The God of Noboribetsu Hot Springs
To the west of Shiraoi, in the mountain of Noboribetsu Hot Springs and Lake Kuttara, sometimes, a mysterious fire has been seen. This fire was called the fire of the gods—in Ainu, kamuy racchaku. It’s been said that when a terrible disease is spreading, the fire is a divine message from a god trying to warn the villagers. Whenever they received this divine message, the village elders gathered in the village chieftain’s home and conferred. They informed the rest of the villagers and made offerings of grains and fish to the mountain god of Noboribetsu. Carving sacred wooden ritual sticks called inau, they prayed that no one would fall ill.
Long before then, an extraordinarily beautiful daughter was born in Noboribetsu, and her parents loved and raised her as well as anyone could. However, when she was about seven or eight, malignant boils started to appear on her head, and with every passing year, these boils grew more severe, spreading from her head to her face. They tried every method of treatment, but the boils only continued to grow worse. Her parents desperately prayed to the gods, but she could not be cured. Her once-beautiful face became a face no one would want to look at twice.
One day after the girl turned 18, she suddenly disappeared. First her parents, then the rest of the villagers, searched and searched for her, but no one knew where she had gone. The villagers rumored that she was so saddened by her unsightly face that she had hidden herself away from everyone.
However, from the very beginning, this was the work of the gods. The girl had not been sick. Rather, because she was so beautiful, the gods feared that she would be defiled by humans and made her face unsightly in order to protect her. She had then become of age, and so she was summoned to the land of the gods.
This child of the gods returned to the gods’ realm and became a goddess, giving birth to six daughters. The goddess recalled her hardships of being treated as unsightly in the human world long ago, and sent her eldest daughter to become the guardian deity of the hot springs of Noboribetsu, responsible for saving and healing those troubled by sickness. And so Noboribetsu Hot Springs, whose goddess had once suffered from boils, became said to be especially effective in treating skin diseases.
Excerpt translated from: 更科源蔵 アイヌ伝説集より アイヌの伝説 ページ8
Translation note: Inau are shaved-wood sticks often used in Ainu religious rituals. The wood that they’re carved from, their thickness and length, and even the direction that they’re carved can vary depending on which god is being prayed to and what is being prayed for. Depending on the ritual, these inau might be reused multiple times or destroyed after one use.
