Abuta

Abuta lies on the forested hills and coastal lowlands of Iburi in southern Hokkaido. Its Ainu name is commonly connected with Ap-ta-pet, a river where fishhooks were made. That name places the settlement within a landscape of rivers, fisheries and volcanic mountains rather than the open plains of the Japanese mainland.

Ainu communities fished for salmon and other river species, hunted in the forests and moved between seasonal camps. By 1722, the Matsumae domain listed an Abuta trading place on the east Ezo frontier. It traded with Ainu communities, while local people supplied fish and other products through a system controlled by Japanese merchants.

The region remained difficult to cross until paths were opened through the steep coast and mountain passes in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. An eruption of Usu in 1822 destroyed the Abuta settlement with pyroclastic flows and killed many people, while also striking the domain’s horse pastures. The place therefore grew from an Ainu river settlement and trade site into a precarious road and grazing district.