Folk Legends of Japan (3 page)

In closely knit communities a legend lives on through constant repetition. This repeated telling of the legend over the generations insures its folklore quality. For even if a story begins immediately after some remarkable happening, in a form fairly close to the facts, it will assume ever more fantastic hues over the years. The Icelandic sagas were first told in the eleventh century by professional saga-men as factual histories of the great chieftains, but when they were finally written down two centuries later, many floating folklore themes and tales had slipped into the narratives. There is indeed one group of scholars who contend that after 150 years of unbroken oral tradition not a vestige of historical truth remains. In more recent times some check is provided on the fanciful growth of oral legends through printed versions, which help to stabilize their form in a local history or topography, or traveler's report. So long as the legend continues to be told, whether or not it has seeped into print, we can call it a "folk legend." If some scribe wrote down the story in an earlier day with stylistic embellishments, in a manner no longer to be found on the lips of the people, we may call such a form a "literary legend." The classic documents of Japanese historical literature, the Kojiki and the Nihongi, contain literary legends of this sort. Or a contemporary writer may select a legendary theme as a basis for his own inventive additions, and this too is a literary legend. While in Japan I met an English couple who were preparing a book of Japanese "legends" for a series of volumes on legends of all lands being issued by a distinguished publishing house, and they planned to elaborate upon themes in the Kojiki and the Nihongi according to their own imaginative fancy. Such a volume may well prove entertaining, but its contents will bear no resemblance to the word-of-mouth traditions of Japanese villagers.

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We may now return to the question of why Japan possesses such an abundance of folk legends. All the elements favoring the creation of folk legendry coalesce in the Land of the Rising Sun. A stationary people have lived in their village communities since the dawn of history. No frontier march has drawn the population toward virgin land, save for the late nineteenth-century push to Hokkaido—and some Japanese today speak slightingly of Hokkaido in contrast to the "real Japan." No colonial empire has sucked out the people to foreign shores, except for the abortive expansion that ended in 1945. For three centuries, by imperial decree, no Japanese could leave nor foreigner enter the home-land. As a national boundary ringed in the islands, so did a village boundary fence in each
mura,
a formidable barrier erected by folk belief, which increased the natural isolation of mountain fastness and sequestered isle. Beyond the village boundary lay an unknown outside world beset with danger and mystery. Each returning villager purified himself with proper ritual when he recrossed the
mura's
edge. Dwellers in each farm village worshiped their own local deity, of whom indeed they all regarded themselves as descendants. Hence each
mura
possessed a powerful sense of its own individuality and tradition. Still, travelers and strangers crossed the boundary from time to time—itinerant monks, singing priestesses, woodworkers, peddlers, performers, blind musicians, tax collectors from the daimyo—bringing with them hearsay and traditions which easily adapted themselves to new homes. In spite of the tight clannish organization of the village society, one can find an identical legend scattered in fifty or a hundred
mura
the length and breadth of Japan.

The rice farmers or deep-sea fishermen and their families, living compactly in each hamlet, furnished the human reservoirs for the storing up of legends. An ancient history extending back into mythical origins presented a panorama of stirring events from which legends sprouted. From southern Kyushu to northern Aomori one hears of settlements founded by the Heike nobles who fled from the battlefields of the twelfth-century civil wars after their defeat by the Genji, and whose supposed descendants now live on as anonymous peasants. A spectacular landscape honeycombed with mountain ranges, watered with lakes, rivers, hot springs, and quiet pools, and covered with forests and shrubbery invites all manner of legendary association. We have simply to scan the titles of a typical collection of Japanese
densetsu
to see the ties between topography and tradition: "The Waterfall of Seven Pots"; "The Strange Willow Tree of Shigekubo"; "The Pond That Does Not Reflect the Moon"; "The Bridge Where Saigyo Turned Back"; "The Hot Spring Where the Son of a God Took a Bath"; "The Foundation Stone That Shed Blood"; "The Mound of Seizo the Strong Man." Collection after collection rings the changes on these themes, until it would seem that every willow tree, mound, and meadow carries its own special story.

