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Amemasu (雨鱒) orŌ-amemasu (大アメマス) (raintrout) is a giant whale- or fish-like creature fromAinufolklore. Some of the largestamemasu are said to live inLake Mashū andLake Shikotsu inHokkaidō, with smaller ones inhabiting lakes throughout northern areas ofHonshu. Theamemasu are known for capsizingboats, creating earthquakes, and causing other natural disasters.
Anamemasu is able to take on a human appearance, usually of a beautiful woman, in order to lure young men to their deaths. The skin of anamemasu is said to be cold and clammy, much like fish skin, which is how they can be identified when they are in human form.[1]
The inhabitants ofHokkaido believed that largeamemasu held up the Earth. Sometimes, the fish would get tired and this could cause earthquakes, similar to theNamazu.[2]
InAkita Prefecture, there is a place calledAmemasu Otoshi (アメ鱒落し). Legend says that theamemasu was so powerful, that it was able to kill a hawk, even though it died in the end.[3]
There is an island in the middle ofLake Kussharo in Hokkaido. The lake is said to be home to a largeamemasu, whose head resembled a rock and whose tail stretched to theKushiro River. An Ainu hero, Otashitonkuru, took a harpoon, determined to poke out the eyes of theamemasu. However, the fish started fighting back. Desperate to hold on to the harpoon, Otashitonkuru held on to a rock and the strugglingamemasu pulled so hard that the rock became the island in the middle of the lake.[4][5]
In one tale, theamemasu swallows a deer that has come down to the lake to drink, but the deer's antler tears open the great fish's belly and kills it. Theamemasu's enormous corpse then blocks up the lake and puts it in danger of flooding. A god in the form of a bird warns the people in villages nearby. The villagers upstream escape to higher ground, but the people downstream, not believing the bird, find theamemasu's body and drag it out of the lake, after which the water comes rushing out with such force that everything downriver is washed away. That area is now the flat Konsengen'ya plain.[citation needed]
Amemasu is also a name given to the white-spottedchar,Salvelinus leucomaenis.[6]
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