Inkarmat

Inkarmat is a wandering Ainu woman who settles for a time in the Kotan (village) at Tomakomai Yufutsu, where she gains a reputation as an extremely accurate fortune-teller.

Her name means “the woman who sees,” highlighting her role as a seer and her strong intuition.

She has a slender, beautiful face and bears the traditional Ainu mouth tattoo around her lips, marking her status and identity as an Ainu woman.

Asirpa teasingly calls her a “deceiving fox,” reflecting both Inkarmat’s allure and the suspicion surrounding her motives.

Although she claims to have known Asirpa’s father Wilk, Asirpa herself has never heard of her from him, which immediately makes Inkarmat a suspicious figure in the eyes of Asirpa and her companions.

Her loyalties and powers are deliberately kept ambiguous, making her one of the more enigmatic characters in Golden Kamuy.

Inkarmat is outwardly calm, composed, and confident in her abilities as a fortune-teller.

She often speaks in a matter-of-fact tone when presenting her predictions, which unnerves others because many of them come true.

She has a playful and seductive side, especially around Saichi Sugimoto, declaring that she likes men with scars on their faces and showing interest in him.

This behavior irritates Asirpa, who worries about Inkarmat’s influence over Sugimoto and about what she might be hiding.

Despite her flirtatious and mysterious demeanor, Inkarmat is capable of deep attachment and loyalty.

Over time, she becomes genuinely devoted to Genjirō Tanigaki, and her concern for Asirpa and Wilk proves to be sincere.

Inkarmat uses several methods of fortune-telling, some rooted in Ainu tradition and some presented as paranormal “second sight.”

This mix creates constant doubt about whether she is truly supernatural or just extremely observant and clever.

She primarily uses:

A white fox skull called Shirakki Kamuy, passed down in her family, to perform divinations.

A form of clairvoyance where she turns her palms upward and “activates” her sixth sense, which she calls “clairvoyance over a thousand leagues.”

Sudden visions or insights that she says “just come to mind.”

However, the story shows that she sometimes meets or observes relevant people beforehand, making it unclear how much is real supernatural power and how much is information gathering and deduction.

This ambiguity is a key part of her character—she exists on the edge between mystic and con artist, and even the narrative does not fully resolve it.

Inkarmat is described as a fine-featured beauty with a slender face, which contributes to her alluring, fox-like image.

She has the traditional Ainu lip tattoo, a dark pattern around the mouth that was customarily worn by Ainu women.

She wears a distinctive garment that once belonged to Wilk’s mother.

Wilk gave this clothes to her when they parted, so he could recognize her if they ever met again, and Inkarmat still wears it as a treasured keepsake.

Her identity as an Ainu woman is central to her motivations.

She repeatedly insists that she wants to reclaim the stolen Ainu gold as an Ainu, and to protect Wilk’s daughter Asirpa.

Inkarmat was an orphan who survived by wandering and telling fortunes from a young age.

When she was roughly Asirpa’s age, she met Wilk in Otaru, and the two traveled together for a time.

She developed romantic feelings for Wilk during their travels.

However, after Wilk met Asirpa’s mother, Inkarmat left him, unable or unwilling to stay by his side in that new situation.

At their parting, Wilk gave her his mother’s traditional garment as a memento and as a way for them to recognize each other if they ever reunited.

Inkarmat told him that her divination said they would never meet again, yet she continued to wear this clothing up to the events of the main story.

Later, when she learned about the Ainu gold robbery incident, she began investigating Wilk’s death.

During this investigation, she encountered Tokushirō Tsurumi, who was in possession of Wilk’s remaining belongings.

Tsurumi told her that Wilk had been killed by Kiroranke during the gold robbery, and that “Noppera-bo” was actually an associate of Kiroranke who knew the location of the hidden gold.

Inkarmat believed this explanation, which shaped her understanding of the situation and her attitude toward Kiroranke and the others.

At Tomakomai’s horse racing track, Inkarmat is taken there by Yoshitake Shiraishi.

During the races, she uses her fortune-telling to correctly predict the winning horses—except for the race in which Kiroranke himself participates.

On the surface, it looks like a display of her supernatural gambling skill.

In reality, her real purpose is investigative: she is using the betting slips and related items to obtain Kiroranke’s fingerprints.

By securing his fingerprints, she hopes to tie him to the Ainu gold robbery and confirm whether he killed Wilk.

This shows her as shrewd and strategic, using her reputation as a seer to mask a very practical, investigative agenda.

Inkarmat repeatedly explains that she is acting for two main reasons.

