Folk Legends of Japan (33 page)

THE MOUNTAIN OF ABANDONED OLD PEOPLE

A short story entitled "The Oak Mountain Song"
(Narayama-bushi-ko)
won a prize offered to new authors by the literary review
Chuo Koron,
in whose pages it appeared in November, 1936. The author, Shichiro Fukazawa, was a professional guitar player. His story created a sensation in Japanese literary circles and was promptly and skillfully translated into English by John Bester (Japan Quarterly, IV, April-June, 1957, pp. 200-32). Fukazawa built his grim and terrifying piece upon the Japanese legend of Ubasute-yama, a mountain peak where an impoverished village that could not support unproductive members abandoned its aged when they reached the age of sixty. The short story in turn was adapted into a powerful naturalistic Kabuki play, which I saw at the Kabuki-za in Tokyo in June, 1957, and which was subsequently made into a highly acclaimed movie. The family with the mother of sixty is pictured in Tobacco Road style, feverishly devouring the last stray morsel of rice. At the climax, the filial son who has left his mother on the peak amidst rotting carcasses and carrion crows breaks the strict edict not to look behind and rushes back to his mother's side.

The legend itself does not take so brutal a form. The parent is brought down the mountain and hidden under the house; he (or she) gives the children solutions to enigmatic tasks imposed by the lord, who rescinds the edict when he learns the source of wisdom. Under Type 981, "The Old Man Hidden Under the Earth," Ikeda, pp. 254-56, analyzes the tale, which she finds widely distributed in Japan, known in literary forms going back to the thirteenth century, and present also in China and Korea. The Type-Index reports it as a medieval European Marchen. Discussion can be found in the
Minzokugaku Jiten
under "Obasute-yama," and in Mock Joya
,
III, pp. 198-99, "Obasuteyama." Versions appear in Murai, pp. 18-27,
Ubasute
(Mother-Abandonment), a full text containing three tasks; Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto,
Daughter of the Samurai
(New York, 1926), pp. 101-4 (one task);
Die Wahrheit,
IV (December, 1903), 221-23, Kumagai
,
"Der Berg Obasute" (one task). The commonest task is making a rope of ashes. Writing in the
Asahi Evening News,
Tokyo: July 12
)
1957, "A Memo on the 'Oak-Mount Song,'" Santaro speaks of two early literary appearances of the legend in the tenth-century
Yamato Monogatari
and the eleventh-century
Konjaku Monogatari,
of a fifteenth-century Noh dramatization by Seami, and of reworkings into fairy tales, nursery rhymes, poems, songs and
rakugo
(the stories of professional humorists). He translates the brief tenth-century tale in which a spiteful daughter-in-law, not a village edict, causes the son to abandon his aged mother.

Important motifs are S 140.1, "Abandonment of aged" (chiefly Far Eastern); J151.1, "Wisdom of hidden old man saves kingdom" (European, Jewish
f
Far Eastern).

Text from
Chiisagata-gun Mintan Shu,
pp. 109-11.

I
N ANCIENT TIMES
there prevailed a custom of abandoning old people when they reached the age of sixty. Once an old man was going to be abandoned on a mountain. He was carried there in a sedan chair by his two sons. On the way the old man broke the branches of the trees. "Wh y do you do such a thing? Do you break the branches in order to recognize the way to come back after we leave you on the mountain?" asked the sons. The old father just recited a poem!

"To break branches in the mountain
Is for the dear children
For whom I am ready to sacrifice myself."

The brothers did not think much about their father's poem, and took him up the mountain and abandoned him. "We shall go another way to return home," they said, and started on the way back.

The sun set in the west, but they could not find the way home. Meanwhile the moon came up and shone on the mountain. The two sons had no recourse but to return to their father. "What have you been doing until now?" he asked. "We tried to go back by a different way, but we could not get home. Please kindly tell us the way." So they carried the father again and went down the mountain, following their father's instructions, according to where he had broken the branches. When the brothers returned home, they hid their father under the floor. They gave him food every day and showed their gratitude for his love.

Some time afterward the lord issued a notice to the people to make a rope with ashes and present it to him. The people tried to make a rope by mixing ashes and water but no one could do it. Then the two brothers talked about this to the old father. The father said: "Moisten straw with salty water and make a rope of the straw; then after it is dried, burn it and present the ashes to the lord in the shape of a rope."

The brothers did just as he told them and presented the ash-rope to the lord. The lord was much pleased and said: "I feel very secure in having such wise men in my country. How is it that you possess such wisdom?" The two brothers explained in detail about their father. The lord heard them out, and then gave notice to all the country that none should abandon old people thereafter. The two brothers returned home with many rewards, which delighted the old father.

The place where the old father was abandoned is said to be Ubasute-yama, the Mountain of Abandoned Old People.

FEATHER-ROBE STONE MOUNTAIN

Usually in this legend, which is often told as a fairy tale, the celestial maiden swims in a pond and falls into the power of her lover when he steals her magic garment: Motif K1335, "Seduction (or wooing) by stealing clothes of bathing girl (swan maiden)." In the Japanese form she frequently hangs her feather garment on a pine tree, thereafter remembered in local legend (Ikeda, p. 89, note 1). The Noh drama "Hagoromo" contrasts the purity of the maiden with the greed of the fisherman who sees her robe on the tree. Some verses are given in Anesaki,pp. 259-61, from B. H. Chamberlain,
The Classical Poetry of the Japanese
(London, 1880). Yasuyo Ishiwara has discussed the tale-type in "Celestial Wife in Japanese Folk Tales,"
University of Manila Journal of East Asiatic Studies,
V (January, 1956),
pp. 35-41. She reports fifty-nine versions of
tennin-nyobo
(celestial wife), and indicates that in Japan the story takes on more legendary and mythological elements than in Europe.

