- BACK to the Daruma Museum -
. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話 昔話 - Introduction .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Binbogami　貧乏神と伝説　 legends about Bimbogami, Deity of Poverty



. Binbogami 貧乏神 Bimbogami, God of Poverty .
- Introduction -
The God of Poverty was quite common in the Edo period.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
- - - - - ABC List of the prefectures :

.................................................................. Kyoto 京都府 ....................................................................

.......................................................................
fuku no kami 福の神 God of Good Luck

小籐太の家に住む貧乏神はこれを聞いて眷族を集める。梅津、嵯峨野、松尾辺りから約500人が集結する。いずれもあさましい姿だった。そのうち福の神がやってくる。福の神は貧乏神の数の多さに恐れて一旦虚空にもどる。福の神は稲荷六明神、鞍馬の毘沙門、竹生島の財弁天、西宮のえびすとそれぞれの眷属を連れて戻り、貧乏神を追放する。神々は家に入って以後守り神となることを誓う。小籐太に稲荷は黄金千両、毘沙門からは十万貫、財弁天からは絹百疋、えびす三郎からは酒の泉が贈られる。小籐太は大福長者となる。

.......................................................................
kamuro 禿 baldness
左近丞の家で、日ごろは目に見えなかった14、5歳ほどの禿たちが家のの隅々から出てきて、敵の襲来に際して仲間を呼ぼうと騒ぎ立てる。間もなく髪を肩の辺りで切り揃え、柿の帷子に団扇を持った貧乏神どもがやってきて、梅津の里に入る。貧乏神に対して西宮のえびす三郎は武装して戦うがかなわない。そこで15の童子を連れて稲荷がやってきて、さらに鞍馬の毘沙門天が眷属を具して悪魔降伏の相を現じて剣戟を飛ばすと、貧乏神はたちまち逃げていく。貧乏神の首領を捕えて攻めると、今後は立ち寄らないと約束する。



.................................................................. Niigata 新潟県 ....................................................................
吉川町（よしかわまち） Yoshikawa machi

1月7日に若木を山から迎えて、14日に燃やして小豆を煮る。昔貧乏な親爺が夜逃げをしたら、貧乏神が着いてきた。貧乏神が生木を燃して小豆を煮るのが嫌いだと言ったのでその通りにすると、貧乏神は「俺の嫌いな事をする」と言って銭を投げつけてよこした。それからこの行事をするようになった。




.................................................................. Saitama 埼玉県 ....................................................................
Sōka 草加市 Soka

kyuuki 窮鬼 Kyuki, Binbogami
文政4年の夏頃、番町のある武家の用人が、主用で下総の知行所までいく途中、草加の宿でみすぼらしい身なりの法師に会う。話を聞くと法師は貧乏神で、番町の武家から出て行くという。これまでは先代両主の遺徳によって家は滅びず、また他家に移るのでこれからは繁栄すると言った。実際にその家は豊かになり、貧乏神が移るといった家は衰えたという。

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- reference : nichibun yokai database 妖怪データベース -
42 to explore (01)

..............................................................................................................................................


. Legends about Kobo Daishi Kukai - 弘法大師　空海 - 伝説 .

. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話　昔話 - Introduction .

- Yookai 妖怪 Yokai Monsters of Japan -
- Introduction -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



. Join the friends on Facebook ! .

- #binbogami #bimbogami #godofpoverty #binbougami -
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- BACK to the Daruma Museum -
. ABC List of Heian Contents .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Wamyō Ruijushō 倭名類聚抄 Dictionary



- quote -
"Japanese names [for things], classified and annotated") is a 938 CE
Japanese dictionary of Chinese characters.
The Heian Period scholar Minamoto no Shitagō (源順, 911-983 CE) began compilation in 934, at the request of Emperor Daigo's daughter. This Wamyō ruijushō title is abbreviated as Wamyōshō, and has graphic variants of 和名類聚抄 with wa 和 "harmony; Japan" for wa 倭 "dwarf; Japan" and 倭名類聚鈔 with shō 鈔 "copy; summarize" for shō 抄 "copy; annotate".

The Wamyō ruijushō is the oldest extant Japanese dictionary organized into semantic headings, analogous to a Western language thesaurus. This ancient lexicographical collation system was developed in Chinese dictionaries like the Erya, Xiao Erya, and Shiming. The Wamyōshō categorizes kanji vocabulary, primarily nouns, into main headings (bu 部) divided into subheadings (rui 類). For instance, the tenchi (天地 "heaven and earth") heading includes eight semantic divisions like seishuku (星宿 "stars and constellations"), un'u (雲雨 "clouds and rain"), and fūsetsu (風雪 "wind and snow").

Each dictionary entry gives the Chinese character, sources cited, Chinese pronunciations (with either a homonym or fanqie spelling), definitions, and corresponding Japanese readings (in the ancient Man'yōgana system using K5anji to represent Japanese pronunciation). It cites over 290 sources, both Chinese (for example, the Shuowen Jiezi) and Japanese (the Man'yōshū).

The Wamyō ruijushō, survives in both a 10-volume edition (十巻本) and a 20-volume edition (二十巻本). The larger one was published in 1617 with a commentary by Nawa Dōen (那波道円, 1595-1648) and was used in the Edo Period until the 1883 publication of the 10-volume edition annotated by Kariya Ekisai (狩谷棭齋, 1775-1835), also known as the Senchū Wamyō ruijushō (箋注倭名類聚抄 "Annotated commentary to the Wamyō ruijushō"). The 10-volume edition has 24 main headings divided into a total of 128 subheadings, while the 20-volume version has 32 and 249, respectively.
The table below illustrates how words are semantically categorized in the 10-volume edition.
- - - - - Rōmaji -- Kanji -- Translation -- Subjects
1 Tenchi 天地 Universe constellations, weather, gods, earth, topography
2 Jinrin 人倫 Humans gender, kinship, family, marriage
3 Keitai 形体 Body body parts, sense organs, internal organs
4 Shippei 疾病 Sickness diseases, wounds
5 Jutsugei 術藝 Arts martial arts, fine arts, skills
6 Kyosho 居處 Architecture houses, walls, doors, roads
7 Sensha 舟車 Vehicles boats, carts, carriages
8 Chinpō 珍寶 Treasures precious metals, jewels
9 Fuhaku 布帛 Textiles embroidery, silks, woven fabrics
10 Shōzoku 装束 Clothing hats, clothes, belts, shoes
11 Inshoku 飲食 Foods and Drinks liquors, beverages, cooked grains, fruits, meats
12 Kibei 器皿 Utensils objects of metal, lacquer, wood, tile, and bamboo
13 Tōka 燈火 Illumination lamps, lights, lighting
14 Chōdo 調度 Things and Supplies implements, tools, weapons, utensils, furnishings
15 Uzoku 羽族 Birds birds, feathers, ornithology
16 Mōgun 毛群 Wild Animals wild animals, body parts
17 Gyūsha 牛馬 Domestic Animals cattle, horses, sheep, body parts, diseases
18 Ryōgo 龍魚 Aquatic animals dragons, fish, reptiles, amphibians
19 Kibai 龜貝 Shellfishes turtles, shellfish
20 Chūchi 蟲豸 Miscellaneous Animals insects, worms, small reptiles
21 Tōkoku 稲穀 Grains rices, cereals
22 Saiso 菜蔬 Vegetables tubers, seaweeds, edible plants
23 Kayu 果蓏 Fruits fruits, melons
24 Sōmoku 草木 Plants grasses, mosses, vines, flowers, trees

The broadly inclusive Wamyō ruijushō dictionary was an antecedent for Japanese encyclopedias. In the present day, it provides linguists and historians with an invaluable record of the Japanese language over 1000 years ago. For more details, see Bailey (1960:4-6, 18-19) in English and Okimori (1996:287-288) in Japanese.

写本

真福寺本＝鎌倉時代写・巻一～巻二のみ（宝生院大須観音真福寺蔵）
伊勢十巻本＝室町時代初期写・巻三～八のみ（神宮文庫蔵）
京本＝江戸時代前期写・巻四～六のみ（東京大学国語研究室蔵）
高松宮本＝江戸時代前期写・完本（国立歴史民俗博物館蔵）
松井本＝江戸時代前期写・完本（静嘉堂文庫蔵）
京一本＝江戸時代後期写・巻七～十のみ（東京大学国語研究室蔵）
狩谷棭斎自筆訂本＝江戸時代後期写および校訂・完本（国立公文書館（旧内閣文庫）蔵）
前田本＝明治時代写・完本（前田尊経閣蔵）

- source : wikipedia -


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

. Binbogami　貧乏神 - 窮鬼（きゅうき） Kyuki - Bimbogami, Deity of Poverty .


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- Reference in Japanese -

- Reference in English -

. Legends - Heian Period (794 to 1185) - Introduction .

. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話　昔話 - Introduction .

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



. Join the friends on Facebook ! .

- #wamyoruijusho -
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- BACK to the Daruma Museum -
. Books about the Heian Period .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Real and Imagined: The Peak of Gold in Heian Japan
by Heather Blair



- quote -
During the Heian period (794–1185), the sacred mountain Kinpusen, literally the “Peak of Gold,” came to cultural prominence as a pilgrimage destination for the most powerful men in Japan―the Fujiwara regents and the retired emperors. Real and Imagined depicts their one-hundred-kilometer trek from the capital to the rocky summit as well as the imaginative landscape they navigated. Kinpusen was believed to be a realm of immortals, the domain of an unconventional bodhisattva, and the home of an indigenous pantheon of kami. These nominally private journeys to Kinpusen had political implications for both the pilgrims and the mountain.

While members of the aristocracy and royalty used pilgrimage to legitimate themselves and compete with one another, their patronage fed rivalry among religious institutions. Thus, after flourishing under the Fujiwara regents, Kinpusen’s cult and community were rent by violent altercations with the great Nara temple Kōfukuji. The resulting institutional reconfigurations laid the groundwork for Shugendō, a new movement focused on religious mountain practice that emerged around 1300. Using archival sources, archaeological materials, noblemen’s journals, sutras, official histories, and vernacular narratives, this original study sheds new light on Kinpusen, positioning it within the broader religious and political history of the Heian period.

Heather Blair
Specialists in pre-modern Japanese history and religious studies should find the book enlightening, but I think it would also appeal to a broader audience, including advanced undergraduates under professorial guidance. In short, the book is a major contribution to the field. (Janet R. Goodwin Journal of Religion in Japan 2005-11-01)
- source : amazon.co.jp -


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


- quote -
Reviewed by Jonathan Stockdale (University of Puget Sound)

Elite Mountain Pilgrimage in Heian Japan
Heather Blair’s Real and Imagined—focusing on elite lay pilgrimage to Kinpusen during the Heian period—represents a superb contribution to the steadily growing body of English-language literature concerning Japanese mountain pilgrimage that has emerged over the last decade.[1] For the same reason that early modern mountain religious sects, such as Shugendō, were proscribed by the Meiji government—because of their inability to fit into a strict binary of either “Shinto” or “Buddhism”— the study of mountain religious activity until recently remained rather opaque, no doubt reflecting our own disciplinary boundaries.[2] The emerging body of literature, however, demonstrates that mountain pilgrimage is if anything a privileged site from which to examine Japanese religion in all of its intersectional complexity. Whereas studies of a particular sect, founder, or doctrine may legitimately hew closely to that sect, founder, or doctrine, studies of mountain pilgrimage demand that a scholar attend to the complex web of religious interaction woven together at a particular site, resulting arguably in a much fuller historical picture of actual religious praxis. In sifting through strands of Daoist inflected longevity practice, Buddhist-inspired sutra copying, offering, and burial, and localized “traces” reflecting kami (indigenous deity) cult idioms, Blair’s study of elite mountain pilgrimage provides one of the finest archaeologies of Heian religious practice and thought in recent years. Further, in her rich analysis of the power-bloc relations that never lay far from the field of religious practice, Blair provides an exemplary model for the study of the religious sphere as inseparable from the overall production and circulation of power within society.

Real and Imagined’s nine chapters (including the epilogue) are further organized into three major parts: “The Mountain Imagined,” “The Real Peak,” and “Changing Landscapes.” In the first chapter, Blair traces the historical development of (Mount) Kinpusen as an important locus of religious activity up through the mid-Heian period. While as early as the seventh century the greater Yoshino area was being depicted as the realm of Daoist immortals, Blair notes that the very presence of religious specialists in the mountains conflicted with the desire of the ritsuryō (centralized bureaucratic) state to bring religious practice everywhere under its supervision. Only with the attenuation of such ritsuryō oppositions, Blair argues, was Kinpusen seen by the mid-Heian period no longer as a site of “illegal retreat” but rather as part of an “increasingly civilized mountainscape,” attractive even to elite members of the court aristocracy (pp. 28, 34). Such changes help to contextualize the actions of Fujiwara no Kaneie (of the Fujiwara regents’ patriline), who in 969 made the earliest lay pilgrimage to Kinpusen on record.

Blair evokes the rich symbolic worlds pilgrims projected onto and encountered at Kinpusen in chapter 2, where she explores the pantheon of divinities associated with the mountain, most notably Zaō, described variously as a kami, a transformation body of Maitreya, a provisional manifestation of Shakyamuni, a divine treasury king, and/or a dragon. She notes that despite Zaō’s frequent depiction in the style of an esoteric Buddhist divinity, “nowhere in the canon of Buddhist scriptures, ritual manuals, or iconographies” does such a deity appear, and yet this “resolutely local, idiosyncratic cult” continuously attracted the attention of the central elite back in the capital (pp. 63, 61). Blair illuminates the Zaō cult with a lucid explanation of honji suijaku (fushion of buddhas and kami) doctrine, and in presenting her model of “narrative theology” (in the absence of theoretical treatises, the cumulative stories and revelations through which pilgrims disclosed their convictions), she argues persuasively that elite laypersons, as much if not more than ecclesiastical specialists, were at the vanguard of combinatory ideas and practices concerning buddhas and kami.

With chapter 3, Blair shifts her discussion to the power-bloc relations that would prove so calamitous for Kinpusen in the years to come. Invoking Kuroda Toshio’s influential discussion of power blocs associated with the court, religious institutions, and warrior houses, Blair productively extends the discussion with her notion of “ritual regimes” that helped consolidate the power blocs presided over by the regents and retired emperors. Drawing on an attentive reading of courtiers’ diaries, Blair demonstrates that the ritual regimes of Fujiwara regents and retired emperors alike followed a consistent symbolic logic, combining “signature sites, rites, and texts” to link a sacred site in the capital with a related site on the periphery (p. 110). The ritual regime paradigm helpfully illuminates the lavish ritual system that consistently led Fujiwara regents to Kinpusen during the height of their power to mark the mountain as their own; it also helps contextualize retired emperor Shirakawa’s striking pilgrimage to Kinpusen in 1092 as a significant attempt to wrest Kinpusen as a sacred source of cultural capital from the regents.

