Akkorokamui (At-kor-kamuy; also Atkorkamui, Adoi-inau, Atuina)

On certain days the water of Uchiura Bay turns the color of blood, and the red climbs upward until the clouds themselves seem stained. The fishermen of southern Hokkaido knew exactly what it meant. Somewhere below them the great octopus had stirred toward the surface, and its body was so enormous and so vivid that the sea could not hold the color in. They turned their boats and rowed for shore. Anyone slow to read the sky might not get a second lesson.

This is Akkorokamui, the lord of the bay the Ainu call Funka, a gulf on the Pacific coast known today as Uchiura. Its name comes from the Ainu words at-kor-kamuy, a kamuy that holds strings, the strings being the long ropy tentacles that trail behind it through the dark water. In Ainu a kamuy is a divine being, close in spirit to the Japanese kami, and Akkorokamui sits among them as both god and terror. People revered it and feared it in the same breath, which is the honest condition of anyone who lives beside a thing that can drown them.

Its size is the first thing every account reaches for, because the size is the whole point. The old tellings put its body at a single chō of farmland flattened out across the waves, roughly a hectare, a hundred meters and more from edge to edge. A man named Itaknep claimed to have watched one rise off Cape Ikori, and he judged it large enough to take a whale whole, the tides all around it bubbling and frothing as if the water were coming to a boil. A ship caught in that froth had little hope. The accounts agree that Akkorokamui could swallow a full sailing vessel of the kind that once carried freight along the coast, and that the only real defense was distance. Its red glow gave that distance away. The same color that announced a god to the heavens also told every sensible crew precisely where not to row.

How such a creature came to be is a question the stories answer more than one way. The most widely told version begins not in the water but in the mountains above the village of Rebunge, where a monstrous spider once lived. Yaushikep, the net-braider, was its name, and one day it came down from the heights and fell upon the village, shaking the ground as it went and grinding homes to splinters. A traveling elder from Shakotan found five survivors hiding in a cave and learned what had happened. He and his son begged the spirits to shrink the spider down to a harmless size, but the task lay beyond even the magical kamuy set to it. So the people turned at last to Repun Kamuy, the god of the open sea, who agreed to take the thing off their hands. He seized the great spider and plunged it down into Funka Bay, and as the water closed over it the legs multiplied and softened and the body went red, and the spider became the octopus. What had been a curse on the land settled into the depths as the curse of the sea.

Another, gentler account gives the octopus an almost tender origin. The god Kotan-kar-kamuy was once wounded by a bear, and his wife rushed to nurse him back to health. When the couple finally returned to the heavens, the goddess found she could not carry up everything she had worn in the earthly world. She slipped off her under-belt, a garment braided from eight separate cords of cloth, the kind worn by highborn Ainu women, and let it fall into the sea. Where it touched the water it turned into Akkorokamui, the strings-holding god. The eight cords became eight arms. It is a quieter story than the rampaging spider, and it explains the same anatomy by a different road.

The octopus was not the only titan in these waters, nor always the cruelest. In the lore of the Ishikari country a giant octopus and a giant bird, the huri kamuy, each claimed to be the mightiest creature alive, one ruling the sea and the other the land. They met at the mouth of the Ishikari River and fought. The bird spread its wings and pecked at the tentacles breaking the surface, straining to haul the octopus up into the air, but the great head never once rose clear of the depths. The octopus wound its arms around the bird and pulled the other way. Neither could move the other. As the bird beat its tail feathers from side to side to keep from being dragged under, it churned the sea so violently that the place took the name Ishikari, and the contest ended where it began, in a stalemate between equals.

Its powers follow plainly from what it is. It is enormous past reckoning, strong enough to overturn a ship and bottle two fishermen inside its kin until they stoke a fire to make the monster spit them out. It is an octopus, which means it does not let go, and the folklore that grew up around it holds that escaping its grip without its leave is very nearly impossible. Later belief, where its worship drifted into Shinto, credited it with the octopus’s gift for casting off a damaged limb and growing it back, and so people brought offerings to it for broken bones, injured arms and legs, ailments of the skin, hoping the creature that could heal itself might heal them too. Its weaknesses are written into the same body. That blazing red is a beacon it cannot dim, and a careful crew can simply leave before it arrives. In the spider story it could be subdued and rehoused only by a stronger god of the sea, never by any human hand. And as a kamuy its goodwill is fickle, given and withdrawn like the tide. No charm has ever been recorded that kills it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Akkorokamui?

Akkorokamui is a gigantic octopus monster from the folklore of the Ainu people of Hokkaido, Japan. It is revered and feared as a sea deity, the lord of Uchiura Bay, and its entire body is a brilliant red.

How big is Akkorokamui?

Akkorokamui is said to reach about one hectare in size, roughly a hundred meters or more across. It is described as large enough to swallow whole ships and even whales in a single gulp.

Where does Akkorokamui live?

Akkorokamui dwells in Uchiura Bay, also called Funka Bay, on the Pacific coast of southern Hokkaido. Sailors traditionally avoid these waters when the sea and sky turn red, the sign that the creature has risen near the surface.

Where did Akkorokamui come from?

The most common Ainu legend says Akkorokamui was once a giant spider named Yaushikep that ravaged the village of Rebunge, until the sea god Repun Kamuy cast it into Funka Bay, where it transformed into the giant octopus. A second story holds that it formed from the braided under-belt a goddess shed into the sea as she returned to the heavens.

Why do people make offerings to Akkorokamui?

Because Akkorokamui is believed to share the octopus’s ability to shed and regrow its limbs, worshippers brought it offerings in the hope of healing broken bones, injured limbs, and skin ailments. As a kamuy it is considered fickle, capable of both blessing and harm.

Related Entries

Kamuy, Koro-pok-guru, Amemasu, Umibōzu, Ikuchi, Isonade, Funayūrei, Ushi-oni, Mizuchi, Tsuchigumo, Jorogumo, Kraken, Lusca, Scylla, Leviathan