御鉾内おむない Omunai

Iwanai, Shiribeshi region, Hokkaidō

Ainu spellings: O-mu-nay, Om-nay

Omunai is where the trading post stood and where the name Iwanai came to rest.

Referents

river One of the four river mouths that once emptied into Iwanai harbour, beside the Horie (or Shibata) River and the Iwanai River. The sources disagree on which of the Omunai and the Iwanai is which, and some reverse them; the Omunai bridge stands over what looks like the eastern Iwanai.
settlement The village of Omunai, the present Bandai in Iwanai, where the unjōya of the Iwanai basho stood.

Analyses

om-nay

オㇺナイ ‘muddy stream’ received reading

Proponent: 永田方正 (Nagata Hōsei)

Nagata heads the entry Om nai and glosses the whole 濁川, without saying what either element contributes.

Confidence: low

The gloss is given without an account of how it is reached, and om in the dictionaries consulted here is the thigh.

zenibako_trek… 「移動地名」に引く『北海道蝦夷語地名解』

o-mu-nay

オムナイ ‘stream whose mouth closes up’ proposed

o ‘its mouth, at the mouth’
mu ‘be blocked, be clogged’
nay ‘stream’

Proponent: zenibako_trek（小樽銭函地名歴史研究会） (zenibako_trek (Otaru Zenibako Place-Name and History Society))

Sand banking up at the mouth would close it from time to time. The eastern Iwanai River loops round in a wide bend, from which the author infers that the ground by the michi-no-eki and the Iwanai bus terminal was a low dune.

Confidence: low

mu and nay are dictionary words in the proposed senses; the o element is not carried in this sense by the dictionaries consulted here, and the referent is inferred from the shape of the old channels.

zenibako_trek… 「岩内市街の現在の川」田村1996 mu ム【自動】つまる、通る孔がふさがる

Attestations

オㇺナイ dictionary Meiji era 北海道蝦夷語地名解

Om nai オㇺナイ　濁川　今御鉾内オムナイ村と云ふ。曾て岩内運上屋の在りし處なれば、此處を岩内場所と称したり。

zenibako_trek…

Related names

野束川のつかがわ — The river that now drains the Iwanai town area, with its tributaries. On the 西蝦夷道中見取図 the largest peak carries the name ノツカ山, which the author takes for the head mountain of the Notsuka. In earlier times the Notsuka and Iwanai systems were separate, the Unjōya River and the Pon-Iwanai belonging to the latter. zenibako_trek…
岩内いわない — Nagata records that the post here was called the Iwanai unjōya and not the Omunai one because the Ainu of this basho came from Iwaonai. zenibako_trek…

Sources

zenibako_trek… 田村1996