Text from Seiroku Kuramitsu, "A Version of the Feather-Robe Tales,"
Kyodo Kenkyu,
VII (Tokyo, 1933), pp. 8-9, no. 1.

O
N THE TOP
of Mount Ubeshi in Hanami-mura, Tohaku-gun, in the province of Hoki (Tottori-ken) there is a big stone called the "Feather-Robe Stone" or the "Stone of the Celestial Maiden's Appearance." A long time ago a celestial maiden descended from the sky upon this stone and danced about, fluttering her robe made of feathers. Growing tired after a while, she took off her feather robe and, putting it on the stone, lay down to rest. A farmer who lived at the foot of the mountain happened to climb to the summit that day and saw the strange robe on the stone.

"What a splendid dress this is! I wonder if this might be the feather robe of a celestial lady," he thought. He picked it up and carried it home.

The celestial maiden, who had been fast asleep, awakened after a time. She could not find her feather robe. Wondering if the wind had blown it away, she looked for it here and there, but in vain. She was very sad. As she was weeping she heard a voice from somewhere saying: "You must live in the human world for a while. After some years you will be saved by your child under the vine which bears white flowers."

When the celestial maiden heard this, she forgot all about the heavenly world where she had lived, and became an ordinary human girl. She felt the cold because her clothes were thin, and she also felt pangs of hunger. So she had to go down the mountain to the village and ask a farmer for some food. He looked at her wonderingly and said: "What a pity! She seems to be a fine girl." In a kindly manner he invited her in and gave her shelter.

So the girl stayed in the farmer's house and was married to him. In due time two lovely girls were born to them. They grew to be very diligent, clever young ladies. Especially did they love music and, making good progress in a short time, learned to play on the flute and hand drum by themselves.

One day all the family went on a picnic to Kamisaka (Slope of the Gods) in Kurayoshi. Before going out the father said: "I'll show you a beautiful garment which I have carefully kept for a good long time. This is a fine occasion for you to wear it." He brought out the celestial feather robe and dressed the elder daughter in it. Then they set out, and on arriving at Kamisaka the family all sat down on the grass. To entertain them, the elder girl stood up, saying: "Since I have on this garment today, I will dance."

She danced to the tune of her sister's flute. The mother, who was enjoying her daughter's dance, said to her: "The form of your arms is not good. I'll show you how." So she put on the feather robe in place of the daughter and began to dance. As she did so she lost her human heart. Her body became light and rose up in the air. Astonished at this, the girls shouted: "What's the matter with you, Mother?" The celestial lady spoke to them: "Now I remember everything. I am the woman from the sky. I am going back to the heavens now. I should like to take you with me, but there is no room for human beings in heaven."

She rose up higher and higher and at last soared out of sight. Struck dumb with surprise, the girls glanced wildly about. They saw white gourd flowers at the well close by the torii. The girls thought if they played music on the top of the mountain, their celestial mother might listen to it. They went up the mountain and beat the drum and blew on the flute, yearning for heaven. But the celestial lady never came down to earth again.

Because of this story this mountain is called Uchifuki-yama (Beat and Blow Mountain), and the other mountain is called Ubeshi-yama (Feather-Robe Stone Mountain).

CONTEST IN HEIGHT BETWEEN TWO MOUNTAINS

The height-matching contest between Mt. Fuji andMt. Haku or the mountain called Yatsu-ga-take is given in Mock Joya, IV, pp. 39-40, "Stones to Mountain Tops"; Murai, typescript, p. 9, "Quarrel of Mountains"; Suzuki, pp. 1-2, "The Quarrel between the Mountains." Sometimes other mountains are involved. Pilgrims are said to leave their straw sandals on the lower peak to raise its height. The
Minzokugaku Jiten
discusses this legend type under
Kamiarasoi
(Quarrel Between Two Mountain Deities).

Text from
Kai Densetsu,
pp. 93-94.

I
N ANCIENT TIMES
Yatsu-ga-take was higher than Mt. Fuji. Once the female deity of Fuji (Asama-sama) and the male deity of Yatsu-ga-take (Gongen-sama) had a contest to see which was higher. They asked the Buddha Amida to decide which one was loftier. It was a difficult task. Amida ran a water pipe from the summit of Yatsu-ga-take to the summit of Fuji-san and poured water in the pipe. The water flowed to Fuji-san, so Amida decided that Fuji-san was defeated.

Although Fuji-san was a woman, she was too proud to recognize her defeat. She beat the summit of Yatsu-ga-take with a big stick. So his head was split into eight parts, and that is why Yatsu-ga-take [Eight Peaks] now has eight peaks.

THE MOUNDS OF THE MASTER SINGERS

The central motif here, H503.1 "Song duel. Contest in singing," is found in Ireland and among the Eskimo. Eskimo magical song duels of shamans may result in death for the defeated.

Text from
Hida no Densetsu to Minyo,
pp. 134-36.

I
T WAS
a bright moonlit night. The moon was in the middle of the sky shining over the fields and villages along the Masuda River. A charming song sung by Jinsaku of Shogano-mura on the opposite bank floated across the river.

"Jinsaku is singing tonight again. What a sweet voice he has!" The people of Tsukada-mura thus spoke together when they heard Jinsaku's song. On moonlit nights Jinsaku used to sing his songs to the moon, taking no notice of the passing hours. His voice vibrated through the quiet air of the mountain village and resounded farther and farther, attracting all the people who heard it.