Japan: Bears and the Mountain God (Casualties Not Discussed, Only Taboos)
A friend of mine works the front desk at a hot spring inn in Japan's Tohoku region, and last week she sent me one line: "That's the third call today — a guest saw a bear in the parking lot."
Every year from September to November, Japan's bears move down to lower ground. According to the preliminary figures published by Japan's Ministry of the Environment, there were 50,801 bear sightings nationwide in fiscal 2025 (excluding Hokkaido; Kyushu and Okinawa have no bear populations), and the three months of September to November alone accounted for 31,102 of them — 61.2% of the year's total. The explanation offered by research from the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute is this: a bear's autumn staple is nuts such as beech and mizunara oak, and in a bad mast year they push their range all the way into the places where people live looking for food — and these "good years and bad years" often arrive in several prefectures at once.
This article is not about injuries. It is about one thing only: among Japan's old hunters, there are words you do not say before going into the mountains.
Miso Is Not Called Miso
Traditional bear hunters are called matagi (マタギ), found mainly in the Tohoku region (Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Yamagata, Niigata and elsewhere), with the densest records in Akita, Yamagata and Niigata. When they go into the mountains to hunt they use a set of words only their companions understand — yamakotoba, literally "mountain words". According to materials from the Iide Mountain System Sabo Office of Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, about three hundred yamakotoba are known to survive.
A few examples:
| Everyday word | Word in the mountains (examples) |
|---|---|
| Miso | Called "ソツパイ" in the Oguni area, "カイナメ" in Akatani, Niigata, and "サギ" in Nekko, Akita |
| Salt | "カリ" in Oguni; "カリアイ", "サンゴ" and "カラムシ" elsewhere |
| Hunting dog | "セタ", "セッタ", "シエダ" and others, varying by area and by hunting group |
Why change the words? The materials give three layers of explanation: reverence for the mountain god; not wanting alert game to catch the smell of humans; and "rinsing" yourself — swapping out the everyday air you carry in with you. By the same logic, the mountain god is pictured as an ugly woman, so the offering has to be a fish uglier than the god herself (オコゼ, the stargazer), dried into fish jerky and carried into the mountains, to suit her tastes.
After a Bear Is Taken, Say Hello First
The matagi believe the mountain is ruled by the mountain god and that game is a gift from that god. So before skinning and butchering they first perform a rite called kebokai (ケボカイ), led by the group's leader, the shikari (シカリ): salt is scattered, a chant is recited, the bear's soul is handed back to the mountain god, and at the same time they ask — "we return your soul to you; please grant us meat and hide again." The bear's head must face north, and the chant is repeated three times — this is the part recorded in most detail in the Akita materials.
As for how the meat is divided and who gets more or less, the records do not agree from place to place, so we will not settle on one version here.
The Same Ideas in a Language We Know
All of this is a set of very familiar concepts wearing different clothes: direction, timing, taboos, external signs. On choosing direction and timing, Qi Men Dun Jia Basics: Nine Palaces, Four Plates, useful element gives the most systematic treatment; and the question "does what I meet on the way count as an omen?" is handled in Mei Hua Yi Shu: Time, Numbers and External Correspondence, which casts a hexagram directly from the external sign. The difference is that taboos in the Japanese mountains are a code of conduct — you do it first, without asking whether it makes sense; we tend to ask whether it actually works. The former is closer to a safety manual, the latter to an explanatory system.
One practical note to close on: when you go into the mountains, follow the information and guidance published by the local authorities — do not treat folklore as protection. The public guidance from Japan's Ministry of the Environment and from local governments spells out both "avoiding an encounter with a bear" and "what to do if you do meet one" (do not turn your back, do not run, back away slowly; if threatened at close range, protect your head and neck). Follow what the authorities say.
Later I told this story to my friend at the front desk, and her conclusion was very practical: "Then when I go into the mountains, I just won't say anything."
Information current as of 23 September 2026 (China Standard Time).
Sources
- Japan's Ministry of the Environment: Conservation and Management of Wild Birds and Animals (the official gateway for クマ sighting information and the preliminary figures on human casualties) — 50,801 sightings in fiscal 2025 (excluding Hokkaido; Kyushu and Okinawa have no bear populations)
- National Geographic Japan (2026-07-16): bear casualties at a record high, national and local countermeasures stepped up — used to cross-check the number of sightings and the prefectural distribution
- Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Iide Mountain System Sabo Office: cultures of the basin (the distribution of the matagi, mountain-god faith, and about three hundred yamakotoba)
- Akita Prefecture tourism and culture materials: matagi vocabulary and mountain-god faith (how the kebokai rite is performed)
- Google Arts & Culture: "Hunting Bears with Prayer" (the matagi mountain-god faith and the bear-hunting rite, provided by Akita Prefecture)
- HotelBank (2026-09-22): the autumn of 50,801 bear sightings — a trade outlet's month-by-month breakdown and peak distribution, compiled from Ministry of the Environment statistics
- Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute: causes of mass irruptions of the ツキノワグマ (mast abundance and failure) — institution name and conclusion kept as in the main text; that institution's site is unreachable from the current network environment, so no clickable link is given
(Note: the path of the Ministry of the Environment's detailed table page for "bear sighting information (preliminary figures)" changes with the year; the main text keeps the institution's name, and the link points to the Ministry of the Environment's official gateway, "Conservation and Management of Wild Birds and Animals".)
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