Naming the Deity Who Made the Land

Kotan, in Ainu, names a settlement or the inhabited world in the sense a community actually lives in, and kar means to make; Kotan-kar Kamuy is therefore named directly for the act of shaping that world into a place fit for human life, rather than for a domain such as the sea or the mountains that the deity presides over once made. Oral tradition credits this figure with putting the Ainu homeland into its finished order, work distinct from the ongoing provision that kamuy such as Repun Kamuy and Kim-un Kamuy continue to perform within a world already made.

Recorded oral tradition is not uniform on how this creative work relates to the more detailed teaching narratives associated with Okikurmi, the culture hero credited with descending or being sent to instruct the Ainu in the specific skills of hunting, fishing, and craft that make a landscape actually liveable rather than merely present. Some tellings identify Kotan-kar Kamuy directly with Okikurmi, treating the making of the land and the teaching of how to live on it as a single continuous act by one figure; other recorded traditions keep the land-maker and the teacher distinct.