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confined to a narrow bed. In appearance it is the perfection of a fly fisher’s river, but I understood the people to tell me that few or no salmon ascend these upper waters. Its course is pretty direct, and it has numerous small feeders. Before reaching Numakunai what is really its largest branch is crossed coming from the eastward, but the Japanese consider the direct North branch the main river, and so venerate it as the Northern God or Kami. As near as possible to its source they have erected a temple called Mioo-o-kanon, which one passes on the road four or five miles above Numakunai. There are some large cedar trees alongside this temple, but the building seems to be kept in but poor repair. As to the name of this river, the character by which it is now represented in Japanese means, I am informed, “Northern Source,” but a Japanese friend of mine has discovered that it was not so written in former times, but then represented “Northern God.” Discussions so frequently arise on such points that I have thought it proper to give the authority on which I base the more poetic translation of Kita-kami. Why it should have been considered as a god is, I think, not difficult of explanation, from the fact that in ancient times when the Ainos—now restricted to Yezo and its outlying islands—were in undisturbed possession of this part of the country, they probably venerated it as the source of their principal sustenance, fish; while later the Japanese being dependent on its waters for irrigating their rice fields, and us a highway of transport, would naturally adopt such a superstition. For, as I have said before, this river has a direct course from North to South of at least one hundred geographical miles, exclusive of its windings, along which whole distance its banks are thickly settled by an industrious population. It is probable however that the Japanese gradually invaded and settled this valley from the Southward, and its source was probably for generations unknown to them. Seeing such a constant stream of water coming from where they could not tell, it was but natural in a country like Japan, where rivers of large volume are exceptional, that they should venerate this fertilizing source.