In part 2, “The Real Peak,” Blair pauses her historical chronology somewhat in order to zoom in on the actual symbolic practices undertaken by elites at Kinpusen, focusing on the routes taken (chapter 4), the ritual offerings conducted at the summit and interred therein (chapter 5), and the personnel (and resulting politics) involved (chapter 6). One highlight here is the fragment from Ōe no Masafusa’s diary that Blair herself unearthed from the archives of the Imperial Household Agency, recording conversations with Shirakawa during their pilgrimage to Kinpusen in 1092. Masafusa’s diary reveals that even in the midst of the rituals he was sponsoring at the peak, Shirakawa was considering how to overwrite the mountain as his own, discussing mid-ceremony his plans to promote priests from outside the Fujiwara client network, while expressing wariness about the strategic implications of such maneuvers.

In retrospect, Shirakawa’s 1092 pilgrimage was both a kind of pinnacle of glory for Kinpusen and the beginning of an end: one year later the mountaintop hall to Zaō was burned to the ground by monks from Kōfukuji, a response in part to Shirakawa’s maneuvering. What follows in the final third of the book is a history of that fallout, detailing the rise of Kōfukuji as a power bloc capable of subsuming such temples as Kinpusen within its network, retired emperors’ migration to other mountain pilgrimage sites (for example, Kumano), and the appearance of new engi (origin narratives) legitimating new organizational affiliations for such sites as Kinpusen. With her epilogue, Blair takes aim at one final target: dismantling once and for all any notion that premodern religious sects such as Shugendō are simply the teleologically natural continuations of mountain-religious practices seen earlier in the Heian period. In place of such timeless narratives, Blair offers instead a historiography well attuned to rupture, upheaval, and violent conflict, as well as to accident, error, and faulty calculation.

In reflecting critically on Real and Imagined, two considerations arise, neither of which significantly detract from the merit of the work as a whole. First, within the emerging literature on mountain pilgrimage, it seems to be normative for scholars to discuss mountains as both physical places and imaginary spaces, two categories that then interact in a kind of dialectical fashion. This is announced in the title of Blair’s book (Real and Imagined), reflected in its organization (“The Mountain Imagined” versus “The Real Peak”), and embedded throughout the narrative. Notwithstanding its prominence, I found this the least satisfying element of the book. In part, this is because I can think of no culturally important example that is not at once real and imagined; yet it would be cumbersome continually to refer to the “real and imagined emperor,” the “real and imagined Ise shrine,” or even the “real and imagined Kamo River.” It is also because almost as soon as these categories arise they tend to dissolve, as in the opening pages of the section titled “The Real Peak,” where we learn of the fascinating ways in which pilgrims envisioned their journey to “the real peak” as, actually, an ascent through the stages of the bodhisattva path.

A second consideration relates to gender. Given that elite Heian pilgrimage to Kinpusen emerged alongside the introduction of prohibitions against women entering the peak (nyonin kekkai), and that Kinpusen remains the only sacred mountain in Japan today that excludes women year-round, a study such as this faces a choice: whether to take up the topic of gender exclusion head on or to stay closer to the historical record, mentioning the few examples of female presence as they arise. Blair’s analysis falls somewhere between the two. She carefully notes the few instances of female presence related to the mountain, including the female kami enshrined at the peak, one or two miko (female spirit mediums) linked to Kinpusen, and the example of a Heian noblewoman who sent prayer offerings with the wish “that I may become male” (p. 89). Analytically, Blair argues that “pilgrimage depended on conceptual binaries in order to retain its significance as a boundary-crossing exercise that yielded special powers,” and that with the lessening of ritsuryō oppositions to mountain religious activity, “the need to maintain Kinpusen as a symbolically other world became more pressing,” resulting in the prohibitions against women (pp. 48, 56, emphasis added). Here, I would simply wish to sharpen the language a bit: exclusion (for the benefit of some, at the expense of others) is of course never a need, though it may be a choice, a strategy, or a desire. All of which is simply to say that for those wishing an extended discussion of gender and mountain religion, Real and Imagined could usefully be paired with other work dealing with mountains in which there is a greater female presence: the final chapter of D. Max Moerman’s Localizing Paradise: Kumano Pilgrimage and the Religious Landscape of Premodern Japan (2005) comes to mind.

Such minor hesitations do nothing to detract from the superb contribution Blair has made here. In giving us a micro-history of Heian religious practices at Kinpusen within a macro-history of early and medieval Japanese mountain religion, Blair has produced a magnificent work, one deserving a wide readership among those interested not only in mountain religion but more broadly in premodern Japanese religion, history, and politics as well.

- - - - - Notes
[1].
Major English-language studies since 2005 include D. Max Moerman, Localizing Paradise: Kumano Pilgrimage and the Religious Landscape of Premodern Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2005); Sarah Thal, Rearranging the Landscape of the Gods: The Politics of a Pilgrimage Site in Japan, 1573-1912 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005); and Barbara Ambros, Emplacing a Pilgrimage: The Ōyama Cult and Regional Religion in Early Modern Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2008). On pilgrimage more generally, see Ian Reader, Making Pilgrimages: Meaning and Practice in Shikoku (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005).

[2].
Earlier English-language work includes H. Byron Earhart, A Religious Study of the Mount Haguro Sect of Shugendō: An Example of Japanese Mountain Religion (Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1970); Paul Swanson, “Shugendō and the Yoshino-Kumano Pilgrimage: An Example of Mountain Pilgrimage,” Monumenta Nipponica 36, no. 1 (1981): 55-84; and Allan Grapard, “Flying Mountains and Walkers of Emptiness: Toward a Definition of Sacred Space in Japanese Religions,” History of Religions 21, no. 3 (1982): 195-221. See also the translations of work by Miyake Hitoshi: Shugendō: Essays on the Structure of Japanese Folk Religion, ed. H. Byron Earhart (Ann Arbor, MI: Center for Japanese Studies, 2001), and
The Mandala of the Mountain: Shugendō and Folk Religion, ed. Gaynor Sekimori (Tokyo: Keiō University Press, 2005).
- source : networks.h-net.org/node -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


Kinpusenji Yoshino 金峯山寺　吉野山



. Zaodoo　蔵王堂 Zaodo Hall for Zao Gongen .
The Statues of Zao Gongen


- quote -
Zaō Gongen 蔵王権現 Zao Gongen
Zaō Gongen (also spelled Zao) is one of the most important mountain deities of Japan's syncretic Shugendō sects, a diverse tradition of mountain ascetic practices associated with Shintō beliefs, Taoism, magic, supernatural powers, and Esoteric (Tantric) Buddhism. After the arrival of Buddhism to Japan in the mid-6th century, the native Shintō kami (deities) were soon considered manifestations of the imported Buddhist divinities. Zao serves as the protector deity of sacred Mt. Kimpusen (Mt. Kinpu) 金峰山 in Japan's Nara prefecture and is considered the local Japanese Shintō manifestation (avatar = gongen 権現) of three Buddhist divinities -- the Historical Buddha, Kannon Bodhisattva, and Miroku Buddha, who serve respectively as the Buddhas of the Past, Present, and Future. This makes Zao perhaps the most powerful local divinity of religious mountain worship (Sangaku Shūkyō 山岳宗教) in Japan.

Zao is widely venerated in the entire mountain range stretching from Yoshino to Kumano (the cradle of Shugendō practice), but also venerated at numerous remote mountain shrines and temples throughout the country. Despite Zao's Tantric appearance, the deity is generally thought to be of Japanese origin (see caveats below). Zao's cult spread throughout Japan from the 11th century onward.
snip
Kinpusenji Temple 金峯山寺
- source : Mark Schumacher -


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



. Join the friends on Facebook ! .

- #heiangold #blairbook -
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- BACK to the Daruma Museum -
. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話 昔話 - Introduction .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

kugi 釘 伝説　Legends about nails

. kugi 釘 Japanese nail, Nagel .
- Introduction -



..............................................................................................................................................



. Wara ningyoo 藁人形 straw dolls for curses .
using a metal nail or stake of 5 sun length 五寸釘 (gosun kugi).

.......................................................................
Ehime 砥部町 Tobe

noroikugi のろい釘 cursing nail
樹齢200年を越えるといわれているもみじの木に直径40cmと50cmの２つに分かれて幹が伸びていて、その下には数十の穴があいている。これはのろい釘を打ったあとである。憎い人を呪うとき、藁人形を作って人に知られないように頭の無い４寸ほどの釘を49本打ち終えると呪えるという。ただし、途中で人に発見されると逆に自分が呪われるという。


.......................................................................
Gunma 前橋市 Maebashi

noroikugi のろい釘 at 総社神社 Soja Shrine
総社神社の境内のケヤキに藁人形が2体打ち込まれていた。

.......................................................................
Gunma 大間々町 Omama

noroikugi のろい釘
紙人形や藁人形に五寸釘を打ち込む。八の宮や大日様の裏の墓場に時々あった。

.......................................................................
Gunma 富岡市 Tomioka 妙義温泉 Myogi Hot Spring

noroikugi のろい釘
妙義温泉近くの杉林に、のろい釘を打たれた人形があった。


.......................................................................
Kagawa 多度津町 Tadotsu

noroikugi ノロイクギ
箕の手の峠の傍にはウワナリガミの小祠があり、ウワナリ池という池があった。ウワナリガミには女がよく詣ったといい、傍の木には板で作った人形をうちつけ、ノロイクギを打ちつけてあった。また、箕の手の峠の雑木林では首を吊って死ぬ人がいた。

.......................................................................
Kumamoto 球磨郡 Kuma district

juzo 呪詛 curse
立木を削って人形を描き、それに釘を打っておくと、呪詛する相手の体の、釘を打った場所が腐るといわれている。

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
- - - - - ABC List of the prefectures :

.................................................................. Ehime 愛媛県 ....................................................................


.................................................................. Fukuoka 福岡県 ....................................................................

. Kappa Jizo 河童地蔵　 .
and Priest 堂丸総学 Domaru Sogaku


.................................................................. Gunma 群馬県 ....................................................................





.................................................................. Kagawa 香川県 ....................................................................



.................................................................. Kumamoto 熊本県 ....................................................................



.................................................................. Okayama 岡山県 ....................................................................
備中町 Bichu

noroikugi ノロイ釘
太夫さん、禰宜さんと呼ばれる祈祷者に、オサカベの八代荒神か岩山様が憑いた時には、本社に行くとノロイ釘が打たれているので、抜くと障りは除けられる。


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- source : nichibun yokai database -
100 to explore (02)
cursed nails and prayer nails /
noroikugi のろい釘 ノロイクギ 06


..............................................................................................................................................


. Legends about Kobo Daishi Kukai - 弘法大師　空海 - 伝説 .

. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話　昔話 - Introduction .

- Yookai 妖怪 Yokai Monsters of Japan -
- Introduction -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



. Join the friends on Facebook ! .

- #kugidensetsu #naillegends #nailcurse -
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- BACK to the Daruma Museum -
. ABC List of Heian Contents .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Man'yōshū 万葉集 / 萬葉集 Manyoshu Poetry Collection
Collection of Myriad Leaves
Manyoo-Shuu, Manyo-Shu, Manyoo'shuu, Manyōshyū
Gedichtsammlung Manyoshu



- quote -
The Man'yōshū  万葉集, literally "Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves",
(see Name below) is the oldest existing collection of Japanese poetry, compiled sometime after 759 AD during the Nara period. The anthology is one of the most revered of Japan's poetic compilations. The compiler, or the last in a series of compilers, is today widely believed to be Ōtomo no Yakamochi, although numerous other theories have been proposed. The collection contains poems ranging from AD 347 (poems #85–89) through 759 (#4516), the bulk of them representing the period after 600. The precise significance of the title is not known with certainty.

The collection is divided into twenty parts or books; this number was followed in most later collections. The collection contains 265 chōka (long poems), 4,207 tanka (short poems), one tan-renga (short connecting poem), one bussokusekika (poems on the Buddha's footprints at Yakushi-ji in Nara), four kanshi (Chinese poems), and 22 Chinese prose passages. Unlike later collections, such as the Kokin Wakashū, there is no preface.
The Man'yōshū is widely regarded as being a particularly unique Japanese work.
- Translating the Name -
Although the name Man'yōshū literally means "Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves" or "Collection of Myriad Leaves", it has been interpreted variously by scholars. Sengaku, Kamo no Mabuchi and Kada no Azumamaro considered the character 葉 yō to represent koto no ha (words), and so give the meaning of the title as "collection of countless words". Keichū and Kamochi Masazumi (鹿持雅澄) took the middle character to refer to an "era", thus giving "a collection to last ten thousand ages".
The kanbun scholar Okada Masayuki (岡田正之) considered 葉 yō to be a metaphor comparing the massive collection of poems to the leaves on a tree. Another theory is that the name refers to the large number of pages used in the collection.
Of these, "collection to last ten thousand ages" is considered to be the interpretation with the most weight.
- snip snip -
- - - More in the WIKIPEDIA !




::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- quote - Michael Hoffman
‘It is I who rule’ — Japan’s ‘Manyoshu’ morning

What fun civilization is in its infancy! How bright and fresh the world looks at the dawn of consciousness! Listen:

Your basket, with your pretty basket,
Your trowel, with your little trowel,
Maiden, picking herbs on this hillside,
I would ask you: Where is your home?
Will you not tell me your name?

It was morning in Japan. Night — if night is a fitting metaphor for Neolithic prehistory — had been long, tens of thousands of years long. China, Egypt and Mesopotamia had thousands of years of civilization behind them; classical Greece had come and gone; classical Rome, long past its prime, was dying. Still, Japan slept on.

The pre-agricultural, preliterate, seemingly endless Jomon Period (circa 12,000 B.C. to circa 200 B.C.) evolved at last into the agricultural, still preliterate Yayoi Period (circa 200 B.C. to A.D. 250), without sparking a transformation dramatic enough to be called civilizing. Then, with startling abruptness, nudged by China via Korea, Japan awoke from its primeval slumbers.

