Editing Korpokkur

{{Short description|Race of small people in Ainu folklore}}
{{More citations needed|date=November 2011}}
[[Image:Koro-pok-guru photo 01.jpg|thumb|Wooden Koro-pok-guru dolls]]'''Korpokkur''' ({{langx|ain|コㇿポックㇽ}}; {{langx|ja|コロポックル|translit=Koropokkuru}}),<ref>European studies on Ainu language and culture. Philipp-Franz-von-Siebold-Stiftung. Deutschen Institut für Japanstudien Iudicium-Verl., 1993</ref> also written '''Koro-pok-kuru''',<ref>Alone with the Hairy Ainu: Or, 3800 Miles on a Pack Saddle  Arnold Henry Savage Landor - 1893</ref> '''korobokkuru''', '''korbokkur''', or '''koropokkur''',<ref>Ainu-Grammatik, vol.2 Hans Adalbert Dettmer, O. Harrassowitz, 1997</ref> '''koro-pok-guru''', are a race of [[little people (mythology)]] in folklore of the [[Ainu people]] of the northern Japanese islands.  The name is traditionally analysed as a tripartite compound of ''kor'' ("[[Petasites japonicus|butterbur plant]]"), ''pok'' ("under, below"), and ''kur'' ("person") and interpreted to mean "people below the leaves of the [[Petasites japonicus|Fuki]]" in the [[Ainu language]].

The Ainu believe that the ''korpokkur'' were the people who lived in the Ainu land before the Ainu themselves lived there. They were short of stature, agile, and skilled at fishing. They lived in pits with roofs made from [[butterbur]] leaves. Long ago, the ''korpokkur'' were on good terms with the Ainu, and would send them deer, fish, and other game and exchange goods with them. The little people hated to be seen, however, so they would stealthily make their deliveries under the cover of night.

One day, a young Ainu man decided he wanted to see a ''korpokkur'' for himself, so he waited in ambush by the window where their gifts were usually left. When a ''korpokkur'' came to place something there, the young man grabbed it by the hand and dragged it inside. It turned out to be a beautiful ''korpokkur'' woman, who was so enraged at the young man's rudeness that her people have not been seen since. Their pits, pottery, and stone implements, the Ainu believe, still remain scattered about the landscape.

== Anthropologic and folkloric discussions ==
Some anthropologists of the 19th and 20th centuries believed that the ''korpokkur'' were in fact a "race that predated the Ainu". [[Arnold Henry Savage Landor]] proposed a theory about the indigenous people of [[Hokkaido]], which suggested that the Ainu, migrating from the north, overtook and displaced an earlier population known as the Koro-pok-kuru. He believed the Koro-pok-kuru shared similarities with the [[Eskimo]] people and may have arrived in Yezo from the [[Aleutian Islands]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brinton |first=D. G. |date=1894 |title=Current Notes on Anthropology. No. XL |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1767818 |journal=Science |volume=23 |issue=577 |pages=105 |doi=10.1126/science.ns-23.577.105 |jstor=1767818 |pmid=17793261 |bibcode=1894Sci....23..105B |issn=0036-8075}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Savage Landor |first=Arnold |title=Alone With The Hairy Ainu: Or, 3800 Miles On A Pack Saddle In Yezo And A Cruise To The Kurile Islands |date=23 August 2015 |publisher=Creative Media Partners, LLC |isbn=978-1340053031}}</ref> Allen P. McCartney equated the [[Okhotsk culture]] with the ''Korpokkur''.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=McCartney |first=Allen P. |date=1974 |title=Maritime Adaptations on the North Pacific Rim |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40315809 |journal=Arctic Anthropology |volume=11 |pages=153–162 |jstor=40315809 |issn=0066-6939}}</ref> Early ethnographer Tsuboi Shogoro believed the Koropok-Guru legends pointed to a previous population that the Ainu displaced or even eradicated.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Sand |first=Jordan |date=2009-08-01 |title=Gentlemen's Agreement, 1908: Fragments for a Pacific History |url=https://online.ucpress.edu/representations/article/107/1/91/81581/Gentlemen-s-Agreement-1908-Fragments-for-a-Pacific |journal=Representations |language=en |volume=107 |issue=1 |pages=91–127 |doi=10.1525/rep.2009.107.1.91 |issn=0734-6018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Askew |first=David |date=2002 |title=The Debate on the "Japanese" Race in Imperial Japan : Displacement or Coexistence? |url=https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jrca/3/0/3_KJ00000803568/_article |journal=Japanese Review of Cultural Anthropology |volume=3 |pages=79–96 |doi=10.14890/jrca.3.0_79}}</ref> These conclusions mostly come from misinterpretations of Hokkaido Jomon artifacts (such as pottery, tools, and arrowheads), which were understudied at the time and markedly different from what contemporaneous Ainu used.

