아이누 여우 설화에 대한 고찰

Abstract

This study classified types of folktales on foxes in Ainu and examined theircharacteristics to explain the overall aspect of the fox stories in Japan includingregional peculiarity and responsiveness, focusing on 『General Survey and Analysisof Japanese folktales』 which has been considered a representative storybook inmodern times. Based on the relationships between properties of foxes and subjectsof the folktales, a total of 43 folktales were classified as follows: two on‘theorigin'·two on 'gratitude’· four on ‘conflict’· two on ‘revenge’· thirteen on ‘support’·two on ‘holy spirit’· two on ‘fetish’· fifteen on ‘elimination’· four on ‘punishment'. Then, as a result of examining the characteristics based on such classification, itwas discovered that there were common things between the fox folktales in Ainuand those in the Japanese mainland such as a greedy and sly image of foxes, theirability of metamorphosis, and the ambivalent images of gratitude and opposition. Meanwhile, there were differences as follows: First, names to indicate foxes werediverse. Second, unlike other areas where foxes were considered as gods of farming,Ainu considered them as deities guarding national territory and people. Third, exceptthe folktales where foxes were described as having 'holy spirit', they were describedas subjects to be eliminated when they intended to marry men or gods. Some folktaleswritten elsewhere described marriage with different species telling that foxes weremarried to people for gratitude and left after they gave fortunes to them or gavebirth to children with special ability. Fox folktales in Ainu have an intersecting pointin basic images of animal with those written elsewhere, but they have differentaspects and nature in respect to belief on foxes or marriage with different species. It is suggested that such phenomenon was derived from the difference that Ainuwas influenced by hunting and collecting culture, and belief of spirits while theconception of foxes described in the Japanese mainland was influenced by farmingculture and Buddhism.