アイヌ期の日本社会との「交易品」のひとつとして「熊の胆〜くまのい」がある。熊の胆汁(胆嚢）を乾燥した。熊の「胆のう」。 胆のうの中に入っている結晶を細かく砕いて服用する。 胆汁酸代謝物のタウロウルソデオキシコール酸が主成分だと。
獣胆を古代より使用することは西域（ギリシア、インド、サラセン）に見られ、唐代に西域の医薬品が伝来したことを想定されるという。唐・宋代を経て漸次丸薬などの製剤に配合されるようになった。熊胆の効果は利胆作用で胆汁酸の肝内濃度上昇と胆汁流量が増加。肝細胞に作用して胆汁分泌を促進する催胆作用と、肝内細胆管から総胆管へと胆汁を押し流す排胆作用がある。
日本では飛鳥時代から利用され江戸時代初期に「クマノイ」として頻繁に使用され、特に配置薬製剤には欠くことのできないものとなった。いかにも滋養強壮の「生薬」。
北海道島で狩猟を生業とした生存戦略を立てていくとすれば、大型成獣であるヒグマとも常に接触があり得るだろう。鉄砲などの殺傷能力の高い武器ではなく、さまざまな石器を利用した矢や槍などで狩猟したとすれば、かなり危険の伴う生業だっただろう。ジオラマのような接近遭遇では矢ではほぼ対応はムリのように思える。アイヌのヒグマへのリスペクトの文化習慣は、そういう狩猟の困難の表現でもあるように思う。


つい先日も千歳空港から自宅への帰り道、クルマを運転して高速道路に乗ろうとしたところでエゾシカの一群と遭遇した。まぁ数匹だったので、特段の困難はなかったけれど、住宅取材で北海道中を走り回っていた頃、摩周湖反で大群と遭遇したこともある。たまたま一定の距離があったので危険はなかったけれど、野生との突然の遭遇は独特の体験感。かれらの群としての圧倒的な生命感が不思議と「静寂」のなかで脳裏に刻み込まれてくるのですね。
やはり神々しい空気感が全身に一気にやってくる。血が騒ぐ、というような表現がふさわしい。野生動物の瞳のまことに真剣な表情の美しさには、なにか、お互いを認め合うものが存在する。こちら側も一個の野生動物として、神聖な対手としてかれらを見る瞬間が襲ってくる。そは本能に導かれる世界とでも呼べるのだろうか。たぶんそういうこころはなにか大切なことのように思う。
農耕を基盤とした社会は精緻な計算の世界だけれど、狩猟採集の社会にはまったく異次元の価値感体系がそこに存在しているのでしょう。美しい世界と深く思わされる。

English version⬇

The Divine World of Hunting: Exploring the Sapporo “Scrub Artifact” Ruins – 4
Close encounters with the wild teach us a world of empathy with their hearts. It is a world of power that uses everything, and a world of deep beauty. The world of beauty.

One of the “trade goods” with Japanese society during the Ainu period is “bear’s bile – kuma-no-i. Dried bear bile (gall bladder). Bear’s “gall bladder”. The crystals in the gall bladder are broken into small pieces and taken. The main ingredient is tauroursodeoxycholic acid, a bile acid metabolite.
The use of animal gall since ancient times is found in the West (Greece, India, and Saracen), and it is assumed that medicines from the West were introduced during the Tang dynasty. It was gradually added to pills and other preparations during the Tang and Song dynasties. Xiong gall’s effects include an increase in the hepatic concentration of bile acids and bile flow through its diuretic action. It has a stimulant effect, acting on hepatocytes to promote bile secretion, and a cholecystokinin effect, pushing bile through the intrahepatic bile ducts to the common bile duct.
In Japan, it has been used since the Asuka period (710-794) and was frequently used as “kumanoi” in the early Edo period (1603-1868), and it became an indispensable ingredient in medicinal preparations. It is a very nourishing and tonic “crude drug.
If hunting is to be a viable survival strategy on Hokkaido Island, there will always be contact with brown bears, which are large adult animals. Hunting with arrows and spears made from various stone tools, rather than guns and other lethal weapons, would have been a very dangerous occupation. In a close encounter such as the one in the diorama, it seems almost impossible to respond with arrows. The Ainu cultural custom of respecting the brown bear seems to be an expression of the difficulties of hunting.

Just the other day, on my way home from Chitose Airport, I encountered a herd of Ezo sika deer as I was driving my car to get on the highway. Well, it was only a few deer, so there was no particular difficulty, but when I was driving around Hokkaido covering housing, I once encountered a large herd of them at Lake Mashu. It happened to be a certain distance away, so there was no danger, but a sudden encounter with the wild was a unique experience. The overwhelming sense of life of the swarm was strangely etched into my mind in the “silence.
The divine atmosphere comes to your whole body at once. It is aptly described as “blood rushing. In the beauty of the serious expression in the eyes of wild animals, there is something that makes us recognize each other. There comes a moment when we, as wild animals, see them as our sacred counterparts. It is a world guided by instinct. Perhaps such a spirit is something important.
A society based on agriculture is a world of elaborate calculations, but a hunter-gatherer society must have a completely different system of values. It is a beautiful world, and I am deeply impressed by it.

Posted on 12月 9th, 2023 by 三木 奎吾
Filed under: 住宅マーケティング, 日本社会・文化研究