Folk Legends of Japan (26 page)

Text from
Too Ibun,
pp. 133-38.

T
HERE WAS
a wrestler named Yokoguruma Daihachi who was born in Gojonome-machi in Minami Akita-gun. According to the local tradition, this man was the strongest wrestler in Japan, but as he was born in a poor family, he took service in a certain rich house in the vicinity. One day he was ordered by his master to carry the rice to be paid as land tax to the lord in the town of Akita. He started off pulling a cart full of rice, and when he came to the slope near the castle he felt too tired to go any further. He stood in the middle of the slope holding the shafts, pale-faced, sweating, and out of breath.

A little child had been walking along the path beside the cart. When he saw Daihachi stand still in the middle of the road, he mocked him: "What a weak fellow you are!" Daihachi was angered. "You naughty boy! If you say such a thing, pull this cart yourself."

The boy said: "I can pull ten such carts at a time. I will show you how." And putting his little finger on the shaft, he pulled the cart up the slope as if it were completely empty. Taken by surprise, Daihachi thought this was no ordinary child and politely asked him his name.

Then the boy said: "Listen to me, Daihachi. Because you are proud of your strength you always go in the wrestling matches at festival time. But you must not be satisfied with such a small accomplishment. If you want really great strength, come secretly at night to Mt. Taihei where I am." At those words Daihachi knew that the boy was actually the famous deity Sankichi. And he threw himself at the feet of the child, who forthwith disappeared.

Subsequently Daihachi went to Mt. Taihei at midnight and stayed in the Sankichi Shrine for seven days and nights, praying to the god. But no sign of the god appeared to him. On the seventh night when he began to feel doubts and was unable to stand the piercing cold, he saw a young woman with a baby at her bosom come to the front of the shrine and worship earnestly. Daihachi watched her, wondering how and why she came there on such a cold night. The woman stood up and asked him to hold the baby for a while. Daihachi willingly received the baby. The woman went away somewhere and did not soon return. While Daihachi was holding the baby in his arms, strangely the baby grew heavier and heavier. Finally, as it became too heavy to hold, Daihachi supported it on his knees. Then he felt as if his knees were broken. But Daihachi endured the pain with all his might. His face reddened all over, sweat ran down his forehead, and he clenched his teeth grimly. He tried with all his strength not to be overwhelmed by the baby, but at last he could no longer bear the pressure.

At that moment the woman came back and thanked him, saying: "I am sorry to have kept you waiting for such a long time." She took the baby effortlessly from Daihachi and stood up straight before him. Suddenly a bright light issued from the bodies of the mother and child and shone all around. Amid the brilliance of the light she announced aloud: "Daihachi, listen to me. I am the highest protecting god of this region, Sankichi Daimyojin. You have well endured the trial of holding this baby. I will give you strength to do that. It will be boundless strength."

Daihachi impulsively threw himself at the feet of the god and gave thanks to her. When he looked up to see her again, her figure had vanished. The next morning when Daihachi stepped out of the shrine onto the bare ground, his feet sank into the earth from the weight of his strength.

Afterwards, he came up to Edo and became the strongest wrestler of that time.

THE MIGHTY WRESTLER USODAGAWA

A close text is in Yanagita-Mayer,
Japanese Folk Tales,
pp. 260-61, no. 89, "The Wrestler from Awa and the Wrestler of Kumano." Their preceding tale, no. 88, p. 259, also deals with a strong man, "Fujinuki Kinai," who points out his own home to a samurai seeking a contest with Kinai by raising up a Chinese plow and horse. Discouraged at this strength in a mere servant of Kinai, as he thinks, the samurai hastily leaves. This strong-man motif is universal, and I have heard it from American college students who say that Minnesota's football coach would recruit husky farm lads who pointed directions by lifting a plow. In the present tradition the mother of the strong man overawes the challenger by lifting a great weight. Pertinent motifs are F617, "Mighty wrestler," reported only from Africa, and F631, "Strong man carries giant load."

Text from
Muro Kohi Shu,
pp. 54-55.

O
N THE PASS
which leads to Tagawa in Inari-mura there lived long ago a wrestler called Usodagawa. His strength was immeasurable, and he was said to be the strongest man in Japan. In those days there was also a strong wrestler at Awa in Shikoku. No one in the neighboring districts could equal him in strength. That man came to visit Usodagawa to have a match with him and to gain for himself the reputation of being the strongest man in Japan. When he arrived, Usodagawa was away from home gathering firewood, and his mother met the wrestler from Awa. She carried a big brazier in one hand, and she told him to wait for her son to come back from the mountain. She said that she would be able to tell when her son was returning because he would be carrying a heap of firewood on his back and it would cut off the sunlight. The wrestler from Awa tried to move the brazier which the old woman had held with one hand, but it was too heavy for him to move. In a short time it became dark and Usodagawa appeared with a heap of wood on his back.

The wrestler from Awa thought it was beyond his power to defeat him. But as he had come on purpose to have a match with Usodagawa, he agreed to wrestle him on the bank of the river called Egawa in Tanabe-machi. The wrestler from Awa put on a very thick loincloth, and Usodagawa crushed a bamboo stick and used it as his waistband. Usodagawa grasped the wrestler from Awa with his hands and, lifting him on high, asked: "Heaven or earth?" The wrestler from Awa answered: "Earth." And he was thrown down into the sand.