Alexander Akulov<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Akulov |first=Alexander |title=The closure of corpok-kur problem or once again on relationship between Jōmon and Ainu |url=https://www.academia.edu/12476156 |journal=Cultural Anthropology and Ethnosemiotics |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=17–31}}</ref> refutes early anthropologists, stating that the pit-dwellings supposedly associated with the pre-Ainu aboriginal people were also built by the Ainu themselves in the [[Kuril Islands|Kurils]] and [[Sakhalin]], an argument also used by [[John Batchelor (missionary)|John Batchelor]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=An Ainu–English–Japanese Dictionary/Chapter I/Section V - Wikisource, the free online library |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Ainu%E2%80%93English%E2%80%93Japanese_Dictionary/Chapter_I/Section_V |access-date=2024-07-01 |website=en.wikisource.org |language=en}}</ref> Based on the evidence presented, Akulov concludes that the Koropok-Guru legend is nothing more than a story. It does not signify a mysterious pre-Ainu race, but rather reflects a traditional Ainu dwelling practice that predates significant Japanese influence. He cites Pozdneyev, arguing that the legend "was spread there where Ainu were already more or less japanized", quoting:<blockquote>Further northward the legend has terminated, in the northern Kuril Islands there nobody knows anything about it, and Ainu of Northern Kurils not only tell that the islands were not inhabited by someone else but insisted that they had lived in these islands since very deep antiquity. Being interrogated about the remains of the Stone Age they confidently responded that these remains belong to their ancestors.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Matveyevich Pozdneyev |first=Dmitriy |url=https://www.prlib.ru/item/330423 |title=МАТЕРИАЛЫ ПО ИСТОРИИ СЕВЕРНОЙ ЯПОНИИ И ЕЕ ОТНОШЕНИЙ К МАТЕРИКУ АЗИИ И РОССИИ. Т. 1. ДАННЫЕ ГЕОГРАФИЧЕСКИЕ И ЭТНОГРАФИЧЕСКИЕ |language=ru}}</ref></blockquote>In his ''Ainu–Englis''h''–Japanese Dictionary,'' John Batchelor says that certain pit-dwellings associated with the ''korpokkur'' were called "''Koropok-un-guru koro chisei kot''" or "''Toi chisei kotcha utara kot chisei kot''", respectively meaning "sites belonging to people who dwelt below ground" and "house sites of people who had earth houses." He arguments that the original meaning of ''Koropok-guru'' was not "people of the Petasites plant" (''Petasites'' being synonymous with butterbur), since ''Koropok''  can only be translated as “under, beneath, below.” The full name would be ''Koropok-un-guru'', “people dwelling below,” ''un'' being a locative particle, which doesn't carry the idea of dwarves or little people. He further argues that, even if "Koropok-guru" literally meant "people under the Petasites" plant, it wouldn't imply dwarfish stature. Batchelor himself, standing nearly 5 ft. 8 in., could comfortably walk and even ride a pony amongst the Petasites leaves. He found it humorous to imagine how tall the people who named the pit-dwellers "dwarves" must have been if they considered movement beneath the plant indicative of short stature.<ref name=":0" />

== See also ==
*[[Epi-Jōmon period|Epi-Jomon]]
*[[Nivkh people]]
*[[Okhotsk culture]]
*[[Little people (mythology)]]

==Further reading==
* {{cite book
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TEFBbXypvhgC
|title=The Koropok-Guru or pit-dwellers of north Japan, and, A critical examination of the nomenclature of Yezo, Volume 19
|year=1904
|author=John Batchelor
|author-link=John Batchelor (missionary)
|publisher=Japan Mail
|location=[[Yokohama]]
|page=18
|access-date=1 March 2012}} (Harvard University) (digitized Jan 20, 2006)
* {{cite book
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SqK3KyhP6Y0C&q=alone+with+the+hairy+ainu
|title=Alone with the Hairy Ainu or, 3,800 Miles on a Pack Saddle in Yezo and a Cruise to the Kurile Islands
|year=2001
|author=Arnold Henry Savage Landor
|publisher=Elibron
|isbn=9781402172656
 }}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://archive.org/details/EncyclopaediaBritannica1911HQDJVU Ainu Entry] from the [[11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica|1911 Encyclopædia Britannica]] which includes a somewhat different interpretation of the koro-pok-guru.

{{Japanese folklore long}}

[[Category:Ainu legendary creatures]]
[[Category:Dwarves (folklore)]]