鹿部 しかべ Shikabe
Shikabe, Oshima region, Hokkaidō
Ainu spellings: Sikabet, Sikunotpe, Siknopet
Four readings were current before the article: the cork tree, the albatross, Batchelor's cart river and Uehara's carrying place. The nineteenth-century maps and journals attach the name to the Orito River, with Ōnuma at its head; the present Shikabe River carries none of those spellings.
Location
42.0643, 140.7715 · Coordinates: OpenStreetMap Nominatim, 2026-09-10, on 鹿部. Open in OpenStreetMap
Referents
- settlement The town of Shikabe, at the foot of Mt. Komagatake east of Ōnuma
- river The Orito River, written シカヘツ on Matsuura's river map and Shikunotpe / Shukunobe in the other records; its upper course above Ōnuma still carries the name Shukunobe. The present Shikabe River is a smaller stream near the settlement and took the name later
- lake Ōnuma and Konuma in Ōnuma park, upstream of the Orito River; Ōnuma was also called Shikabe-Ōnuma
Analyses
sikerpe
シケルペ ‘place where Amur cork trees are’ received reading- sikerpe ‘Amur cork tree’
Proponent: 鹿部町（町名の由来／鹿部町の概要）
The town's own account: shikerupe means the place where kihada, also called shikoro, grows, a tree valued for inaw, for medicine and for dye, and the name later became Shikabe. It is the reading most often adopted today.
Objections
- A plant name on its own hardly ever becomes a place name. A name built on this tree would take a shape such as sikerpe-tay 'kihada wood' or sikerpe-us-pet 'river where kihada grows', and names of that shape exist elsewhere. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
The tree name is a dictionary word; the analysis offers no head noun and no early spelling with r.
Shikabe
シカベ ‘albatross’ proposed- Shikabe ‘albatross’
Proponent: 『北海道 駅名の起源』
Hokkaidō Ekimei no Kigen states that Ainu shikabe means albatross and that the name was given because albatrosses were numerous. No segmentation is offered.
Given as a bare word gloss with no parts and no landform.
Shikebe
シケベ ‘cart river’ proposed- Shikebe ‘cart river’
Proponent: バチェラー (John Batchelor)
Given in Batchelor's account of how Ainu place names are formed, with the local explanation that the river looks as if it were carrying Sunagawa-dake, the volcano towering beside it.
Reported as a gloss without an Ainu segmentation, so the parts cannot be checked.
sika-un-pe
シカウンペ ‘place that carries something on its back’ proposed- sika-un ‘to carry something on the back’
- pe ‘place’
Proponent: 上原熊次郎 (Uehara Kumajirō)
Uehara writes in Ezochi Chimeikō narabini Ritei-ki: 'Shikabe: the Ainu word is shikaunpe, rendered as the place that carries. Shikaun is to carry a thing on the back, and be means place. This land carries Uchiura-yama, or Shikahe-yama, on its back, and so the name.' The author restates the idea as sike-p 'the thing that carries a load' or sike-un-pe 'place where there is a load', finds the image of Komagatake being carried an appealing one, and notes that he sees few parallels and that the Orito River, nearer the mountain, would suit it well.
The reading names a landmark relation the author accepts as vivid; he reports no parallel names of the same shape, and the river it fits is the Orito, which no longer carries the name.
sikno-pet
シㇰノペッ ‘river filled with water’ proposedProponent: 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 taken to belong to the Orito River, called Shikunotpe and Shikabetsu in the nineteenth-century records and still called Shukunobe above Ōnuma, and the water it names is Ōnuma, drawn by Megata Tatewaki at the end of the Edo period under the title Shikabe-Ōnuma. On this reading the name was later forgotten on the Orito River, moved to the river mouth, and the small stream by the settlement was newly named the Shikabe River. sikno is given as a derived form of sik in Batchelor's dictionary. Shukunobe is otherwise read supun-ot-pe 'place where dace are'.
Variants
- sik-nup-pet ‘river of the water-filled plain’ — With nup dropped the form gives sik-pet 'river filled with water', which the author holds changes the sense little and accounts for the spelling Shikabetsu.
Evidence
- documents
Matsuura's river map writes Shikabetsu at the Orito River with Ōnuma upstream, his Shokō Ezo Nisshi gives the Shikunotpe River the second name Shikabetsu, and Mamiya's river map names the same river Shikunotpe. The name Orito appears in no Edo-period source and is taken to be a Meiji-period renaming, said to come from Japanese ori-to 'the place where one goes down'.
- morphological pattern
If the first element were supun 'dace', the shortening to Shikabetsu would be unexplained, while sik-nup-pet allows the medial nup to drop.
Objections
- Of the simple reading sik-pet 'river filled with water' the author says that a river is generally full of water, and warns against settling a name on a resemblance of sound alone. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
sikno and pet are dictionary words in the senses used, and the identification of the Orito River as the original bearer of the name rests on three independent nineteenth-century records. What the name says of the water is broad enough to fit many rivers, which the author states himself.
Attestations
- シヽヘ / シカヘツ map 19th century 松浦山川図
The map writes シヽヘ at Shikabe and シカヘツ at the present Orito River, with the large Ōnuma drawn upstream.
zenibako_trek… - シユクノツヘ川 / シカベツ document 19th century 初航蝦夷日誌（松浦武四郎）
川幅七八間、歩行渡り。此の傍に温泉有る由。又川上二里にトメの湯と言うも有ると聞けども行かざれば記さず。また此処をばシカベツとも言えり。
zenibako_trek… - シクノッペ map 19th century 間宮河川図
Mamiya's map likewise names the Orito River below Ōnuma Shikunotpe.
zenibako_trek…
Related names
- 宿野辺 しゅくのべ — The upper course of the Orito River above Ōnuma. Read supun-ot-pe 'place where dace are'; the author reads it sikno-pet, or sik-nup-pet 'river of the water-filled plain'. zenibako_trek…