Kanna Kamuy

Kanna Kamuy is the Ainu god of thunder, lightning and storm — kanna meaning 'thunder' and 'that which is on high'. He is recorded in flying-dragon form (whence his conflation with the serpent/dragon kamuy), and the lesser storm-kamuy, each riding its own cloud, are reckoned his children. In the common cosmogonic account he accompanies Kamuy Fuchi the hearth-goddess in her descent from heaven and is named among her parents; and the existing corpus already ties him to the culture-hero, whose entry (ainu_okikurmi) records Okikurmi as 'born of thunder-god Kanna-kamuy and the elm spirit'. He is authored here as a deity with no attested divine parent of his own.

Children

• Okikurmi

Domains

• thunder
• storms
• sky

Powers

• Hurl the thunder and lightning across the sky
• Fly across the heavens in the form of a dragon
• Father the lesser storm-kamuy who ride the clouds

Relations

• father of: OkikurmiJohn Batchelor, The Ainu and Their Folk-Lore (1901): the culture-hero born of the thunder-god Kanna-kamuy and the elm spirit (secondary)
• ally: Kamuy FuchiMichael Ashkenazi, Handbook of Japanese Mythology (Oxford, 2003): in the common account Kamuy-huci descends from heaven accompanied by Kanna Kamuy, who is also named among the parents of the fire-goddess (secondary)

Sources

• existence: John Batchelor, The Ainu and Their Folk-Lore (1901) (secondary); John Batchelor, An Ainu–English–Japanese Dictionary (1905), s.v. kanna (secondary); Michael Ashkenazi, Handbook of Japanese Mythology (Oxford University Press, 2003) (secondary)