Kunne cikap

Kunne cikap (lit. "black bird") is a mythical bird in Ainu tradition.

According to tradition The kunne cikap (black bird) was the monstrous bird of the Kunne pe (Black River) in the northern parts subjugated by the hero Ponyaunpe, while the hure cicap (red bird) was the monstrous bird of the Hure kenas (Red Forest).^[1]

As for the said Black River, there is a village by the name of Kunnai (国縫/クンナイ) in Yamakoshi District, Hokkaido, about which onomastic folklore exists that connects it to the Red Bird (hure),^[5] There is also the Kunnai River (国縫川) which flows through the village.^[6]

Yaeko Batchelor mentions the Black Bird[s] in a waka (poem) which reads:

"Ainu child, in you lives on the blood you shed, why fear the kunne cicap-po^[8] and the rest ウタリの子に 君流せし血 生きてあり などか恐れむクンネチカッポ等"

included in her anthology For the Young Ainu (若きウタリに, Wakaki utari ni) (1931). The bird, here called kunne cicap-po symbolizes false images and evil according to literary commentators.^[7] This kunne cicap-po is also explained to be "black birds that flock together and peck at cadavers,.. yōkai birds (yōchō)"^[a] in Taijun Takeda's novel Mori to mizuumi no matsuri ("The Festival of the Forest and the Lake", 1957),^[9] and such an explanation recurs in commentary on the poem or the poetess by other commentators.^[10]

• List of legendary creatures from Japan