The watershed event is the arrival, circa A.D. 405, of a Korean scholar named Wani. He brought to the imperial court the gift of letters — reading and writing. Chinese became the official language. Soon courtiers and nobles were steeped in Confucian and Buddhist learning. In 645, a palace revolution fused a multitude of independent clans into a quasi-Chinese-style state under the Emperor’s divine but tender sovereignty. Its tenderness we gather from the poem just quoted, for its author is the fifth-century Emperor Yuryaku— who proceeds, very tenderly indeed, to introduce himself to the maiden:

It is I who rule
Over this wide land of Yamato (an ancient name for Japan);
It is I who reign over all.

Thus opens the glorious “Manyoshu,” Japan’s first, many say its best, poetry anthology. “Best” — meaning what? Beauty, shimmering beauty; and innocence, a rare innocence — rare because generally a culture that has risen to this level of linguistic mastery has already lost its innocence. Japan, having risen so very fast, hadn’t.

“Manyoshu” (“Collection of Myriad Leaves”) consists of 4,000-odd poems composed over three centuries, Yuryaku’s being among the earliest, the latest dating to roughly 750, the height of Japan’s first great era, the brilliant Nara Period (710-794).

Unlike later Japanese anthologies, the “Manyoshu” was not produced under imperial auspices. The editing process remains something of a mystery. Scholars speak of earlier poem collections that have not survived, so the “Manyoshu” may not have struck its contemporaries, as it does us, as genius bursting naked from a vacuum.

The poems are astonishing in their variety. There are short poems and long poems — a remarkable fact in itself, for the Japanese long poem, the choka, was soon afterwards to die out, leaving the short tanka to reign supreme. There are poems by emperors and courtiers, naturally, but also by ordinary people, the poor, the lowly

Cold and bitter is the night!
As for those poorer than myself . . .
how do you struggle through life?

— people whom later ages would scorn and ignore.

There are poems of joy and poems of grief, of travel and of domesticity, of love in all its myriad aspects and of nature — nature portrayed as only a newly awakened sensibility can portray her

You boatmen that come rowing ...
Ply not too hard your oars...
lest you startle into flight
the birds beloved of my dear husband!

— and we see here an impulse that over time came to seem inseparable from the Japanese consciousness, a reaching out to nature as the ultimate symbol of everything that makes life wonderful; or as the ultimate consolation when life turns sad past bearing

The cloud drifting over the brows
Of the hills of secluded Hatsuse —
Can it, alas, be she?

The poems span the emotional spectrum — or rather, not quite: Where, one wonders, is anger? Was “Manyo man” never angry? That seems unlikely. A better hypothesis is that he (and she, for many of the poets are women) thought anger unworthy of poetry — as was war, for though conscripted frontier guards march gamely to their distant postings

At the bidding of my great Sovereign
I set out as defender of the isle . . .

they sing no paeans to martial glory, lamenting instead the wrenching pain of leaving home

My mother picking up the hem of her skirt,
Stroked me with it and caressed me . .. 

A pity we have space only for snippets. Where to begin?

Today, taking my last sight of the mallards
Crying on the pond of Iware,
Must I vanish into the clouds!
- - - “Composed in tears,”
a marginal note laconically informs us, “when (a certain Prince Otsu) died by Imperial order on the bank of Iware Pond.”


I gather shells and pebbles
For my darling at home,

sings Fujiwara Kamatari, the guiding hand behind the revolution of 645 and founder of the prepotent Fujiwara clan, power behind the throne for centuries to come. And who was his “darling at home?” A palace attendant named Yasumiko. Hear Kamatari’s whoop of exultation when she consented to be his:

O, Yasumiko I have won!
Mine is she whom all men,
they say, have sought in vain.
Yasumiko I have won!”

Ranked among the greatest of the Manyoshu poets is Kakinomoto Hitomaro (late seventh, early eighth centuries):

Like the sea-tangle, swaying in the wave
hither and thither, my wife would cling to me . . .

His wife died:

I journeyed to Karu and searched the market place
where she was wont to go!
… But no voice of her I heard …
Alas, she is no more, whose soul
was bent to mine like the bending seaweed!

Grief makes happiness seem vain — or is it happiness that makes grief seem vain?

Instead of wasting thoughts on unavailing things,
it would seem wiser
to drink a cup of raw sake.

That’s the spirit! It’s one of the famous “Twelve poems in praise of sake” by Otomo Tabito (665-731). Have we room for one more?

Grotesque! When I look upon a man
who drinks no sake, looking wise —
how like an ape he is!”

- source : Japan Times, 2016 -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



- Reference in Japanese 万葉集 -
- Reference in English -

. Legends - Heian Period (794 to 1185) - Introduction .

. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話　昔話 - Introduction .

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



. Join the friends on Facebook ! .

- #manyoshu　#manyooshuu -
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- BACK to the Daruma Museum -
. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話 昔話 - Introduction .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

bikuni densetsu 比丘尼　伝説　Legends about Buddhist nuns
ama 尼 nun



tako bikuni蛸比丘尼 the Octopus nun

. bikuni 比丘尼 Buddhist Nuns .
- Introduction -
- - - - - including
heoi bikuni, he-oi bikuni 屁負比丘尼 / 屁負比丘 fart-pretending nuns
uta bikuni 歌比丘尼 singing nun
bikuni 比丘尼　prostitutes clad as nuns in Edo
Kumano bikuni 熊野比丘尼 nun from Kumano

..............................................................................................................................................

sennen bikuni千年比丘尼 a young nun for 1000 years
never growing old, because once she ate the meat of a "human-fish"

The "human fish"人魚 (ningyo) is most probably a Dugong.
Whoever eats its meat will live for 1000 years without changing his/her features.
- source : Dugong dugon -

A young woman eats a piece of fish found in the left-overs of her father, a fisherman.
When she learns about the fact that it was a "human fish" she decides to become a nun to atone for her deed. And then . . .

There are many legends about her in many parts of Japan, after all she lived for 1000 years with the features of a beautiful woman. When she stayed at a temple for a while, people became suspicious of her never-changing beautiful features and eventually she had to leave for another place. Often she planted a walking stick in the temple compound before leaving, which sprouted to live on . . .



Yashima Kameyama 八島亀山 in Okayama 岡山
After the young woman had left her birthplace . . there was a young man from Kameyama, who visited the temple 善光寺 Zenko-Ji in Nagano, where he saw a beautiful nun in the temple and told her about Kameyama、so she became quite homesick. When he went back and told the story to the fishermen in Kameyama they went to the back of Mount Boyama 坊山 and found the remains of her old small temple. There was also an old tree, byakushinビャクシン / 柏槙 (a kind of mountain juniper) to our day, which had sprouted from her walking stick.
This tree was then found to have a disease infecting the Japanese pear trees nearby and was cut down eventually.

In Asakuchi　浅口, Okayama in the hamlet of 貞見 Sadami
there is another tree that has sprouted from her walking stick. It has sprouted, as she had foretold, "tsue wa ikitsuku made"　杖は活き着くまで. . . and now there is another hamlet with a pun on that nearby :
Tsukuma津熊 .
The tree that sprouted from her stick was a huge yanagi 大柳 willow tree.
It was so strong and perfect that the tree was cut down and its trunck became a beam for the famous 三十三間堂,　京都 Hall of 1000 Buddha Statues in Kyoto, Sanjusan Gendo.

. Legends about the roof beams for 三十三間堂 Sanjusan Gendo .

.....................................................................


hyakunen bikuni　百年比丘尼 nun for 100 years

...................................

yao bikuni 八百比丘尼（やおびくに）nun for 800 years

- quote -
One of the most famous folk stories concerning ningyo is called
Yao Bikuni (八百比丘尼, "eight-hundred (years) Buddhist priestess") or
ハッピャクビクニ Happyaku Bikuni.

The story tells how a fisherman who lived in Wakasa Province once caught an unusual fish. In all his years fishing, he had never seen anything like it, so he invited his friends over to sample its meat.

One of the guests, however, peeked into the kitchen, noticed that the head of this fish had a human face, and warned the others not to eat it. So when the fisherman finished cooking and offered his guests the ningyo's grilled flesh, they secretly wrapped it in paper and hid it on their persons so that it could be discarded on the way home.

But one man, drunk on sake, forgot to throw the strange fish away. This man had a little daughter, who demanded a present when her father arrived home, and he carelessly gave her the fish. Coming to his senses, the father tried to stop her from eating it, fearing she would be poisoned, but he was too late and she finished it all. But as nothing particularly bad seemed to happen to the girl afterwards, the man did not worry about it for long.

Years passed, and the girl grew up and was married. But after that she did not age any more; she kept the same youthful appearance while her husband grew old and died. After many years of perpetual youth and being widowed again and again, the woman became a nun and wandered through various countries. Finally she returned to her hometown in Wakasa, where she ended her life at an age of 800 years.



ningyo (人魚, "human fish", often translated as "mermaid")
is a fish-like creature from Japanese folklore.
Anciently, it was described with a monkey’s mouth with small teeth like a fish’s, shining golden scales, and a quiet voice like a skylark or a flute. Its flesh is pleasant-tasting, and anyone who eats it will attain remarkable longevity. However, catching a ningyo was believed to bring storms and misfortune, so fishermen who caught these creatures were said to throw them back into the sea. A ningyo washed onto the beach was an omen of war or calamity.
..... gyojin 魚人 fish-man, human fish
- More about ningyo Ningyo (人魚) "human fish" :
- source : wikipedia -

.......................................................................

Yao Bikuni 八百比丘尼（やおびくに）
金川寺 Kinsen-Ji in Fukushima -
喜多方市塩川町金橋字金川
- source : bqspot.com/tohoku/fukushima -

..............................................................................................................................................


Shiira bikuniシイラ比丘尼 The Nun Shiira



.......................................................................
Iwate, 釜石　Kamaishi - and Miyagi 南三陸町 Minami Sanriku

One day a fisherman went fishing near Hiraizumi, when a strange old man living in a cave gave him a strange red fish to eat.
His companion 五郎三郎 Gorosaburo did not eat the fish meat but took it home with him and told everyone not to eat it. His young daughter of 6 years named シイラ Shiira was so tempted to eat this meat, she did not listen to her father's warning and ate it.
After this Shiira never died and lived as a nun for at least 200 years. Now nobody knows where she is.
The old man is said to have been 海尊仙人 Kaison Sennin.

After the death of 平泉の秀衡 Lord Hidehira in Hiraizumi, his retainer Gorosaburo took his life to follow his master, as was the custom of the times.
The wife of Gorosaburo took their young daughter Shiira and hid at 本吉郡の竹島 Takeshima Island in the Motoyoshi district.
The Heavenly Nymph at the Cave of the same name at Takeshima island 竹島の天女洞 refers to the girl Shiira, who lived more than 250 years, always looking like a woman in her forties.


Togura 戸倉 - Takeshima 竹島
Different from the other islands in the inlay, this island is of a soft white rock.

shiira鱰／鱪 / シイラ is the name of the common dolphin, Coryphaena hippurus.


. Hitachibo Kaison Sennin 常陸坊海尊仙人 .


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
- - - - - ABC List of the prefectures :

.................................................................. Aichi 愛知県 ....................................................................
知多郡 Chita gun 南知多町 Minami Chita

yao bikuni 八百比丘尼 a nun for 800 years

Once upon a time in the Heian period
a young woman ate a piece of meat from a "human fish" . . . and had to live for 800 years as a young beauty.
She walked around in many parts of Japan . . .


.................................................................. Niigata 新潟県 ....................................................................
Sado, 相川町 Aikawa

. happyaku bikuniハッピャクビクニ and 猿田彦大神 Sarutahiko .

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- reference : nichibun yokai database 妖怪データベース -
yokai database - bikuni (54 entries)
血まみれの比丘尼
八百比丘尼
断食の比丘尼 and many more
- source : www.nichibun.ac.jp -

.......................................................................

manga nihon mukashibanashi database
鏡騒動
耳柿
ドジョウ取り爺さん
八百比丘尼
- source : nihon.syoukoukai.com -

..............................................................................................................................................


. Legends about Kobo Daishi Kukai - 弘法大師　空海 - 伝説 .

. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話　昔話 - Introduction .

- Yookai 妖怪 Yokai Monsters of Japan -
- Introduction -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



. Join the friends on Facebook ! .

- #bikunilegends -
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- BACK to the Daruma Museum -
. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話 昔話 - Introduction .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Rokusan　六三 伝説　legends about Rokusan, Deity of Illness
六三さま / ろくさんさま　Rokusan Sama
Rokuzoosama ロクゾウサマ Rokuzo Sama
rokusan 六算 / ロクサン　/ ロクサン様 Rokusan Sama

- - - - - 六三さまという神様
Rokusan Sama is a deity that resides in various parts of the body, but in a different part every year.
This part is prone to become sick.
There are various types of changes of Rokusan:
tobi rokusanトビロクサン "jumping Rokusan"
tsuki rokusan月ロクサン Rokusan changing every month
toshi rokusan年ロクサン Rokusan changing every year

六三 ＝ 無産 musan - without possession or job
活動が停止した部分、弱くなった部分、を除くご祈祷。これが六三除です。

Rokusan is related to
. kyuusei 九星 Kyusei, the "nine special stars" .
.

If people do not take precautions and rituals to prevent Rokusan Sama to become violent
(Rokusan no yaku 六三の厄), this part will become very sick.
It is best to perform some rituals (Rokusan yoke 六三除け) before going to see a doctor for treatment.
rokusan yoke no majinaiロクサンヨケの咒 / 呪 spell against Rokusan



When someone is ill the cure is made by "calculating with six" (roku san 六算).
First take the age of the ill person and divide it by 9. The remaining number can now be equated to a part of the body.
(Example: someone is now 31, divided by 9, remains 4. He might be affected with a breast or stomach disease.)

1 and 3 are lower legs, 2 and 6 are the sides, 4 is the breast or stomach,
8 are the thighs, 5 and 7 the shoulders, 9 is the head.
The sides vary for men and women.