Related to Japan's long history and varied geography, and of primary importance for legend material, is the little-understood folk religion of the land. The formal religions of Shintoism and Buddhism have been carefully described for Western readers, but even the Japanese scholars themselves are only beginning to explore the complicated web of folk ideas that preceded and still underlie the institutional religions. These ideas are expressed in seasonal agricultural ritual, farm-village festivals to honor local deities, household taboos and observances, shamanistic auguries by blind old women, shrine offerings to placate hostile spirits —indeed, scarcely an aspect of rural life but touches in some way on religious folk beliefs. There is a god of the hearth; a god of the privy; a god of the rice fields, who descends from his winter home in the mountains every spring and returns after the harvest in the fall. Hence the importance of mountains in Japanese
minkan shinko
(folk religion); often the mountains are considered as possessing spirits or gods, and woodcutters purify themselves before venturing into the hallowed forests on the mountainside.

This vast body of folk custom and ritual contributed to the growth of legend in various ways. Spirits of the dead who nourished some grievance or hatred toward the living at the time of their deaths must be placated by the erection of shrines. Only if the shrine is regularly attended and annually propitiated will the spirit restrain its power to harm. So the ancient tale of human sacrifice or vengeful murder stays alive in the memory of the kin group obligated to tend the shrine, and of the villagers who daily pass by. The curious feature of this belief, to a Westerner, lies in the veneration of an enemy. Sometimes the enshrined spirit has acted nobly and heroically, as when a young boy allows himself to be buried alive in order to appease the god of the lake and keep its waters from flooding the dam. But in many instances the now-honored person lost his life after an act of treachery or wanton cruelty or hand-to-hand strife on the battlefield. Lafcadio Hearn gives an ironic example of this perverse attitude in his
Kwaidan,
where a dishonest servant is beheaded by his master and dies with a curse on his lips. The other servants in great fright beseech their lord to build a shrine to his spirit, but the lord refuses, finally explaining that all the malice of the spirit was expended when the head rolled on the ground and chewed a stone, to fulfill the servant's dying threat. Customarily, of course, the spirit's venom is never drawn by such last-minute diversions.

Besides the spirits of the long dead, Japanese villagers fear also a host of demons. These odd-appearing and malevolent creatures are thought to be the degenerate corruptions of ancient divinities. By far the best known is the
kappa,
a manlike goblin with a saucer-shaped indentation in the top of its head that holds water; if the water is spilled, the
kappa
loses his power.
Kappa
inhabit rivers and prey on children who swim in their waters or upon horses tethered by the river bank. They enter their victim through the anus and draw forth his intestines. Hence when a drowned person is discovered with a distended anus, a
kappa
is believed to have pulled him under. Recently a Japanese sociologist came upon a village in Kagoshima Prefecture whose people still worship at a
kappa
shrine, a fact supporting the theory that the
kappa
descends from a monkey messenger of a river god. The
tengu
is a winged demon with a long pointed nose who lives in the top of tall pine trees and abducts human beings. Since he is found in mountainous regions, and even on occasion serves as protector of a mountain shrine, some historic connection appears to exist between mountain divinities and
tengu.
Today at Shinto festivals the guide in the procession bearing the portable shrine
(mikoshi)
wears the mask of a
tengu,
representing the Sky World deity Saruta-hiko. Divinity may also lurk behind the
yama-uba,
an ogreish witch whose name itself signifies "old woman of the mountains." Legends arise from the experiences of the villagers with these and other anthropomorphic monstrosities.

In a different though related class fall the animals who enchant and deceive—foxes and badgers and serpents. They assume the guise both of ordinary animals and of human beings. They may marry with humans, haunt families, bring treasure to those who have befriended them, and cause humiliation and death to their enemies. A close link binds the
kitsune,
fox, with Inari, the Rice God, whom he serves as messenger, a vestige perhaps of a primeval era of fox worship. Buddhism has influenced the conception of the badger, who is pictured as a full-bellied Buddhist monk. In folk tales and popular belief the serpent, snake, or dragon often assumes the form of a comely maiden or handsome suitor. In ancient times people considered the serpent a mountain god incarnate. The Japanese mythologist Higo Kazuo has identified the serpent with a pre-Buddhist water god, who demands human sacrifices. Since the serpent always ends up in the bottom of a pond, which is ever after known as his lair, his legendary home is clearly marked. Foxes and badgers are not so closely associated with landmarks, but carry on their mischief in country and even city districts, where their outrageous tricks enter into family and village saga.

