寿都 すっつ Suttsu
Suttsu, Shiribeshi region, Hokkaidō
Ainu spellings: Sutu, Sut, Supki
Suttsu, Otasutsu and Rusutsu stand close together in Shiribeshi and the last two are read on sut 'base, end'. The received explanation takes Suttsu alone out of that group and derives it from supki 'reed' by way of the Shubuto River and the relocation of the Suttsu basho. The Edo-period spellings of the name are almost uniformly スツヽ or シユツツ, and the single シユフキ belongs to a map whose compiler took the reading from an earlier interpreter's gloss.
Location
42.7910, 140.2290 · Coordinates: OpenStreetMap Nominatim, 2026-09-10, on 寿都町. Open in OpenStreetMap
Referents
- settlement The town of Suttsu. In the Edo period the district west of the Shubuto River, against Otasutsu (歌棄) to the east; the Suttsu unjōya stood at Iwasaki, the present harbour district.
- river The Shubuto River, written スツヽ川 on several Edo-period maps.
- shore The point on Suttsu Bay where the sandy beach ends and the rocky shore begins, facing Otasutsu across the bay.
Analyses
supki-pet
シュㇷ゚キペッ ‘river with the reeds used for arrow shafts’ received readingProponent: 永田方正 (Nagata Hōsei)
The received reading. It runs supki-pet 'reed river' for the present Shubuto River, and takes Suttsu as a worn-down form of it; the town's own pages give スツツヘツ as the intermediate step. supki covers the reeds and miscanthus that grow by water on the plain, and they do grow at the mouth of the Shubuto.
Evidence
- documents
Suttsu was moved: the Ainu living along the Shubuto were relocated to Iwasaki when a fishery was opened at Shuma-terke-ushi, and Sarashina Genzō reports the place name travelling with them and the Shupki basho taking its name from the river.
Objections
- No Edo-period map or record writes スプキベツ. The received reading adds pet to a name that never carried it. Among the maps and itineraries only Matsuura's 東西蝦夷山川地理取調図 writes シユフキ, and it writes it against the river, not the settlement. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
- Suttsu stands next to Otasutsu and near Rusutsu, both built on sut. The step from Supki to Suttsu is left unexplained, and the ki is lost with no account of where it went. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
- Sutsuki (須築) north of Setana carries the same supki reading, so two basho with identical etymologies would have stood on either side of Shimakomaki. The documentary spellings of Sutsuki end firmly in キ, while those of Suttsu do not. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
supki and pet are both dictionary words, and reeds do grow at the river mouth, so the reading is easy on its own terms. It has no documentary spelling behind it: the pet is supplied by the analyst, and the loss of ki is unaccounted for.
supki-tu
シュㇷ゚キトゥ ‘cape of reeds’ proposed- supki ‘reed, miscanthus’
- tu ‘cape, headland’
Proponent: 上原熊次郎 (Uehara Kumajirō)
Uehara, an Ainu-language interpreter, glosses the name 'cape of reeds': シュプ is the reeds and miscanthus, ツ゜ゥ the cape, and reeds grow thickly thereabouts. Matsuura Takeshirō repeated the same account in 1869 when he proposed county names to the new government, writing 「シュプウはシュプキの略言にて萩芦の事也。ツ゜ウは山崎の事也」 and suggesting the characters 芦崎. The two explanations run so close that the author takes Matsuura to have worked from Uehara, which is why the シユフキ of his map records a reading he never heard on the spot.
Objections
- The ground around the mouth of the Shubuto, where the original Suttsu stood, is flat, so a reading built on tu 'cape' is hard to defend. The ki of supki is again unaccounted for. — zenibako_trek zenibako_trek…
supki is a dictionary word; the cape sense of tu is taken from the proponent and no dictionary consulted here carries it. The topography of the river mouth does not support a cape name.
sutu
スツ ‘its end’ proposed- sutu ‘its base, its end (possessive form of sut)’
Proponent: zenibako_trek（小樽銭函地名歴史研究会） (zenibako_trek (Otaru Zenibako Place-Name and History Society))
sut is a locative noun and does not stand alone as a name; the possessive form sutu can be used apart from a preceding noun, and that is the form taken here. The final ッ of ota-sut and ru-sut closes the syllable and is barely pronounced, while the ツ of sutu is open and fully pronounced, which is heard as スッツ. The author suggests, as a possibility, that the difference between the citation form and the possessive form is why the modern names are Suttsu but Rusutsu. What the end belongs to is the sand: Suttsu and Otasutsu sit at the two ends of the beach at the head of Suttsu Bay, with rocky shore outside each of them.