During a pregnancy, it is best to use an amulet near the points 2, 6 and 8 to pray for easy delivery.
People either apply the amulet directly to their own body or get a paper figure with the numbers from a temple and apply it here.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::




立正院 きしもじん Rissho-In Kishimojin
福島市松川町信夫隠５番地 Fukushima
- reference source : kishimojin.net -


. Kishimojin 鬼子母神 Kishibojin .
Karitei, Kangimo

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
- - - - - ABC List of the prefectures :

.................................................................. Fukushima 福島県 ....................................................................
Nishi Aizu, 檜枝岐村 Hinoemata

rokusan yoke ロクサン除け "preventing Rokusan"
Rokusan yoke no majinaiろくさんよけのまじない
People who know a lot of spells (咒 / 呪 ju, majinai) do not go hunting very often.
Once a man had a stomach ache and asked an old man for a ritual to prevent Rokusan. He was healed quite fast.
Sometimes it helps to rub an abacus on the painful spot and say a spell, sometimes it helps to plaster an amulet with some pine resin (松脂 matsuyani) over the painful spot.


.................................................................. Gunma 群馬県 ....................................................................

rokusan 六算 / ロクサン calculating with SIX - ( soomi rokusan 惣身六算)

When someone is ill the cure is made by "calculating with six".
First take the age of the ill person and divide it by 9. The number can now be equated to a part of the body.
1 and 3 are lower legs, 2 and 6 are the sides, 4 is the stomach, 8 are the thighs. 5 and 7 the shoulders.
If the healing was successful, offering of Tofu, sekihan赤飯 red cooked rice and dango団子 rice balls were made to the 稲荷 Inari deity.

. Kappa and Tōfu kozō 豆腐小僧 Tofu Kozo, The Tofu Boy .



.................................................................. Niigata 新潟県 ....................................................................

In various parts
rokusan ni ataru ロクサンに当る to be attacked by Rokusan
This could happen for various reasons:
During the days of doyo土用 Doyo :
If people would dig a hole or hammer a nail.
If people had to enlarge the space for the family graves,

. doyoo 土用 Doyo days .
four times a year, the 18 days before each changing to the next season,


.................................................................. Saitama 埼玉県 ....................................................................
戸田市 Toda

When getting ill, it is best to perform a ritual for Rokusan before visiting a doctor.


.................................................................. Tochigi 栃木県 ....................................................................
粟野町 Awano

rokusan sama ロクサン様 Rokusan sama
Pain in the shoulders, lower back or legs is often simply called "Rokusan".
People visit elders who perform rituals to get rid of Rokusan (rokusan sake ロクサン避け).
They also offer special kinds of Tofu bean curd to Rokusan or the Family Deity (ujigami sama 氏神様).


masudoofu マス豆腐 / 枡豆腐 Tofu in a wooden Masu cup.


. Kappa and Tōfu kozō 豆腐小僧 Tofu Kozo, The Tofu Boy .


.................................................................. Yamanashi 山梨県 ....................................................................
秋山村 Akiyama

If someone has pain without any known cause, it might be due to Rokusan.
Dividing the age of the ill person by 9, and if the rest of the number falls on a number of Rokusan, then he is the cause of the illness.
金神様に失礼なことをしたのであてられたので、３差路に段を作っておがんでわびる。

.......................................................................
Yamanashi, 北都留郡 Kitatsuru district

hime konjin sama no tatari ヒメコンジン様の祟り the curse of Hime Konjin Sama
In every house there are for Konjin Sama deities to protect the premises.
One of them is the female "Princess Konjin Sama".
If people do not treat her spot nicely, someone will get ill. They must keep the area around the outside toilet clean and not cut branches from the Silverberry (グミの木 gumi, Elaeagnus pungens), otherwise their lower back will start aching the same day due to the influnce of Rokusan.
If someone gets ill in this way, he has to seek help from a person performing rituals for Hime Kojin Sama and Rokusan or learn a special spell to repeat secretly to himself.


. Konjin, Konjin Sama 　金神, 金神様 deity of metal .

..............................................................................................................................................

- reference : nichibun yokai database 妖怪データベース -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::




amulet from
. 中野不動尊 Nakano Fudo Son Temple .
福島市飯坂町中野 / Iizakamachi Nakano, Fukushima

..............................................................................................................................................


. Legends about Kobo Daishi Kukai - 弘法大師　空海 - 伝説 .

. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話　昔話 - Introduction .

- Yookai 妖怪 Yokai Monsters of Japan -
- Introduction -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



. Join the friends on Facebook ! .

- #rokusan -
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- BACK to the Daruma Museum -
. Legends - Heian Period (794 to 1185) - Introduction .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Kamakura Gongorō Kagemasa 鎌倉権五郎景政 Legends
(born 1069)
鎌倉景正 Kamakura Kagemasa / 平景正 Taira no Kagemasa / Kagemasa 景政



- quote -
Kamakura Gongorō Kagemasa 鎌倉権五郎景政 (born 1069)
a samurai descended from the Taira clan, who fought for the Minamoto clan in the Gosannen War of Japan's Heian period. He is famous for having continued to fight after losing an eye in battle during that war. This was in 1085, when Kagemasa was sixteen years of age.

The progenitor of the Nagae and Kagawa clans, Kagemasa is also claimed as an ancestor by Oba Kagechika, a famous figure of the Genpei War (1180–1185). The family name "Kamakura" comes from his family's residence in the city of Kamakura (in today's Kanagawa prefecture), where his father was a powerful official. The exact identity of his father is unclear, but most scholars cite either 平景成 Taira no Kagenari or 平景通 Taira no Kagetōri as likely names.

Kamakura Gongorō Kagemasa is the hero of the kabuki play Shibaraku, one of the most widely-recognized of all kabuki roles and one most associated with the form among those with only a cursory knowledge of the form. Kagemasa is represented in the play with bold red and white face makeup, and a massive costume with huge sleeves, often bearing the crest of the actor Ichikawa Danjūrō.
- - - More in the WIKIPEDIA !

..............................................................................................................................................

Gosannen no Eki後三年の役 （1083年 - 1087年）



- quote -
The Gosannen War (後三年合戦, gosannen kassen), also known as the Later Three-Year War, was fought in the late 1080s in Japan's Mutsu Province on the island of Honshū.
The Gosannen War was part of a long struggle for power within the warrior clans of the time.
The Gosannen kassen
arose because of a series of quarrels within the Kiyohara clan (sometimes referred to as "Kiyowara"). The long-standing disturbances were intractable. When Minamoto no Yoshiie, who became Governor of Mutsu province in 1083, tried to calm the fighting which continued between Kiyohara no Masahira, Iehira, and Narihira.
Negotiations were not successful; and so Yoshiie used his own forces to stop the fighting. He was helped by Fujiwara no Kiyohira. In the end, Iehira and Narihira were killed.
During the Siege of Kanezawa,
1086-1089, Yoshiie avoided an ambush by noticing a flock of birds take flight from a forest.
Much of the war is depicted in an e-maki narrative handscroll, the 後三年合戦　絵巻　Gosannen Kassen E-maki, which was created in 1171. The artwork is owned today by the Watanabe Museum in Tottori city, Japan.
- - - More in the WIKIPEDIA !

..............................................................................................................................................

- quote -
Shibaraku (暫 / しばらく) "Stop a Moment!"
is among the most popular pieces in the Kabuki repertoire, and one of the celebrated Kabuki Jūhachiban (Eighteen Great Plays)



The plot centers around the figure of Kamakura Gongorō Kagemasa, who has become the stereotypical bombastic hero of the kabuki stage, with red-and-white striped makeup and strong, energetic movement. The historical Kamakura Kagemasa is famous for his bravery for having continued to fight after losing an eye in battle in the Gosannen War (1083-1087).
- - - More in the WIKIPEDIA !

- quote -
"Shibaraku"
Kiyohara Takehira has ordered his retainers to kill people who will not obey his orders. Kamakura Gongoro appears with the shout "Shibaraku" (Wait a minute!) and rescues these people.
In Edo Kabuki, actors made annual contracts with theaters. The performance in November, celebrating the opening of the new contract year, was called Kaomise (face-showing) and was the most important annual event. It introduced the actors who were members of the company. For the Kaomise, it was customary to create a scene such as this in which all major actors were on stage together, and to include a character with a strong sense of justice who appeared on stage after shouting, "Shibaraku" and saved innocent people who were in imminent danger of being killed by evil men.

Among various works performed for Kaomise, this scene was performed many times, and was gradually refined until fixed dramatic techniques were established. In the Meiji period, this "Shibaraku" scene began to be performed as an independent act, as it is today. "Shibaraku" allows audiences to enjoy stylized dramatic techniques rather than the story of a play.
The hero of this play performs in the Aragoto style, the specialty of each Ichikawa Danjuro generation. Therefore, "Shibaraku" is included as one of the Kabuki-juhachiban (18 best plays), the collection of plays established as "Ie no gei" (specially chosen repertoire for the actor's family) of the Danjuro family.


Kamakura Gongoro wears the type of wig called Kurumabin to which Chikara-gami ornaments made of washi (Japanese paper) are attached, with the type of Kumadori makeup called "Sujiguma" and a costume called suo with enormous sleeves showing the mimasu [3 nested square rice measures], the Ichikawa Danjuro family crest. These are all designed to make Gongoro appear large and strong.
Tsurane
The long speech spoken without a break by Gongoro on the Hanamichi is called Tsurane. This allows the audience to hear the actor's elocution, one of the arts of Aragoto. Basically, the content of this speech, in which many puns are included, is changed for each production.
Keshogoe
When Gongoro has moved from the Hanamichi to the Hombutai (main stage) and is removing the top layer of his costume, voices on stage shout "A-rya, ko-rya" repeatedly, and other voices shout "Dekkee" synchronized with Gongoro's Mie (poses). These voices, called Keshogoe, are praising the Aragoto actors. Keshogoe shouts also praise Soga Goro in "Kotobuki soga no taimen."
- source : ntj.jac.go.jp/unesco/kabuki -


. Kabuki and Narita San Ichikawa Danjūrō .

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Takizawa Bakin滝沢馬琴 七不思議，妖怪

nana fushigi七不思議 seven wonders of Edo
from the year 1789 - 寛政11年 夏江戸の七不思議。
雷獣を捕えた。女が卵を生んだ。子児が桶で水死した。和睦の後に刀傷におよんだ。三日月井戸の争論が３日に和睦した。匹の牝犬に２匹の牡犬が交尾していた。

鎌倉権五郎景政を祭った社に参詣したら目がつぶれた。
If someone visited a shrine dedicated to Kamakura Gongoro, his one eye would be lost.
(Maybe this is the Shrine in Kamakura.)

. Edo Nana Fushigi 江戸七不思議 The Seven Wonders of Edo　 .


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
- - - - - ABC List of the prefectures :

.................................................................. Akita　秋田　 ....................................................................
Yokote横手市 金澤町

ugui 石斑魚 Japanese dace
At the shrine 金澤八幡神社 Kanezawa Hachimangu in Yawata-119 Yawata, Yokote, Akita
there were 土鈴 clay bells with a Japanese dace with only one eye and 土偶 small clay statues of Kamakura Gongoro.
Gongoro lost his right eye by a hit with an arrow during the siege and 後三年の役 "Later three year's war" of Kanezawa (around 1086 - 89). Gongoro was just 16 years at that time.
He pulled out the arrow at the river 厨川 Kuriyagawa and washed his wound there, thus polluting the river. Now the fish in the river have only one eye.
The clay figures and bells depict him and 石斑魚の土鈴 the Ugui river fish with only one eye.
(It may have been a kajika 鰍 bullhead fish, fam Psychrolutidae.)

. ugui 石斑魚 Japanese dace .

Fish in the rivers coming from 鳥海山 Mount Chokai-San all have only one eye (sugameuo 眇魚) .
Here again is the legend of Kamakura Gongoro having washed his eye after being shot.



............................................................. Fukushima 福島県　 ...............................................................
南矢野目 Minami Yanome

mekko shimizu 半盲清水 clear well with one-eyed fish
Because Gongoro washed his wounded eye here in the "clear water".
- reference and photos : MASAの道中日記 -


.................................................................. Ibaragi 茨城県　 ....................................................................
牛久町 Ushiku machi

Gongoro no Onnen 鎌倉権五郎の怨念
奥州征伐に向かった鎌倉権五郎が、非業の最期を遂げた場所だとされている。この地に果てた権五郎の怨念で、附近の土地を作ると目患をする。病人が出ると言って恐れられていた。


.................................................................. Iwate 岩手県　 ....................................................................
Morioka, 厨川 Kuriyagawa

katame no sakana 片目の魚，メッコ鰍 fish with one eye
The kajika 鰍 bullhead fish in the river Kuriyagawa have only one eye.
This is because Gongoro washed his wounded eye in the river.


.................................................................. Mie 三重県　 ....................................................................
鈴鹿市 and 津市 Suzuka and Tsu

mearai ike, me-arai ike 眼洗池 pond where he washed his eye
The turtles and fish in this pond have all only one eye.
Gongoro had a stronghold there and washed his wounded eye in the pond.


.................................................................. Miyagi 宮城県　 ....................................................................
亘理町 Watari

kataha no ashi, kataba no ashi 片葉の芦 One-sided Reed
Kamakura Kagemasa was had a wounded eye by an arrow and wanted to wash in a pond. When some reeds disturbed him, he cut them down and they turned to become one-sided reeds.
This legend is told in many other ponds of Japan:

宮城郡利府町神谷沢 鏡ヶ池 Miyagi, Rifu, Kamiyazawa
仙台市南町裏の池、仙台市片平丁西側牢屋敷隣りの池、白石市柳町角田街道沿道田の中の池、白石市越河亀井清水、多賀城市市川鴻ノ池、黒川郡富谷町志戸田行 神社御手洗池、石巻市真野萱原長谷寺の池、栗原郡金成町姉歯赤坂岩蔵寺堤、白石市葭ヶ池、柴田郡柴田町船迫清水、栗原郡高清水町勾当山。

katame no buna 片目の鮒 crucian carp with one eye
In the river Nikkawagawa 新川川 Gongoro washed his wounded eye.


. buna densetsu 鮒 伝説　crucian carp - kigo and legends .


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- reference : nichibun yokai database 妖怪データベース -

..............................................................................................................................................

. Persons of the Heian Period (794 to 1185) 平安時代 .

. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話　昔話 - Introduction .

- Yookai 妖怪 Yokai Monsters of Japan -
- Introduction -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

景政が片目をひろふ田螺かな
Kagemasa ga katame o hirou tanishi kana

Kagemasa
picks up a mud snail
with one eye . . .

. Kikaku Takarai Kikaku 宝井其角 .
榎本其角 Enomoto Kikaku (1661-1707)

Goryoo Jinja 御霊神社 Goryo Jinja
3-17 Sakanoshita, Kamakura, Kanagawa
Kagemasa is the deity in residence.

