図（ヲヒヨマツフ）; 間宮河川図（ヲヒヲマプ）
The three surveyed maps agree in placing Ohuy-omap north of the Kamuy-apa area, between today's Ofuyu and Iwao settlements, near Kemahure and Torefushi, about 2.5 km north of the Ofuyu cape monument. The Imai map carries both Ohuy-saki and Ohuy-omap, while the older Inō and Mamiya maps leave the cape unnamed, so the settlement name comes first and the cape name after.
zenibako_trek… - Uhuip ウフイプ document Meiji era 北海道蝦夷語地名解（永田方正）
Uhuip ウフイプ 焼ケタル處
zenibako_trek… - ウフイプ / ウフイヌプリ map c. 1887 道庁実測切図20万分の1
The sheet carries Uhuip at the Ofuyu settlement and Uhuy-nupuri at Mt. Ofuyu. No Edo-period record writes Uhuy or Uhuip; the kana spellings there are Ohuy throughout.
zenibako_trek…
Related names
- ケマフレ（赤岩岬） — The red rock cape by the Ofuyu tunnel, read kema-hure 'the leg is red'. The author notes that body words are common in cape names, notu 'chin', etu 'nose', pa 'head', so kema 'leg' may belong with them. Hureshima nearby is hure-suma 'red rock', a name found all over Hokkaidō. The section of sheds north of the cape is where the rock is reddest, which the author offers as the burning place. zenibako_trek…
- 武好 ぶよし — A tunnel name on the coast and, earlier, the country inland where the Buyoshi post station stood on the Mashike mountain road, a three-peak crossing over 1000 m. That ground was called Puyushi, puy-us-i 'place where marsh marigold is plentiful'. zenibako_trek…
- エナヲ岬 — The cape by Ofuyu harbour that Matsuura's Amenoho Nisshi treats as the Ofuyu cape and as the boundary point; it is still the boundary between Hamamasu and Mashike. zenibako_trek…