Evidence
- parallel place names
Rusutsu (留寿都) is ru-sut 'the base of the road', the mouth of a mountain path; Otasutsu (歌棄) is ota-sut 'the base of the sand', where the rocky shore running down from Isoya turns to sand just past the Otasutsu banya. At the old Otasutsu there is a stream called シュツシナイ, sut-us-nay 'the stream at the end'.
- documents
Comparison of the spellings for Otasutsu, Suttsu and Sutsuki across the Edo-period maps and itineraries puts Suttsu much closer to Otasutsu than to Sutsuki: drop the ヲタ and the two spellings match, except that Suttsu usually carries one ツ more. The modern ウタスツ against スッツ keeps that difference.
- topography
Seen from above, Suttsu and Otasutsu are the two ends of the beach at the head of the bay. Otasutsu, where the change from rock to sand is the sharper, took the fuller name.
sutu is carried by Tamura as a locative noun in exactly the sense proposed, the form is a single word needing no syntax, and no source raises an objection to it. The referent, the end of the beach, is read off map positions and satellite imagery; no document names it.
Shuptu
‘The line of the mountain foot, or mountain feet’ proposed- Shuptu ‘line of the mountain foot’
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.
Attestations
- スツヽ map Edo period
The usual spelling. 蝦夷海岸山道絵図, 蝦夷全地, 西蝦夷海岸之図, 天保郷帳, 正保日本図 (スツヽヱソ), 絵図面方角道規 all carry it; 伊能図 has シツツ, 間宮図 シエツツ, 津軽一統志 and 元禄郷帳 すつゝ, 松前西東在郷 すつ津. su is pronounced both ス and シュ, so スツツ and シュツツ are the same.
zenibako_trek… 表「江戸時代の地図・里程表より」 - スツヽ document Edo period 再後蝦夷日誌
スツヽ、今訛りてシンツと云へり。
Matsuura Takeshirō stopped at Suttsu in Kōka 3 and Ansei 3. シンツ is a pronunciation recorded nowhere else.
zenibako_trek… - スツヽ document Edo period 西蝦夷日誌
スツヽ運上屋 当所地名はシュマテレケウシにて、スツヽは川の名也。
The place where the unjōya stood was Shuma-terke-ushi; Suttsu was the name of the river.
zenibako_trek… - シツツト document Edo period 辰手控
スツツは人言、夷言シツツトと云よし
Matsuura's own field notebook: スツツ is the Japanese form, シツツト the Ainu one.
zenibako_trek…
Related names
- 歌棄 うたすつ — ota-sut 'the base of the sand'. East of Suttsu across the Shubuto; the rocky shore of Isoya (iso-ya) runs down from the north and turns to sand just past the Otasutsu banya. The Edo-period spellings are ヲタシユツ and ヲタスツ, without the extra ツ that Suttsu carries. zenibako_trek…
- 留寿都 るすつ — ru-sut 'the base of the road', the entrance to a mountain path. zenibako_trek…
- 須築 すつき — A harbour town at the north end of Setana, the Sutsuki basho of the contract-fishery system. It is given the same supki 'reed' reading as Suttsu. Its spellings end firmly in キ and 間宮図 writes シユブキ with the p heard, so supki is possible here; the author raises sotki 'bed' as an alternative and leaves the question open, noting that plant names rarely become place names outright. zenibako_trek…
- 朱太 しゅぶと — The river through Suttsu, called スツヽ川 on several old maps. Reeds and miscanthus do grow in stands at its mouth. zenibako_trek…