AKITA
REFLECTIONS
THE HUNTER
In order to acquaint you with the Akita as a courageous
hunter of mountain bear and wild boar, I’ve selected the
following story. It
was printed in "The Akita" circa 1962 and I included in World
Of The Akita (TFH Publishers) because it seems to
accurately describe the way in which the breed performed with
their human partners. Obviously
set in post-war time, it mentions that this is the "old
way" and I feel it's entirely plausible.
It was originally either written or submitted by Emile C.
Schurmacher and is presented unedited.
Barbara J. Andrews
"Driven off their mountain by the rains, the huge
bears had taken over the village. There was only one chance to survive: SO THEY CALLED IN THE AKITAS.
The word had spread swiftly throughout northern Hokkaido on
that day last spring: notify
all owners of Akitas. Their
dogs are urgently needed to drive the great killer bears out of
Muju.
From Teshio and Furebetsu and from as far away as Wakkanai
and Soya they soon began to gather.
Determined little Japanese with bows and arrows, homemade
lances and even a few ancient samurai swords.
Businessmen, merchants, farmers, mechanics.
Until there were more than 50 of them with their dogs.
The dogs were Akitas, an old and native Japanese breed
noted, among many other things, for courage in hunting bear and
wild boar. Big,
sturdy fellows weighing up to 120 lbs.
Some of them appeared to be almost as large as their
owners, massive and muscular, with well-knit frames.
The majority of Akitas were on leads of ordinary chain or
leather. Several
among them had the green-colored leads of aras, companion dogs.
Two of them bore red-colored leads of champions.
Men and dogs stood quietly, awaiting the orders of Kano
Niyaki, captain of the Teshio police.
But for the modern clothes worn by some of the men and the
trucks lining up to carry them to Muju the scene might have been
enacted a thousand years ago.
One thing was certain: not since long before the American
occupation had the Japanese responded so picturesquely to a Yezo
bear emergency.
It was Inomi, the little charcoal burner of Muju, who had
fought his way down the swollen Teshio river with a plea for help
after the coming of the disastrous spring rains.
Two alert Japanese cops found him in the wreckage of his
raft on the river shore several miles above Teshio, more dead than
alive from exhaustion and starvation.
They fed him some rice and tea, his first meal in three
days. They took him
back to headquarters. There
he told his story to Captain Niyaki.
It wasn't only that the people of his little mountain
village were starving, Inomi explained.
That had happened before when the Teshio was in flood and
always, somehow, they had managed to survive.
This time it was different.
Muju was also being menaced by bears.
The great Yezos, largest and fiercest of all Old World
bears, had come down from the mountains after the violence of the
rains made forage scarce. They
could not be driven back. They
stalked through the village in hordes, raiding the storehouses of
everything edible and destroying what they could not eat.
One courageous farmer, Adashi Hukura, had tried to drive a
600-pound Yezo away from his door with a pitchfork.
The bear's sweeping paw brushed aside the pitchfork as if
it were a straw, pulling Adashi toward him.
Long fangs, almost as murderous as a tiger's bit through
Adashi's skull as if it were a ripe melon.
The farmer died instantly.
Four others had been bitten to death by the terrible Yezos.
One youngster had his head and neck almost torn from his
body. Many others were mauled and badly clawed but managed to
escape with their lives. Villagers
either fled or barricaded themselves in their homes.
The bears were in undisputed control of the entire
community.
Captain Niyaki listened as Inomi blurted out his tale of
horror. When it was
finished he stared for a thoughtful moment at the ceiling.
Then he summoned the town council and asked Inomi to repeat
his story. The others
listened, and then they too stared at the ceiling and at one
another. Captain
Niyaki put their perplexity into words:
"We can send supplies to Muju.
But how can we rid the village of the Yezos?
This requires fire arms and since we turned them over to
the Americans, there is not even a small rifle in Teshio.
Nor a shotgun.
"There is a way," suggested Councilman Namura who
owned an Akita. "We can hold a bear drive as was done in the old days.
Our dogs still possess the courage."
So it was that the captain and Namura with Akitas and their
owners came to Muju and formed a long line at the edge of the
village. Captain
Niyaki decided upon the plan of action.
"We must drive the Yezos toward the river," he
pointed out. "If
we let them escape into the mountains they will return to spread
new terror after we are gone."
Namura paired the dogs off in teams, which is the
traditional manner Akitas hunt and fight both bear and boar.
When Captain Niyaki gave the order to advance, the dogs, on
lead started forward at a brisk gait, heads high and alert, long
tails curled over their backs.
On that first drive none of the Akitas was unleashed
although they tugged eagerly on their leads.
The great brown bears with the whitish crescents on their
breasts gave ground immediately before the yelling hunters and
their dogs.
Nine of them, weighing up to 650 pounds, were killed with
hunting arrows. They
died quickly with the many shafts protruding from their bodies
like long porcupine quills. For
many centuries the Japanese have been rated as fairly good
archers, and since the ban on firearms there had been a keen
revival of interest in the sport.
The remaining Yezos, eight in number, bolted hellbent
toward the other end of the village, heading for the safety of the
forests of Japanese cedars and the mountains beyond. They discovered that their retreat had been cut off by a
curving line of men and dogs.
Two bears tried to break through that line.
One of them was met by the spear of a sturdy little man
from Furebetsu named Kurio. It
was a six-foot spear tipped with a needle-pointed, razor edged
foot-length of scrap metal.
Kurio braced his legs and put the head of the spear
adroitly into the white crescent of the rearing Yezo.
Snorting and howling with pain and fury the bear came right
on, impaling himself deeper as Kurio grimly held on.
Suddenly a huge paw lashed out.
It caught Kurio on the shoulder, swatting him to the ground
stunned and bleeding. It
was then that Namura, standing nearby, quickly slipped the lead of
his dog, Fuji.
The big Akita flashed forward, hurdling Kurio as he lunged.
His open jaws snapped shut and his teeth found a deadly
grip in the side of the Yezo's neck.
Caught by surprise, the bear turned away from Kurio, trying
to get at this new menace. Namura
came in at a run and drove his own spear directly into the Yezo's
heart.
The other bear tried to escape through the line past an
archer. Before the
Japanese had a chance to string his bow two Akitas sped by him.
One was owned by a man from Teshio, the other came from
Furebetsu. Although
they had never hunted together before, the Akitas worked as a
superbly coordinated team.
The first dog dashed toward the bear as though he was going
to jump right for its throat. His charge became a feint and he swerved, nipping at the
Yezo's left haunch.
The bear swatted out at him and missed - just as the second
dog silently leaped and held onto the bear's right ear.
The Yezo whirled, roaring with rage.
Again the first Akita came charging, this time directly
head-on. His front
paws shot out, and he braced himself against the Yezo's chest as
he completed his upward leap, his fangs buried in the bear's nose.
Both dogs held on as spearmen closed in on the bear and
quickly killed it.
Pursued by Akitas, the other six Yezos retreated toward the
Teshio river. Two of
them were speedily brought to bay and killed by hunters.
Three more were surrounded on the river bank and went down
fighting. The last
one plunged into the swollen river and, swimming rapidly with the
current, was very soon lost from view.
So the savage Yezos were driven out of Muju with the help
of the Akitas, much as they have been driven out of other villages
of Hokkadio for the past ten centuries."
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