- quote -
The Shrine is dedicated to the soul of an extraordinarily brave samurai with great physical strength who had lived here before the Kamakura Period (1185-1333). His name is Kagemasa (Gongoro) Kamakura (1069-?), thereby local people call the Shrine "Gongoro-san". .

At the age of 16, he joined a battle at a southern part of Akita Prefecture as a retainer of Yoshiie Minamoto (1039-1106, great-grandfather of Yoritomo Minamoto, the founder of Kamakura Shogunate). During the bitter battle, his left eye was shot by an enemy's arrow. Undaunted, he bravely continued fighting. When he came back to the camp, the arrow was still in his eye. His colleague tried to help remove it putting his foot on Kagemasa's forehead. Kagemasa got furious and accused the colleague of his rude manner. Samurai were full of pride and self-respect those days, and the face being stepped on by foot meant to break the samurai code and was never bearable for Kagemasa. The colleague apologized for his rudeness and the arrow was eventually pulled out in proper manner. To commemorate this episode, a pair of fletchings were employed as the crest of the Shrine and they appear on the tiles of roof. Kagemasa's prowess and manner were highly praised as a role model of Kanto samurai. Hence the Shrine is credited by the locals with its power of healing eye diseases. Also to praise his braveness, a Jizo statue named Yagara (arrow) was made and had been enshrined at Engakuji. Unfortunately, it was destroyed by the 1923 earthquake. Today, a stone monument for this statue stands at Keisho-an of Engakuji and is listed 14th of the Kamakura Twenty-Four Jizo Pilgrimage.



In the Shrine's ground, there are a pair of round stones which are dubbed Tamoto-ishi or a "sleeve stone" and Tedama-ishi or a "stone in one's hand". Legend has it that the larger stone (left) weighing 105 kilograms was in Kagemasa's sleeve-pocket and the smaller one weighing 60 kilograms was in his palm as if they had been his toys. The stones are to show he was a man of muscle.

There are quite a few Jinja named Goryo in Japan. Go is a prefixal honorific and ryo means souls. According to Shinto dogma, those who died an unnatural death, died by violence or in a state of anger or resentment need to be buried with courtesy and reverence, and their souls should be enshrined. Otherwise, it is believed, people will incur divine wrath and punishment, or revenge will be exacted by the malevolent spirits of the dead. Goryo Jinja were thus erected throughout Japan to exorcise evil spirits, and special services are performed regularly to soothe the revengeful spirits. In the Shrine, wooden statues of Kagemasa and his wife are enthroned on the altar, but they are not visible. As usual in Shinto shrines, only a round mirror is placed in the center.
- source : kamakuratoday.com/e -


. tanishi 田螺 paddie snails, mud snails .


. 御霊神社 Goryo Jinja Shrines in Japan .

..............................................................................................................................................


source : kamakuratoday.com/suki/mochida


- - - - - There is a saying about Kagemasa

景政の目玉田螺も力餅
Kagemasa no medama tanishi mo chikaramochi

tanishi 田螺 / タニシ mud snails are said to be a medicine for eye disease. In their form they look almost like an eyeball.

There is alos a deity 片目の生砂神 for lost eyes.
- reference : www.geocities.jp/kasaamiryou/topix4/... pdf file -
(More to be explored.)




- quote -
You will find an old stone guidepost engraved　"Goryo Shrine Kamakura Gongoro Kagemasa" in front and "Road bound for Hasedera Temple" on the side. Actually, this place has been a very important cross roads from Enoshima and Hase since Kamakura era or maybe more ancient times.

Mochiya Kichibei, the founder of CHIKARAMOCHI YA, opened his store right behind the guidepost. It is a story of 300 years ago.

- - - - - Chikaramochi and Kamakura Samurai history
A Kamakura Samurai named Gongoro Kagemasa became famous for his brave actions and success in the battles of 1083-1087 at TOHOKU (the northern region of Japan). He was just 16 years old at that time but already very strong. When his troops returned in triumph they began the contest of strength using 60-kilo, 100-kilo stones here at Sakanoshita. They all admired Gongoro's strength.

Later who knows when, these stones were placed at Goryo shrine and the rice cakes were put on the stones for offering to Gongoro. Those cakes were also delivered to the worshipers and came to be called Gongoro's CHIKARAMOCHI.

Long later but still long time ago, our ancestor started making the house-brand cake named CHIKARAMOCHI so that people would keep in mind the brave samurai, Gongoro Kagemasa for the future. 　(Those stones are exhibited at Goryo shrine even now.)

Times had changed into the modern age and the MEIJI government regulated the license for handling the sweet products at stores. CHIKARAMOCHI YA took it in 1885. ......long time has passed...... Now we enjoy the local activities, for example, Goryo festival together with many people and shops such as Mitome store who is also a very long established store here.
18-18 Sakanoshita, Kamakura City,
- source : chikaramochi-ya-en.com -


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



. Join the friends on Facebook ! .

- #kamakuragongoro #gongorokagemasa #onryoujinjakamakura -
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- BACK to the Daruma Museum -
. ABC List of Heian Contents .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

haniwa　埴輪 / はにわ terracotta clay figures
and the clan Hajibe, Haji-Be 土師部 / 土部



The Haniwa (埴輪) are terracotta clay figures which were made for ritual use and buried with the dead as funerary objects during the Kofun period (3rd to 6th century AD) of the history of Japan.
Haniwa were created according to the wazumi technique, in which mounds of coiled clay were built up to shape the figure, layer by layer.
The Haniwa were made with water-based clay and dried into a coarse and absorbent material that stood the test of time. Their name means “circle of clay” referring to how they were arranged in a circle above the tomb. The protruding parts of the figures were made separately and then attached, while a few things were carved into them. They were smoothed out by a wooden paddle. Earth terraces were arranged to place them with a cylindrical base into the ground, where the earth would hold them in place.
- MORE in the WIKIPEDIA !


. doguu, Dogū 土偶 clay figure, clay figurine .
small humanoid and animal figurines made during the late Jōmon period (14,000 BC to 400 BC) of prehistoric Japan

..............................................................................................................................................

haniwaはにわ【埴輪】“clay cylinder” or “circle of clay”
clay image at ancient burial mounds
discussion on Japanese haniwa (埴輪) and the kofun (古墳) period.
..... haniwa were meant to be seen.
That is, instead of being buried deep underground with the deceased, haniwa occupied and marked the open surfaces of the colossal tombs. However, it is unlikely that they were readily visible to any person who happened to pass by since the tombs were sacred, ritualized spaces that were usually surrounded by one or more moats. As a result, close visual contact with haniwa would not have been easy for unauthorized visitors. .....
Monumental tombs and early Japan
Three periods in tomb-building practices
Evolution and placement of haniwa
Haniwa in the form of animals, people and buildings
What role did haniwa play?
Style
Closeup of the Warrior Haniwa
- source : Dr. Yoko Hsueh Shirai -

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- quote -
Haji ware (土師器 Hajiki)
is a type of plain, unglazed, reddish-brown Japanese pottery or earthenware that was produced during the Kofun, Nara, and Heian periods of Japanese history. It was used for both ritual and utilitarian purposes, and many examples have been found in Japanese tombs, where they form part of the basis of dating archaeological sites.
- History -
Haji ware evolved in the 4th century AD (during the Tumulus period) from the Yayoi ware of the preceding period. The ornate decorations of Yayoi pottery were replaced by a plain, undecorated style, and the shapes began to become standardized. Great amounts of this pottery were produced by dedicated craft workshops in what later became the provinces of Yamato and Kawachi, and spread from there throughout western Japan, eventually reaching the eastern provinces. Some Haji ware pottery has been found in the enormous tombs of the Japanese emperors. By the end of the 5th century, Haji pottery was imitating Sue ware forms.
In the Nara period,
Haji ware was often burnished and smoke-blackened by being fired in an oxygen-reduction atmosphere but at low temperatures. This sub-style is known as kokushoku-doki.
Haji ware came to an end with the development of glazes and ceramics in the late Heian period.
During a 2007 underwater archaeology survey on Ojikajima by the Asian Research Institute of Underwater Archaeology, examples of Chinese ceramics and Haji ware was recovered.



- Characteristics -
Haji ware is typically a rust-red pottery, made of clay that was built up in rings or coils, rather than being thrown on a potters wheel. The exterior and usually the interior surfaces were finished by scraping smooth with a piece of wood. It was fired at temperatures below 1000 deg C in surface fires or oxidizing fires rather than kilns.
Most of Haji ware
is undecorated and has wide rims. However, ritual and funerary objects were also made in the form of houses, boats, animals, women, hunters, musicians, and warriors, which were often placed inside tombs On occasion, these objects were placed outside the tomb to guard it. One pot that was found at an archaeological site in Hachiōji, Tokyo has a globular body, averted mouth, rounded base, solid triangular handle, painted in dark grey pigment on one side with a human face painted on the front.
- - - More in the WIKIPEDIA !

..............................................................................................................................................

- quote -
Hajibe 土師部 / 土師氏 / 土部とも書く。
土師連(むらじ)を伴造(とものみやつこ)とし、朝廷に埴輪(はにわ haniwa)・土師器(はじき hajiki)を貢進し、葬礼をも担当したトモまたはその部民。『日本書紀』垂仁(すいにん Suinin)天皇32年条に、土部連の始祖
野見宿禰(のみのすくね Nomi no Sukune)が出雲(いずも Izumo)国（島根県）土部100人を率い殉人(じゅんにん)の代用として埴輪をつくった説話がみえる。
土師部は出雲をはじめ山城(やましろ)、摂津(せっつ)、河内(かわち)、和泉(いずみ)、遠江(とおとうみ)、武蔵(むさし)、下総(しもうさ)、常陸(ひたち)、美濃(みの)、若狭(わかさ)、丹後(たんご)、但馬(たじま)、因幡(いなば)、石見(いわみ)に設定された。雄略(ゆうりゃく)天皇17年条に贄土師部(にえのはじべ Nie no Hajibe)の貢進がみえ、のち諸陵司の伴部となった。
［前川明久］
- source : kotobank.jp -


. Hajidera 土師寺 and 道明寺天満宮 / Osaka .
Domyoji Tenmangu Shrine originates in Haji Shrine that Haji Tribe built in 3 A.D. to enshrine their ancestor Amenohohi no mikoto (the son of Amaterasu Omikami, the goddess of the sun).

.......................................................................


- quote -
Kofun (300 – 710 AD)
From the late 4th century AD, the dead start to get gifts in their tombs such as iron weapons and armour. These, and tomb paintings, are clear signs of contact with Korea and immigration of Korean artisans. So, next to the Suebe clay work that we have seen already in the Joumon period, these immigrants started making Hajibe clay work (darker, reddish). They made Haniwa out of this, which are little clay figures or cylindrical shapes, put on top of tomb hills. Also, there is evidence of some Japanese state being politically and militaristically involved on the Korean peninsula.
- source : ansui.wordpress.com/ -


Hajibe : Families or clans of potters (some from Korea) who, from about the fourth ... Yayoi pottery, mainly for the Yamato court; they probably also made haniwa.

- reference : haniwa hajibe clan -

.......................................................................


野見宿禰と大和出雲 / 池田 雅雄

. Nomi no Sukune野見宿禰 .
and the Sumo Jinja 相撲神社
The 菅原氏 Sugawara clan is said to be descended from 天穂日命 Ameno Hohino Mikoto and the Haji clan, one of whose ancestors was Nomi no Sukune, famous as the pioneer of Sumo.

Nomi no Sukune is mythically credited with contriving the haniwa, the terracotta figurines, which were used doing the Kofun period ...
Making the first haniwa under Nomi no Sukune's supervision ...

A potter from Izumo named Nomi no Sukune declared:
"It is not good to bury living men upright at the tumulus of a prince. ... Let it be the law for future ages to substitute things of clay for living men and set them up at tumuli." ...

- reference : haniwa nomi no sukune -

..............................................................................................................................................

mogari もがり【殯】 funeral rites

- quote -
THE MOGARI RITE THROUGH THE HISTORY OF JAPANESE CULTURE
..... The supposed etymology is as following. Mogari - from mo (mourning) + agari (ascend to heaven, /soul/ is flying away). Araki - /temporary/mausoleum (tomb) of newly dead \whose spirit is not appeased yet/, comp.; aramitatama - "spirit unappeased", arabotoke - newly dead /before first obon/, arakuchi - first after someone's death shaman's interrogation with his spirit; kijo:shiro - castle, palace, iwaki - "rock/cave tomb", ishiki - stone tomb, okutsuki - deep tomb, imaki - new tomb.
.....
Asobi-be
In- & outside the hinkyu (esp. of a dead sovereign) mogari-no matsuri (funeral festival) took place; its purpose was to call back the soul and bring the dead back to life, to pacify his potentially dangerous spirit in order to pass it to the successor or to send it off to nether world; thus the deification of the dead began. It included mogari-no asobi (funeral "play/game") with various dancing and singing. Beside relatives and officials there were two groups of funeral ritualists called Haji-be and Asobi-be.
Haji-be were constructing hinkyu, tombs, making haniwa. Asobi-be danced chinkon/tamafuri-no mai (dances to appease the souls of the dead) and sang shokonka/chinkonka (songs to call back and pacify the souls).
Asobi-be represented the occupational group of traditional Japanese shamans who were involved not only in funeral rituals, but also in the seasonal erotic festivities kagai\utagaki, other festivals and ceremonies (including Daijosai). Ecstatic dances of Asobi-be (from Hijiki-wake clan) lately developed in nembutsu-odori performed in Buddhist sect Ji-shu: (or Yugyo-ha - School of Wanderers, "yu/asobi"); thus sect Ji-shu: derived from exorcist rituals of asobi-be. Particularly, among its followers were Nogaku actors.
- - - - - read the essay here
- source : ru-jp.org/yaponovedy_baksheev -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


細長いだるまのような踊る埴輪です
A long dancing Haniwa, like Daruma



Look at many more new-type Haniwa items - 2015 - Let's make Haniwa!
- source : kumagaya-bunkazai.jp/museum -


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
- - - - - ABC List of the prefectures


............................................................................. Kyoto　京都　

. Fukakusa-yaki 深草焼 Clay Dolls from Fukakusa .
Clay Dolls from Fushimi - 伏見土人形

Fushimi Doll is a clay doll whose originator is said to be Hajibe who settled in Fukakusa
before the Nara era. 土師部　Hajibe is a tribe who was notable for their skills in making Haniwa (a clay image placed in ancient burial mounds) and earthenware.
The doll was made of clay from Mt. Inari, and was distributed widely, not only in old capital provinces but to Shikoku and Kyushu. The doll became the precursor of clay dolls that number approximately 90 types nationwide, such as Hakata Doll, Tsutsumi Doll of Sendai and Nakano Doll of Shinshu.
- source : ndl.go.jp/scenery/kansai -



............................................................................. Miyazaki 愛媛県



. haniwa ningyoo はにわ人形 Haniwa dolls .



