Kunne cikap

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 [ja], 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] The Kunnai River (国縫川) also 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"

This is 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 [ja] ("The Festival of the Forest and the Lake", 1957).^[9] Such an explanation recurs in commentary on the poem or the poetess by other commentators.^[10]