Because of this pervasive force of
minkan shinko,
the Japanese idea
of densetsu
means something more than our "legend."
Densetsu
intimately and continuously affect the lives of the farming and fishing families. They are not idle and picturesque legends broadcast by chambers of commerce to lure tourists to scenic spots, but traditions based on ancient beliefs. The word "religion," even coupled with "folk," again clouds the issue, for the tissue of beliefs in
minkan shinko
does not carry the ecclesiastical overtones of formal Christian worship. These taboos, rites, festivals, offerings do not linger underground like the folklore of Christianity, with its hidden Devil and witches, ghosts and charms, but survive openly and publicly. The
densetsu
never move very far from this central core of compulsive and time-honored beliefs that dominate Japanese country people. A tradition about a vengeful spirit is remembered not just for itself, but because a shrine has been built for that spirit, which must be tended and served. A powerful wrestler to whom legendary feats of strength are ascribed is said to have obtained his power from a god. A hunter with marvelous skill received the gift of unerring aim from a goddess of the mountain whom he aided in childbirth. Even tricks of a scapegoat, retold in other countries for their comic sauce, in Japan become involved with
minkan shinko;
the knave deceives the god or impersonates a priest. Legends about
choja,
or rich peasants, are inspired by Buddhist ideas of impermanence and the humbling of the rich and prospering of the poor. Ancestral spirits become village deities, deities degenerate into demons, the old nature-religion endows trees and stones, mountains and rivers with spirit life, the imported Buddhism introduces new gods and saints who perform miracles, and every phase produces its growth of folk legends.

European folklorists of the nineteenth century speculated on the origin of folk tradition which, under the glare of civilization, took on the guise of quaint and curious survivals from a pagan society. European and American legends of haunted houses, spiteful fairies, and shape-changing werewolves do seem anachronistic alongside motorized highways and television sets. But
densetsu
belong to the living folk-culture of Japan, and are supported by the institutions of the culture, like Shinto shrines and national festivals and Kabuki and Noh drama, which honor the old traditions. The intellectuals may not believe in a god of the privy or the transformation of foxes, but they are thoroughly familiar with such ideas and should never regard them as quaint or curious. Families still become fox-possessed, and yet bear scales that testify to snake ancestors. While I was in Japan the newspapers carried a story: "Tokyo Restaurant Cook Haunted by Cat's Ghost" (
Asahi Evening News,
June 19, 1957). The story broke first when a secretary of the Austrian Embassy wrote to the papers exposing an act of cruelty she had witnessed while dining out. A cook in a fit of irritation at a stray cat that had been pestering him threw the animal into a hot oven. The restaurant fired the cook, the police fined him, and the cat too exacted revenge:

The restaurant cook who hurled a tomcat into a roaring oven in a fiery rage told police today the animal's ghost has begun to haunt him.

The cook, Koji Hayama, said every night since Saturday when the cat was roasted to death in the oven of Tokyo Kaikan's Grill Rossini, he has been suffering pains in his legs and hips and has been sleeping fitfully.

According to Japanese superstition, anyone killing a cat will be haunted by the animal's ghost.

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The accurate collecting of Japanese legends began only in the present century. Indeed the science of folklore in Japan is no longer than the life of eighty-four-year-old Kunio Yanagita, whose duties as a young man in the agricultural branch of the government brought him in contact with farmers in the rice paddies, and eventually directed his energies toward rural folk-culture. His own enormous labors and wide influence brought about the precise recording of village customs and tales, including the
densetsu
found so abundantly in every village. The first serious attention to legends was given by Toshio Takagi in a work entitled
Nihon Densetsu Shu
(Collection of Japanese Legends), published in Tokyo in 1913. Takagi was a disciple of Yanagita, and with him co-editor of the first Japanese folklore journal,
Kyodo Kenkyu,
founded in 1913. A student of German literature and mythology, Takagi conceived the idea of assembling Japanese traditions from the people, much as the Grimms had done in Germany, and advertised for them through the pages of the
Asahi
newspaper. From the considerable number of replies he selected two hundred and fifty legends, sent in from all over the country, classified them according to their principal element, and published them in simplified form. Some of his twenty-three divisions merely suggest general subjects ("Legends of Trees," "Legends of Stones"), but others pin down variations on a single legendary theme ("The Curse of the Golden Cock," "Legends of Stone Potatoes and Waterless Rivers").