............................................................................. Niigata　新潟県　

Kappa-type Dogu from Niigata, Itoigawa region
新潟土偶（カッパ型）from 新潟県糸魚川市長者


source : haniwadokoro.cart.fc2.com


. 河童 / かっぱ / カッパ - Kappa, the Water Goblin of Japan! .




............................................................................. Osaka　大阪　


埴輪馬 haniwa horse

. Osaka, Sakai town 堺市 .
住吉大社の諸玩具 Clay Dolls and Toys from shrine Sumiyoshi Taisha


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- Reference in Japanese 埴輪 -
- Reference in English -

. Legends - Heian Period (794 to 1185) - Introduction .

. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話　昔話 - Introduction .

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


haniwa gangu　埴輪玩具 Haniwa toys


CLICK for more photos !

. gangu 玩具伝説, omochcha おもちゃ toy, toys .

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



source : 白馬の少年

春愁や遠きいくさの埴輪武士
shunshuu ya tooki ikusa no haniwa bushi

spring melancholy -
this Haniwa soldier
of long times past

高知城 seen at the castle in Kochi

河野南畦 Kano Nankei (1913 - 1995)

.......................................................................


冬の日に埴輪掘りたる人死ぬか
とろ～と冬日が溶ける埴輪かな

萩原麦草

.......................................................................


時雨るるや手あげて埴輪夫を恋ふ
野見山朱鳥


太刀佩ける埴輪をのこに梅咲けり
福田蓼汀

愛する時獣皮のような苔の埴輪
赤尾兜子


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



. Join the friends on Facebook ! .

- #haniwafigures #haniwadolls -
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

. Yakimono 焼物　/ Setomono 瀬戸物 pottery, crockery .
- Introduction -

[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- BACK to the Daruma Museum -
. ABC List of Heian Contents .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

haniwa　埴輪 / はにわ terracotta clay figures
and the clan Hajibe, Haji-Be 土師部 / 土部



The Haniwa (埴輪) are terracotta clay figures which were made for ritual use and buried with the dead as funerary objects during the Kofun period (3rd to 6th century AD) of the history of Japan.
Haniwa were created according to the wazumi technique, in which mounds of coiled clay were built up to shape the figure, layer by layer.
The Haniwa were made with water-based clay and dried into a coarse and absorbent material that stood the test of time. Their name means “circle of clay” referring to how they were arranged in a circle above the tomb. The protruding parts of the figures were made separately and then attached, while a few things were carved into them. They were smoothed out by a wooden paddle. Earth terraces were arranged to place them with a cylindrical base into the ground, where the earth would hold them in place.
- MORE in the WIKIPEDIA !


. doguu, Dogū 土偶 clay figure, clay figurine .
small humanoid and animal figurines made during the late Jōmon period (14,000 BC to 400 BC) of prehistoric Japan

..............................................................................................................................................

haniwaはにわ【埴輪】“clay cylinder” or “circle of clay”
clay image at ancient burial mounds
discussion on Japanese haniwa (埴輪) and the kofun (古墳) period.
..... haniwa were meant to be seen.
That is, instead of being buried deep underground with the deceased, haniwa occupied and marked the open surfaces of the colossal tombs. However, it is unlikely that they were readily visible to any person who happened to pass by since the tombs were sacred, ritualized spaces that were usually surrounded by one or more moats. As a result, close visual contact with haniwa would not have been easy for unauthorized visitors. .....
Monumental tombs and early Japan
Three periods in tomb-building practices
Evolution and placement of haniwa
Haniwa in the form of animals, people and buildings
What role did haniwa play?
Style
Closeup of the Warrior Haniwa
- source : Dr. Yoko Hsueh Shirai -

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- quote -
Haji ware (土師器 Hajiki)
is a type of plain, unglazed, reddish-brown Japanese pottery or earthenware that was produced during the Kofun, Nara, and Heian periods of Japanese history. It was used for both ritual and utilitarian purposes, and many examples have been found in Japanese tombs, where they form part of the basis of dating archaeological sites.
- History -
Haji ware evolved in the 4th century AD (during the Tumulus period) from the Yayoi ware of the preceding period. The ornate decorations of Yayoi pottery were replaced by a plain, undecorated style, and the shapes began to become standardized. Great amounts of this pottery were produced by dedicated craft workshops in what later became the provinces of Yamato and Kawachi, and spread from there throughout western Japan, eventually reaching the eastern provinces. Some Haji ware pottery has been found in the enormous tombs of the Japanese emperors. By the end of the 5th century, Haji pottery was imitating Sue ware forms.
In the Nara period,
Haji ware was often burnished and smoke-blackened by being fired in an oxygen-reduction atmosphere but at low temperatures. This sub-style is known as kokushoku-doki.
Haji ware came to an end with the development of glazes and ceramics in the late Heian period.
During a 2007 underwater archaeology survey on Ojikajima by the Asian Research Institute of Underwater Archaeology, examples of Chinese ceramics and Haji ware was recovered.



- Characteristics -
Haji ware is typically a rust-red pottery, made of clay that was built up in rings or coils, rather than being thrown on a potters wheel. The exterior and usually the interior surfaces were finished by scraping smooth with a piece of wood. It was fired at temperatures below 1000 deg C in surface fires or oxidizing fires rather than kilns.
Most of Haji ware
is undecorated and has wide rims. However, ritual and funerary objects were also made in the form of houses, boats, animals, women, hunters, musicians, and warriors, which were often placed inside tombs On occasion, these objects were placed outside the tomb to guard it. One pot that was found at an archaeological site in Hachiōji, Tokyo has a globular body, averted mouth, rounded base, solid triangular handle, painted in dark grey pigment on one side with a human face painted on the front.
- - - More in the WIKIPEDIA !

..............................................................................................................................................

- quote -
Hajibe 土師部 / 土師氏 / 土部とも書く。
土師連(むらじ)を伴造(とものみやつこ)とし、朝廷に埴輪(はにわ haniwa)・土師器(はじき hajiki)を貢進し、葬礼をも担当したトモまたはその部民。『日本書紀』垂仁(すいにん Suinin)天皇32年条に、土部連の始祖
野見宿禰(のみのすくね Nomi no Sukune)が出雲(いずも Izumo)国（島根県）土部100人を率い殉人(じゅんにん)の代用として埴輪をつくった説話がみえる。
土師部は出雲をはじめ山城(やましろ)、摂津(せっつ)、河内(かわち)、和泉(いずみ)、遠江(とおとうみ)、武蔵(むさし)、下総(しもうさ)、常陸(ひたち)、美濃(みの)、若狭(わかさ)、丹後(たんご)、但馬(たじま)、因幡(いなば)、石見(いわみ)に設定された。雄略(ゆうりゃく)天皇17年条に贄土師部(にえのはじべ Nie no Hajibe)の貢進がみえ、のち諸陵司の伴部となった。
［前川明久］
- source : kotobank.jp -


. Hajidera 土師寺 and 道明寺天満宮 / Osaka .
Domyoji Tenmangu Shrine originates in Haji Shrine that Haji Tribe built in 3 A.D. to enshrine their ancestor Amenohohi no mikoto (the son of Amaterasu Omikami, the goddess of the sun).

.......................................................................


- quote -
Kofun (300 – 710 AD)
From the late 4th century AD, the dead start to get gifts in their tombs such as iron weapons and armour. These, and tomb paintings, are clear signs of contact with Korea and immigration of Korean artisans. So, next to the Suebe clay work that we have seen already in the Joumon period, these immigrants started making Hajibe clay work (darker, reddish). They made Haniwa out of this, which are little clay figures or cylindrical shapes, put on top of tomb hills. Also, there is evidence of some Japanese state being politically and militaristically involved on the Korean peninsula.
- source : ansui.wordpress.com/ -


Hajibe : Families or clans of potters (some from Korea) who, from about the fourth ... Yayoi pottery, mainly for the Yamato court; they probably also made haniwa.

- reference : haniwa hajibe clan -

.......................................................................


野見宿禰と大和出雲 / 池田 雅雄

. Nomi no Sukune野見宿禰 .
and the Sumo Jinja 相撲神社
The 菅原氏 Sugawara clan is said to be descended from 天穂日命 Ameno Hohino Mikoto and the Haji clan, one of whose ancestors was Nomi no Sukune, famous as the pioneer of Sumo.

Nomi no Sukune is mythically credited with contriving the haniwa, the terracotta figurines, which were used doing the Kofun period ...
Making the first haniwa under Nomi no Sukune's supervision ...

A potter from Izumo named Nomi no Sukune declared:
"It is not good to bury living men upright at the tumulus of a prince. ... Let it be the law for future ages to substitute things of clay for living men and set them up at tumuli." ...

- reference : haniwa nomi no sukune -

..............................................................................................................................................

mogari もがり【殯】 funeral rites

- quote -
THE MOGARI RITE THROUGH THE HISTORY OF JAPANESE CULTURE
..... The supposed etymology is as following. Mogari - from mo (mourning) + agari (ascend to heaven, /soul/ is flying away). Araki - /temporary/mausoleum (tomb) of newly dead \whose spirit is not appeased yet/, comp.; aramitatama - "spirit unappeased", arabotoke - newly dead /before first obon/, arakuchi - first after someone's death shaman's interrogation with his spirit; kijo:shiro - castle, palace, iwaki - "rock/cave tomb", ishiki - stone tomb, okutsuki - deep tomb, imaki - new tomb.
.....
Asobi-be
In- & outside the hinkyu (esp. of a dead sovereign) mogari-no matsuri (funeral festival) took place; its purpose was to call back the soul and bring the dead back to life, to pacify his potentially dangerous spirit in order to pass it to the successor or to send it off to nether world; thus the deification of the dead began. It included mogari-no asobi (funeral "play/game") with various dancing and singing. Beside relatives and officials there were two groups of funeral ritualists called Haji-be and Asobi-be.
Haji-be were constructing hinkyu, tombs, making haniwa. Asobi-be danced chinkon/tamafuri-no mai (dances to appease the souls of the dead) and sang shokonka/chinkonka (songs to call back and pacify the souls).
Asobi-be represented the occupational group of traditional Japanese shamans who were involved not only in funeral rituals, but also in the seasonal erotic festivities kagai\utagaki, other festivals and ceremonies (including Daijosai). Ecstatic dances of Asobi-be (from Hijiki-wake clan) lately developed in nembutsu-odori performed in Buddhist sect Ji-shu: (or Yugyo-ha - School of Wanderers, "yu/asobi"); thus sect Ji-shu: derived from exorcist rituals of asobi-be. Particularly, among its followers were Nogaku actors.
- - - - - read the essay here
- source : ru-jp.org/yaponovedy_baksheev -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


細長いだるまのような踊る埴輪です
A long dancing Haniwa, like Daruma



Look at many more new-type Haniwa items - 2015 - Let's make Haniwa!
- source : kumagaya-bunkazai.jp/museum -


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
- - - - - ABC List of the prefectures


............................................................................. Kyoto　京都　

. Fukakusa-yaki 深草焼 Clay Dolls from Fukakusa .
Clay Dolls from Fushimi - 伏見土人形

Fushimi Doll is a clay doll whose originator is said to be Hajibe who settled in Fukakusa
before the Nara era. 土師部　Hajibe is a tribe who was notable for their skills in making Haniwa (a clay image placed in ancient burial mounds) and earthenware.
The doll was made of clay from Mt. Inari, and was distributed widely, not only in old capital provinces but to Shikoku and Kyushu. The doll became the precursor of clay dolls that number approximately 90 types nationwide, such as Hakata Doll, Tsutsumi Doll of Sendai and Nakano Doll of Shinshu.
- source : ndl.go.jp/scenery/kansai -



............................................................................. Miyazaki 愛媛県



. haniwa ningyoo はにわ人形 Haniwa dolls .



............................................................................. Niigata　新潟県　

Kappa-type Dogu from Niigata, Itoigawa region
新潟土偶（カッパ型）from 新潟県糸魚川市長者


source : haniwadokoro.cart.fc2.com


. 河童 / かっぱ / カッパ - Kappa, the Water Goblin of Japan! .




............................................................................. Osaka　大阪　


埴輪馬 haniwa horse

. Osaka, Sakai town 堺市 .
住吉大社の諸玩具 Clay Dolls and Toys from shrine Sumiyoshi Taisha


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- Reference in Japanese 埴輪 -
- Reference in English -

. Legends - Heian Period (794 to 1185) - Introduction .

. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話　昔話 - Introduction .

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


haniwa gangu　埴輪玩具 Haniwa toys


CLICK for more photos !

. gangu 玩具伝説, omochcha おもちゃ toy, toys .

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



source : 白馬の少年

春愁や遠きいくさの埴輪武士
shunshuu ya tooki ikusa no haniwa bushi

spring melancholy -
this Haniwa soldier
of long times past

高知城 seen at the castle in Kochi

河野南畦 Kano Nankei (1913 - 1995)

.......................................................................


冬の日に埴輪掘りたる人死ぬか
とろ～と冬日が溶ける埴輪かな

萩原麦草

.......................................................................


時雨るるや手あげて埴輪夫を恋ふ
野見山朱鳥


太刀佩ける埴輪をのこに梅咲けり
福田蓼汀

愛する時獣皮のような苔の埴輪
赤尾兜子


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



. Join the friends on Facebook ! .

- #haniwafigures #haniwadolls -
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

. Yakimono 焼物　/ Setomono 瀬戸物 pottery, crockery .
- Introduction -

[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- BACK to the Daruma Museum -
. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話 昔話 - Introduction .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Hikyaku 飛脚　伝説　legends about fast messengers

. hikyaku 飛脚 courier, messenger "flying legs" .
- Introduction -

Hikyaku were couriers or messengers, who transported currency, letters, packages, and the like. In the Edo period, the network of Hikyaku messengers expanded dramatically, and also became more organized and systematized.