First, she wants to reclaim the stolen Ainu gold as an Ainu woman, believing it belongs to her people.

Second, she wants to help and protect Asirpa, the daughter of Wilk, whom she once loved.

These motivations drive her to place herself in dangerous situations and entangle herself in the power struggle around the gold.

Before going to Asirpa’s Kotan, Inkarmat receives advice from Tsurumi to make use of Genjirō Tanigaki.

Following this advice, she joins Tanigaki on a journey to find Asirpa, initially treating him as a tool to achieve her goals.

During their travels together, Tanigaki repeatedly saves Inkarmat from danger.

As they share hardships and experiences, Inkarmat begins to feel genuine affection for him.

Over time, their relationship develops into a mutual romance.

This marks a turning point for Inkarmat, as her connection to Tanigaki becomes a major anchor in her life, beyond her past with Wilk.

Later, while under the care of the 7th Division, it is discovered that she is pregnant with Tanigaki’s child.

This leads to her transfer to a hospital in Otaru, where Tanigaki comes to rescue her.

After escaping together, they flee to Asirpa’s Kotan.

There, with the help of Huci and Asirpa’s aunt (the mother of the girl nicknamed Osoma), Inkarmat safely gives birth to their daughter.

Despite her stated intentions, many of the main characters treat Inkarmat cautiously or outright distrust her.

Asirpa, in particular, is wary of her for several reasons.

Asirpa notes that her father never mentioned Inkarmat, even though Inkarmat claims to have known him well.

She also resents that Inkarmat told Huci that one of the trio—Saichi Sugimoto, Yoshitake Shiraishi, or Kiroranke—would betray them, which deeply worried the old woman.

Furthermore, Asirpa learns that Inkarmat initially approached and used Tanigaki under Tsurumi’s guidance.

All of this convinces Asirpa that Inkarmat might be hiding dangerous secrets or working for someone else.

Hyakunosuke Ogata also sees through Inkarmat’s secret contact with Tsurumi.

When confronted, Inkarmat admits she is in touch with Tsurumi but insists that she is merely using him, not truly loyal to him.

This tension—between the help she offers and the doubts about her loyalties—keeps her standing in the group uncertain for a long time.

She exists in a gray area, neither fully trusted nor entirely rejected.

During the attack on Abashiri Prison, Inkarmat’s remarks reveal her inner priorities more clearly.

Despite claiming to act “as an Ainu woman to reclaim the gold,” she shows little real interest in the gold itself.

Instead, she cares most about the safety of Wilk and Asirpa.

Compared with Saichi Sugimoto and Toshizō Hijikata, she appears to place more trust in Tokushirō Tsurumi, believing that aligning with him is the best way to protect the people she cares about.

When the real “Noppera-bo” is revealed as Wilk, he spots Inkarmat through a pair of binoculars.

He recognizes her on sight because she is wearing the heirloom garment he once gave her when they parted as a young girl.

This recognition reaffirms that her past with Wilk is genuine, even if Asirpa never heard of her.

However, it also puts Inkarmat in a tragic position, caught between her old love for Wilk, the dangers of Kiroranke, and her present ties to Tanigaki and Asirpa.

During the Abashiri events, Inkarmat witnesses Kiroranke sending some kind of signal to an unknown party just before Wilk is shot.

This incident heavily reinforces her belief that Kiroranke was involved in Wilk’s death.

Later, she confronts Kiroranke during their attempted escape.

Their argument escalates into a physical struggle, and in the scuffle, Kiroranke’s traditional knife (a makiri) stabs into her abdomen.

Inkarmat deliberately does not remove the knife, intending to preserve it as physical evidence that Kiroranke attacked her.

Because of this, she suffers a severe wound and is left in a critical condition.

She is subsequently treated under the supervision of the 7th Division soldiers.

It is during this period that her pregnancy with Tanigaki’s child is discovered, leading to her transfer to an Otaru hospital and eventually her escape with Tanigaki.

Inkarmat carries a woman’s knife known as a menoko makiri, a type of traditional Ainu knife used by women.

Within the world of the series, this particular knife is modeled on a real item crafted by the sculptor Yukio Fujito from Abashiri District in Hokkaido.

Her most iconic ritual item is the white fox skull, Shirakki Kamuy, inherited from her ancestors.

She uses it in her divinations, reinforcing her image as a seer linked to fox spirits and unseen forces.

She also continuously wears the garment that belonged to Wilk’s mother, given to her when they parted in Otaru.

This piece of clothing serves as a symbol of her unresolved past with Wilk and is the key by which Wilk recognizes her when he sees her again from Abashiri.