The wrestler from Awa went back to his country, but before going he secretly prayed to the shrine in Tanabe at night that there might never be another strong wrestler like Usodagawa in Tanabe. He presented a couple of stone lanterns to the shrine.

Those lanterns are still at the shrine.

NASU KOZAHARA THE STRONG MAN

While local legends like the present embodying Motifs F632, "Mighty eater," and F624.2, "Strong man lifts large stone," are universal, the Japanese form characteristically associates the strong man with a god. In chapter 24 on "Figures Prominent in Oral Tradition," in Yanagita,
Mountain Village life,
the statement is made that most villages investigated had legends of strong men and heavy eaters.

Text from
Bungo Densetsu Shu,
pp. 24-25. Told by Shika Hori.

L
ONG AGO
there lived a man named Nasu Kozahara at Fuchi, Shonaimura, Oita-gun. He was a very strong man and his name was known to all the villagers. They said of him that he must be possessed by a god.

Once there was a trial opened in the town of Hida. Nasu Kozahara had to go to stay there for seven days. In the morning before he set out for Hida, he ate all the rice cooked in a big pot and crammed himself with food for seven days all at one time. Having done so, he spent seven days without eating anything. Such was his marvelous capacity.

On another occasion he needed a stone and went out to look for a suitable one. He found a stone about two feet wide and four yards long which filled his need. He picked up another stone one and a half feet square which lay by the big stone, and put it in his sleeve. Then he easily lifted the big stone in his arms and set out for his home. The landowner, who saw him carrying the stone away, grew very angry and ran after him. Nasu Kozahara ran away as fast as he could, carrying the big stone in his arms. He ran on and on almost four miles, when he became a little tired. So he threw away the big stone. It still remains standing erect in the same position it landed in when it was thrown away. The smaller stone which he put in his sleeve was used as the tombstone for Nasu himself.

PART SIX

CHOJAS

A RICH peasant is called a
choja
and a story about such a person is a
chojatan.
The general theme of such stories concerns an impoverished rice farmer's rise to riches or the decline in fortune of an arrogant wealthy villager. In a society where an insurmountable boundary divided the warrior-samurai from the peasant class, we might expect such wish-fulfillment tales of sudden shifts in status. There is, however, another, Buddhistic element here, the conception of change in the stream of life, from high station to low and from low to high, a conception to humble the lofty and reprove the fainthearted. The Buddhist terms for this idea are
mujo
(impermanence) and
ruten
(trans-migration). A curious but close relationship links
chojatan
to Buddhism. Buddhist monks compiled folk tales, especially
choja
legends connected with blacksmiths or charcoal makers; the most famous
chojatan
deals with a charcoal maker who became wealthy. Before charcoal was used in braziers for heating, blacksmiths were the principal utilizers of charcoal, and in their work frequently moved from one isolated mountain village to another, as did the monks. These blacksmiths were carriers of tales, which they transmitted from generation to generation, and transported from village to village. They were much influenced by popular Buddhism, sometimes fashioning bronze Buddhist statues and even becoming lower-class Buddhist priests. In mountain districts where monk and charcoal maker met, nature also contributed to
chojatan,
with natural formations in the rocks readily interpreted as the remains of houses of legendary
choja.
And yet, while the
choja
is a particularly Japanese figure, familiar European tales turn up as
chojatan,for
dreams and envy of riches are universal.

THE CHARCOAL BURNER WHO BECAME A CHOJA

This is an oft-told legend localized in different prefectures to which the noble lady from Kyoto travels in obedience to a dream, oracle, or fortuneteller. Variants are in Murai,pp. 15-17, "Kaneuri Kichiji"; Suzuki, pp. 24-26, "Kichiji, the Charcoal Burner"; Yanagita-Mayer,
Japanese Folk Tales,
pp. 143-45, no. 48, "Kogoro, the Charcoal Maker." Sometimes this tale is combined with another which tells of the origin of the hearth deity. In his study of the legend Professor Yanagita thought it connected with the guild of foot-bellows workers and their belief in the god Hachiman.

Text from
Tosa no Densetsu,
II, pp. 1-7.

Note:
Hatsu-uma,
an annual festival honoring Inari, the god of vegetables and grains.

I
F YOU GO
about eight miles up the Kamo River as it runs through Ushirogawa Village (now included in the city of Nakamura), situated in the northeast part of the township of Nakamura in Hata-gun, you will find about a hundred farmhouses scattered here and there in deep valleys and mountains. These houses form the two lonely villages of Naka Kamogawa and Oku Kamogawa. Some of the villagers there still believe that their ancestor was that noted strong man, Asahina Yoshide Saburo, who rang the Unringable Bell of Shitenno Temple in Osaka for seven days and nights; and there are still many families whose surname is Asahina.

If you cross the stream at a neat elementary school which stands in the valley of Naka Kamogawa and climb a mountain path about a mile beyond, you will find the small shrine named Tokiwa. This is known throughout Hata-gun as Sumi-no-kura-sama [Charcoal Treasury Shrine]. It stands on a hillside which commands the view of lofty Mt. Shiraishi beyond a deep valley to the north. On the festival day of Hatsu-uma in February of the old calendar several thousand people from not only Nakamura but from Shimoda, Irino, and far western Sukumo come to worship at this shrine. If they take home with them pieces of charcoal from the precinct of the shrine and from a rock cave behind it, and offer them on their household altars, good luck will attend them, so they say. Concerning the origin of this belief the following legend is still told.