. Hikyakugitsune 飛脚狐 伝説　legends about fast fox messengers .
Akita, Kochi, Shimane, Tokyo, Tottori, Yamagata.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

nen 念
大塚理左衛門の息子常八が江戸で勤務していた。ある時小濱足軽が江戸に飛脚することになって、箱根の賽の河原にさしかかったところ、常八が乗掛馬に乗って帰るに行き会わせた。小濱に帰ったのだと思い、後日江戸の家を訪ねて行くと常八は死んだという。念が残っているのだろう。


.......................................................................

shiryoo 死霊 soul of a dead person
飛脚が道中道連れになった女を殺し金を奪った。江戸からの帰り道、現場を通った時に悔恨して近所の寺へ奪った金を弔い料として預けた。しかし国へ帰ると飛脚は乱心し、女を殺したことなどを叫びながら舌を噛み切り死んだ。


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
- - - - - ABC List of the prefectures :

.................................................................. Aichi 愛知県 ....................................................................
南設楽郡

yume 夢 dream
ある女が20歳のときの話（20年前）である。姉の病気が重くなり見舞に行こうと思っていた晩のこと、誰かが戸を叩くので声を掛けると、それは患っているはずの姉であった。中に招き入れたが、姉は黙って土間に立っているだけであった。そのとき、戸を激しく叩く音が聞こえたが、気づくと自分は床に寝ていた。しかし、まだ戸が叩かれているので戸を開けると、飛脚が姉の訃報を知らせにきたのだった。


.................................................................. Aomori 青森県 ....................................................................
三戸郡 Sannohe district

medochi メドチ Kappa
九戸政実の飛脚に侍が書状を頼んだ。読んでみるとサンナイ岳のメドチにあてて「この男は紫けつだ」と書いてあったので、「この男に百両わたせ」と書き変えた。飛脚はメドチから百両騙し取った。


.................................................................. Ehime 愛媛県 ....................................................................
南宇和郡

nureonago, nure onago ヌレオナゴ
越の尻の山沿いの道で、長洲村の庄屋佐藤家へ行く飛脚がヌレオナゴに出合った。赤ん坊を抱かされたがその赤ん坊が石に変じ、捨てて逃げた為に追いかけられた。ヌレオナゴの髪は釣針のようになっており、飛脚が飛び込んだ佐藤家の板戸には、その髪の毛でひっかいた跡がついていた。
.
昔、飛脚がヌレオナゴに出会い、赤ん坊を抱かされたが、石に変じたので投げ捨てて逃げた。追いかけてくるオナゴの髪の毛の先は釣り針のようになっており、飛脚が飛び込んだ佐藤家の板戸には髪の毛でひっかいた跡があったという。

.......................................................................
伊予郡 Iyo district

yamainu 山犬 mountain dog
大洲・松山間の飛脚、畑左衛門が深夜犬寄峠にさしかかり一匹の山犬を殺したところ、他の山犬が集まってきた。左衛門は松の木に登ったが山犬は互いに肩車で乗り継ぎよじ登ってきた。左衛門は自分の刀の目抜きに鶏の名作があり、血潮の温みを得る時は精を得て歌うということを思い出し、刀に祈ると刀の先から鶏の鳴き声がした。山犬は夜明けと勘違いして帰っていった。

.......................................................................
大洲市 Ozu town

yamaneko yamainu 山猫，山犬 Mountain Cat, Mountain Dog
銃の名手左衛門が、山猫の住む「入らずの森」を開拓した。山猫は手出しができずにいたが、ある日娘が一夜の宿を求めて来て、左衛門は共に暮らした。ある日山犬に襲われた飛脚が「山猫の棟梁が左衛門のところに行っていなければ」と言うのを聞く。それが左衛門の耳にも入り、ついには正体を現した古猫をしとめる。


.................................................................. Hyogo 兵庫県 ....................................................................
加西郡 Kasai district

neko no tani 猫の谷 Cat Valley
猫の谷は猫の声が聞こえると化け物が出るといわれていた。ある飛脚が頭に鍋を被った化け物に襲われ、刀で切りつけた。「紺屋の婆さんを呼んで来い」といわれたのを不思議に思った飛脚が紺屋の婆さんを尋ねると頭に傷をして寝ているという。猫が婆さんを食って化けていると思った飛脚は逃げていくのを追いかけて退治したといわれている。



.................................................................. Ibaraki Ibaragi 茨城県 ...............................................
水戸市 Mito

Seiemu don せいえむどん a cat
飛脚が木の上にいると、獣が集まり飛脚を倒す話を始めた。せいえむどんを呼ぼうという事になったが飛脚のほうが強かった。飛脚は村でせいえむどんを探すと、老婆の夫であった。正体は猫だと伝えると、老婆は怒ったが爺さんは以前にせいえむどんに食われていたのだ。


.................................................................. Ishikawa 石川県 ....................................................................

ookami 狼 wolf
用事があるので食べるのは後にしてくれと、狼と約束した飛脚であったが、約束通り往路では何も起こらず、復路で狼に食い殺された。
.
ある飛脚は御仏供様を食べたおかげで、狼に食べられず無事に帰宅できた。



.................................................................. Kagawa 香川県 .............................................................

Awaji アワジ Awaji pass
昔、阿波から来た爺が死んだとことにちなむアワジという名の峠がある。そこを飛脚が通りかかった際に、アワジなどどこにもいない、と口に出すとガサガサと音がして、「ここにおるぞー」と言ってアワジが出て来た。


.................................................................. Kagoshima 鹿児島県 .............................................................

Kappa 河童
ある青年がヒョイヒョイという河童の声を追いかけ、翌朝その付近を見ると道にたくさんの足型がついていた。また昔飛脚が走っているとヒョイヒョイと河童の声が聞こえ、幾百もの者が追いかけてきて、飛脚はほとんど失神状態になった。



.................................................................. Kanagawa 神奈川県 .............................................................
川崎市 Kawasaki town

mae o aruku dare ka 前を歩く誰か someone walking in front
川崎市の堰と久地との中間にオイリという山の根の川があり、飛脚がオイリ沿いの道を歩いていると、前に誰かが歩いていたが、曲がり道に来るとボチャンと飛び込んでしまい、飛脚はきゃあと言ってしまったという。


.................................................................. Kyoto 京都府 ....................................................................
南丹市

anajizoo, and Jizoo 穴地蔵 Jizo in a hole
穴地蔵は足痛に霊験があるといわれ、飛脚がこの前を通るときには必ず線香を供えた。また、小児の瘡にも効験があるお言われる。


.................................................................. Nara 奈良県 ....................................................................
大和郡山市

daija 大蛇 huge serpent
茶屋のこまのという娘が飛脚に恋をし、忍んで行った。飛脚は親の治病の願掛で女断していたので逃げ、淵の脇の松に登った。娘は水に映った姿を見て飛び込み、大蛇となった。以来、飛脚を他人に取られるのを恐れ、女と見れば殺していた。あるとき駕籠に乗った花嫁が通ったら急に雨になった。駕籠かきが雨具を借りに行っている間に、花嫁は消えていた。以来その橋を嫁取り橋といい、嫁入道中に通ってはいけないとしている。

.......................................................................
大和国宇多

Gengoroogitsune 源五郎狐，kojoroogitsune 小女郎狐 The Fox Gengoro
大和国宇多に人の手助けをする源五郎狐がいた。あるとき飛脚に頼まれ文箱を運んでいるとき山中で犬に殺された。伊賀国上野の広禅寺にその妻だと言われる小女郎狐というものがおり、寺の手伝いをしていた。延宝のころのことだがいつの間にかいなくなった。


.......................................................................
生駒郡

kitsune 狐 the Fox
明治初年に郵便がはじめて行われたとき、お狐さんの飛脚の仕業だといっていたという。この地にある洞泉寺境内にある源九郎稲荷社は人々の信仰があつかった。


.................................................................. Shizuoka ....................................................................

Akibayama no sanshakuboo 秋葉山の三尺坊
飛脚が三河岡崎あたりで大きな僧に白雲神社に届けるようにと額をあずかった。非凡な手蹟が胡麻火の灰でかかれ、裏には秋葉大権現の護符が貼ってあった。秋葉山の三尺坊様の仕業であるという。


.................................................................. Tochigi 栃木県 ....................................................................

nenriki 念力
成瀬隼人正は尾張で病気となり、一族の者に是非とも日光山に参詣したいと言ったが、重病故に許されなかった。しかし成瀬は忌日を待って身体を清め、一族に暇乞いして息絶えた。その頃日光山にいた南光坊は、東照宮の廟前に成瀬が参詣に現れて、いまから世を去ると伝えたのに感動し、江戸に飛脚を建たて一族の者に悔やみを言ったという。


.................................................................. Yamagata 山形県 .............................................................
天童市 Tendo town

kitaroogitsune きたろう狐 Kitaro the Fox
昔天童にきたろうという名の狐がいた。人に化けて山形の殿様に飛脚として仕え、秋田の殿様に手紙を運んだ。飛ぶように速かった。途中にあぶらげを売る店があり、必ずそこに寄ってあぶらげを食べた。その様子から狐ではないかと怪しんだ農鍛冶屋が、ねずみを油で揚げて鉤に引っかけておくと翌朝きたろう狐が引っかかっていた。


.................................................................. Yamanashi 山梨県 .............................................................
西八代郡

kasha 火車 fire chariot in 上九一色村
精進に寺がない時には竜華院まで坊様を頼みに行っていたが、その近くに火車という化物が住んでいた。葬式が出るたびに死体を食おうと狙っていた。ある時村に葬式が出ると火車は飛脚に化けて竜華院にたのみに行ったが、坊様は見破り、施主に葬式を2回出し、最初の棺には石を入れておくよう指示した。最初の棺が出ると空に黒雲が沸いて雲の中から火車が飛んできて棺をさらっていった。その隙に施主の家では2回目の葬式を出して骨を無事に寺に納めた。火車は「竜げん坊主にだまされた」と叫んだという。

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- reference : nichibun yokai database 妖怪データベース -
33 to explore (29)

..............................................................................................................................................

. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話　昔話 - Introduction .

- Yookai 妖怪 Yokai Monsters of Japan -
- Introduction -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



. Join the friends on Facebook ! .

- #hikyakulegends -
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- BACK to the Daruma Museum -
. kitsune densetsu 狐　伝説 fox legends .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Hikyakugitsune 飛脚狐 伝説　legends about fast fox messengers
狐飛脚 Kitsune Hikyaku

. hikyaku 飛脚 courier, messenger "flying legs" .
- Introduction -

Hikyaku were couriers or messengers, who transported currency, letters, packages, and the like. In the Edo period, the network of Hikyaku messengers expanded dramatically, and also became more organized and systematized.


source : fullusedbook.blog119.fc2.com

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

. Inaba gogitsune 因幡五狐 / / 因幡の五狐 five foxes from Inaba, Tottori .

- - - - - The most famous of them is

Kyoozooboo経蔵坊 The Fox Kyozobo
The fox is also called
Keizooboo桂蔵坊 The Fox Keizobo
Hikyakugitsune, hikyaku kitsune飛脚狐 the Fox messenger "with flying legs"


- source : blog.canpan.info/minnwa_tottori -

Kyozobo / Keizobo was an old fox that lived close to the Tottori castle. He could run to Edo and back in just two days and was famous for his speed. The Lord Ikeda 池田 of the Castle was very fond of him.
One day Keizobo was sent on a secret mission to Edo and passing 播磨国 Harima no Kuni (Hyogo), he passed a trap of a farmer, who had placed a delicious-smelling fried rat. Since he was on an urgent mission, he passed on. On his way back from Edo he was hungry and wanted to get the rat, but in turn got caught in the trap himself and was killed.
Lord Ikeda grieved about his friend and had the shrine 中坂神社 Nakazaka Jinja built in his honor.



He is venerated at the shrine 桂蔵坊を奉る中坂神社
- - - More in the WIKIPEDIA !


Now popular papermachee toys of Kyozobo of the fox are also made.




草枯れて狐の飛脚通りけり
kusa karete kitsune no hikyaku tori keri

withered plants -
the "fox with flying legs"
is passing by


source : seien0808 - 清苑


- quote -
THE FOX BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

Withered grasses;
A fox messenger
hurries by.

That makes no sense in a Western context. To us — at least traditionally — a fox is a rather sly and clever animal. In traditional Japan, however, a fox (kitsune) is a creature that lives between two worlds — ours and the “spirit” world. In Japan, foxes were believed to be able to take on human form, and woe to the young man who happened to become infatuated with a fox spirit! He would just fade and waste away like a shoot of grass withering, and would eventually die.

Buson has reflected this notion in the withered grasses of the autumn fields in his hokku. He sees the fox hurrying past not as just an ordinary animal, but rather as a courier passing swiftly with a message to deliver, involved in his task and giving no attention to the human. Buson regards the foxes as living their own lives in their own eerie society, separate from that of humans, but occasionally coming in contact with them.

This verse has a feeling that we in the West would associate with Halloween. It is far from the best kind of hokku, but it did exist, and it does have its effect.
- source : Hokku David -


Withered grasses
where a fox messenger on flying legs
passed through.
Tr. Yuki Sawa & Edith Marcombe Shiffert


In withered grass
a fox carrying messages
passes by
Tr. Allan Persinger


. Yosa Buson 与謝蕪村 and Fox Haiku .

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
- - - - - ABC List of the prefectures :


.................................................................. Akita 秋田県 ....................................................................
秋田市 Akita town


source : 二〇世紀ひみつ基地


Yojiroo 與治郎狐 / 与次郎狐 The Fox Yojiro


source : xxx

与次郎稲荷神社 Shrine Yojiro Inari Jinja



- quote -
Yojiro, the fox in a Harrinets shirt and Yojiro-Inari-Jinja Shrine



... a manga-like concrete statue of a grinning fox that someone had clad in a red t-shirt of the local basketball team, called the Harrinets. The story behind the fox statue is a sad one. The story goes that 佐竹義宜 Lord Satake Yoshinobu, who built Akita Castle, constructed it on land that was the home of foxes. Yojiro, a three-hundred-year-old fox, approached the lord and asked that some land be left for the foxes. The lord agreed. In gratitude, Yojiro offered to serve as a messenger. He carried messages across the country much faster than any of the lord's human messengers, who later killed the fox out of jealousy.

It is said that the body of Yojiro is enshrined in the Yojiro-Inari-Jinja Shrine, which was later built on the castle grounds. This small shrine is one of the most attractive fox-related shrines in Japan. Inari is one of Shinto's eight million gods, and Inari sometimes took the form of a fox. Pairs of male and female fox statues line the walkway to the shrine. Visitors will walk beneath red Japanese gates while passing under the stares of the foxes who make sure that they behave respectfully. Unique to this particular shrine, some of the vixen statues come with kits, or baby foxes. The shrine is within Senshu Park.
- source : japanvisitor.com/ -

Yojiro has become one mascot of Akita.
There is now also a store that sells stamps with this manga-like figure.


source : nakedpou.blog17.fc2.com/category48
与次郎バーガーの消しゴムハンコ

.......................................................................
湯沢市 Yuzawa

The owner of a tea stall in 雄勝町 Ogatsu was suspicious about the two fast messengers from Lord Satake, おさいんぱたのよじゅうろう Osainbata no Yojuro and さかえのよじ兵衛 Sakae no Yojihei. He put out some poisoned Abura-age Tofu, and when the two passed by and ate them, they became ill and died. When they dropped dead, the human bodies of the messengers turned into foxes.


.................................................................. Nara　奈良県 ....................................................................
大和国宇多郡 / 宇陀郡 Yamano no Kuni, Udagun


source : youkaitama.seesaa.net/article

Gengoroogitsune 源五郎狐 The Fox Gengoro
and his wife Kojoroogitsune 小女郎狐 Kojorogitsune

He was as strong as three people and worked hard, helping the farmers. They all relied on him, but nobody knew where he had come from.
He could run as a messenger to Edo and back in just seven or eight days, a trip that took a human messenger 10 days just to go there.
One day he was asked to run as a messenger, took the box with letters and run off. But near 小夜中山 Nakayama he was killed by a dog. From the box hanging around his neck people found out who he was and delivered the message.
In 伊賀国上野 Igaland, at the temple 広禅寺 in Ueno there lives his wife, Kojorogitsune, who worked as a helper in the temple since she was about 12 years old. She helped with cleaning and sometimes went to the village to buy vegetables and Toku. The children in the village knew her well and often yelled after her - こじょろ、こじょろ little whore, little whore.
But after the death of Gengoro, she soon also disappeared from the temple.

. Nakayama 佐夜の中山 Sayo no Nakayama .
A dangerous pass of the Tokaido Road in Shizuoka.

.......................................................................
生駒郡 Ikoma district

When the modern postal service started in the early Meiji period, people called it the
"fox messenger with flying legs"お狐さんの飛脚の仕業.

At the temple 洞泉寺 Tosen-Ji (Dosen-Ji) there is a small shrine called 源九郎稲荷社 Genkuro Inari Jinja
for the fox messenger 源九郎狐 Genkurogitsune.
The fox who bought a padded hood is also told here.
The famous children's song about
Yamato no Genkuro san やまとの源九郎さん comes from this fox.
The shrine is very small, but counted as one of the three most famous Inari shrines in Japan 日本三大稲荷.

白狐源九郎 The White Fox Genkuro

The shrine is named after Genkuro Minamoto Yoshitsune, one of the most popular persons in Japanese history.
This fox is also appearing in the story of 義経千本桜 Yoshitsune Senbon Sakura.

- quote -
..... Long ago in the Yamato area there lived a pair of old foxes that had lived there for a thousand years. One summer, to the consternation of all the farmers, there was a terrible drought throughout the district. They decided to capture the two foxes, and with the skins they made a drum which successfully brought them the much needed rain.
Ever since that time the drum has been preserved and treasured. The Tadanobu-fox explains that he is, in fact, a son of the foxes from whose skins the drum was made, the drum of which Shizuka now has possession. Immediately upon finishing his story, he changes from Tadanobu back into his true fox form. He tells her that because of his love for his parents, he has followed the drum everywhere.
Yoshitsune, who has been eavesdropping on the talk from behind a bamboo blind in the next room, is deeply moved by the fox's human-like devotion to and affection for his parents. .....
Sato Tadanobu (1161-1186)
- reference source : -



源九郎稲荷社 Genkuro Inari Jinja
On the first Sunday in April there is a festival where children in a procession wear the masks of a white fox.
- - - - - 忠臣狐伝説 - 佐藤忠信 Sato Tadanobu (1161-1186)
- - - - - 妖刀子狐丸 - legend about a serpent and a sword called 小狐丸 Kogitsunemaru.
- - - - - 元和の鎮火伝説 : 元和元年（1615年）、豊臣方大野治房による郡山城攻撃が行われた際城下も焼け、その中心へと火が迫ってきたのを見た洞泉寺住職天誉和尚が、源九郎狐に祈願をしたところ、突然大雨が降り大火を免れた。
- - - - - 綿帽子を買った狐伝説 - The fox who bought a padded hood

奈良県大和郡山市洞泉寺町15 / 15 Tōsenjichō, Yamatokōriyama-shi
- reference : wikipedia -

. Minamoto no Yoshitsune 源の義経 (1159 - 1189) .


.................................................................. Shimane 島根県 ....................................................................
簸川郡 Hikawa district

shirogitsune 白狐 white fox
There came a messenger from Edo, but he did not return.
The next day farmers found a white fox in a trap and soon knew this was the messenger.


.................................................................. Tokyo 東京都 ....................................................................

In the compound of 浅草観音　Asakusa Kannon there is a shrine for Yasuzaemon

Yasuzaemon Inari 弥惣左ヱ門稲荷.
A fox named 熊谷弥惣左ヱ門 Kumagaya Yasuzaemon got caught here in a trap and died. The shrine was erected in his honor.
also called
Kumagaya Inari 熊谷稲荷
There is a story about a samurai named 熊谷弥惣左ヱ門 / 熊谷安左衛門 from Kanazawa who once helped a fox, got fired for it from his Lord and became a Ronin, later turning up in Asakusa.

熊谷稲荷について The Story about Kumagaya Inari Shrine
この稲荷は、江戸中期に熊谷安左衛門が勧請した稲荷で、数ある稲荷とちがって、白狐を祀った稲荷で、江戸浅草の熊谷安左衛門の墓所のある本法寺と、青森弘前の津軽藩公が祀った二ヶ所だけの、極めて珍しい稲荷です。

もう一ヶ所の津軽の熊谷稲荷は、藩公が江戸へ参勤交代のさい、白狐があらわれて、不思議な霊験があったことで知られています。. . .
..... 本法寺と熊谷稲荷の由縁について
熊谷安左衛門稲荷は、当初安左衛門が居住していた、日本橋大伝馬町片町にあった屋敷神として崇めていたが、或る夜白狐が姿をあらわして、「この稲荷の御利益を世に広めたいので、どうか浅草寺院内に小祠を建てて欲しい」と云って白狐が姿を消したと云われています。安左衛門は白狐のお告げを諒とし、寛文５年７月２４日、浅草寺の子院である法智院から智楽院に請願し、浅草寺裏門に一小祠を建立することができました。
このときはじめて熊谷安左衛門稲荷と称して、立願する人が多くなったと世に伝えられています。熊谷安左衛門は宝永４年９月死去し、その菩提寺は、浅草八軒寺町の長瀧山本法寺にあり、その墓所もあることから、享保年間の頃、当長瀧山本法寺に勧請し、ますます霊験あらたかな御利益のある稲荷として、世間に知れわたり、今日に至っています。 .....
東京都台東区寿町 本法寺 Honpoji Homepage
- reference : honpoji.web -

There is also a shrine in his honor in Aomori, Hirosaki 青森弘前.


- There is also a shrine with the same name in Yamagata, but no fox related to it.
- reference : kankou.yamagata -



.................................................................. Yamagata 山形県 .............................................................
天童市 Tendo town

Kitaroogitsune きたろう狐 / キタロウギツネ Kitaro the Fox
Once upon a time, there lived a fox called Kitaro in Tendo.
He shape-shifted into a human and became the messenger of the Lord of Yamagata.
Once he had to bring a letter to the Lord of Akita and run away almost in flight. On the way he passed a shop of Abura-age Tofu, where he stopped to eat some. The blacksmith of the village got suspicious and thought it might be a fox. So he fried a dead rat in oil and hooked it with a sharp nail. And indeed, the next morning he found the fox hooked to the bait and killed it.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- reference : nichibun yokai database 妖怪データベース -



狐猿随筆

This book contains stories about the fox messengers
kitsune hikyaku no hanashi狐飛脚の話. / キツネの飛脚
. Yanagita Kunio 柳田國男 .

..............................................................................................................................................

. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話　昔話 - Introduction .

. kitsune densetsu 狐　伝説 fox legends .

. Hikyaku 飛脚　伝説　legends about fast messengers .

- Yookai 妖怪 Yokai Monsters of Japan -
- Introduction -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

神の留守狐の飛脚戻りけり
kami no rusu kitsune no hikyaku modorikeri

the gods are absent
and the fox messenger
comes back . . .

. Ochi Etsujin 越智越人 （1655 - 1739) .

. kami no rusu 神の留守 the Gods are absent .
- kigo for early winter -



source : 二〇世紀ひみつ基地

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



. Join the friends on Facebook ! .

- #foxhikyakulegends #hikyakugitsune -
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- BACK to the Daruma Museum -
. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話 昔話 - Introduction .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

komusoo 虚無僧　伝説 Komuso legends about begging mendikant monks

. Komuso and the Shakuhachi Flute 尺八 .
- Introduction -



Isoda Koryūsai　磯田湖竜斎　 (1735–1790)
Komuso and Beauties

- quote -
The komusō (虚無僧 komusō, hiragana: こむそう; also romanized komusou or komuso)
"monks of nothingness"
were a group of Japanese mendicant monks of the Fuke school of Zen Buddhism who flourished during the Edo period of 1600-1868. Komusō were characterized by a straw bascinet (a sedge or reed hood named a tengai or tengui) worn on the head, manifesting the absence of specific ego.
They were also known for playing solo pieces on the shakuhachi (a type of Japanese bamboo flute). These pieces, called honkyoku ("original pieces"), were played during a meditative practice called suizen, for alms, as a method of attaining enlightenment, and as a healing modality. The Japanese government introduced reforms after the Edo period, abolishing the Fuke sect. Records of the musical repertoire survived, and are being revived in the 21st century.



They wore a straw basket (tengai　天蓋) that covered their head as they played. Because some of these komuso were in fact spies for the government,
- - - More in the WIKIPEDIA !

..............................................................................................................................................



. どんころ独楽 Donkoro spinning top for gambling .
with a Komuso image on one side

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


Komuso Dolls - click for more !

mamako no utae 継子の訴え complaint of a stepchild
While the father had to go on a trip, his two children were killed by the stepmother. A Komuso buried the two children, made a Shakuhachi from the bamboo near the grave and blew it. The sound reached the ears of the father and he returned as fast as he could. He recovered the bodies from the grave and put the stepmother to trial and punishment.
This is the origin of the Shakuhachi melody called
「継子と笛」「継子と鳥」.
- reference : blogs.yahoo.co.jp/therinmeis1979 -


..............................................................................................................................................

shakuhachihebi 尺八蛇 Shakuhachi Serpent
tsuchi no hebi 槌の蛇 "hammer snake"


source : nazo108.sblo.jp/article

. nozuchi 野槌 tsuchinoko ツチノコ / 槌の子 "hammerspawn" snake .
- Introduction -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


source and more komuso monsters : togetter.com/li

お猪口が變化した小さな虚無僧のような姿をした妖怪
little Toad monster wearing a猪口 Sake cup as Komuso hat.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
- - - - - ABC List of the prefectures - Komuso and Shakuhachi legends:

........................................................... Kagawa 香川県 .............................................................

yumemi 夢見 seeing a dream
Once a man was on the pilgrimage to Konpira san in Shikoku 金毘羅参り. On the way he saw a bamboo shoot coming out and growing big right in front of his eyes. So he cut the bamboo and made a Shakuhachi out of it. When he blew it, the melody sounded like:

笛も太鼓もいらんぞ、ととさま恋しや
I need no flute or drum, I long for my daddy!

When the man returned home - - - you know the tragic end from the story above.
Therefore in Kagawa it is a bad omen to see a large bamboo shoot in a dream.

..............................................................................................................................................


source : geocities.jp/shaku8tm/komusou

虚無僧人形 hand-made bamboo dolls - click for more !



........................................................... Kochi 高知県 .............................................................
安芸郡和食村 Aki district / Tosa土佐

warai onna 笑い女 the laughing woman
In the hamlet of Wajiki there lived a man deep in the mountains and blew his Shakuhachi every night in front of his hut. One day a beautiful woman came up and asked him to play the Shakuhachi for her. She said her name was "Laughing Woman".
The man smiled and told her he would play a tune to make her laugh.
Her laugh became louder and louder as he blew his Shakuhachi and was heard all over the mountain.
Now the man became angry and trew his ax and hammer at her, but the woman just picked them up and ate them with good appetite.
When the man did not know what to do any more now, suddenly the sound of a rooster came up from the valley and the "Laughing Woman" disappeared.
But the voice of the rooster did not come from an animal, but from an amulet that was hanging at the breast of the man to protect him.
This is a dangerous Yokai, because if you begin to laugh with her, you will be eaten by her.

. warai onna 笑い女 the laughing woman .
and more about 土佐の妖怪 Yokai Monsters from Tosa



........................................................... Kumamoto 熊本県 .............................................................

kani no hi 蟹の火 the light of a crab
Once a Komuso walked in the mountains, when a green-whitish light came nearer. The Komuso questioned it and found out it was a malicious crab. So he hit the crab with his Shakuhachi and killed it.
This is why the local crabs (gazami ガザミ) in the Amakusa region 天草地方 to our day have a scar on the back of their shell.


source : amakoma.sakura.ne.jp/diary

.......................................................................

The sad story of the stepchildren is also told. In this version, the father was visiting Kyoto.
The stepmother killed the children by boiling them in a huge chauldron.


..............................................................................................................................................

Komuso Kappa 虚無僧河童


- at yahoo auctions -

. 河童 / かっぱ / カッパ - Kappa, the Water Goblin of Japan! .



........................................................... Kyoto 京都府 .............................................................

kosha 瞽者 a blind person
A blind man named Joomatsu 城松 Jomatsu had very keen ears and was quite skillful in playing the Shakuhachi. When he played toward a waterfall, the sound of the waterfall was not heard any more. One day in the early Edo period, in the morning suddenly there was a stange sound of wind and waves when he played.
And that evening, a strong earthquake hit the region.


........................................................... Osaka 大阪 .............................................................

yookai 妖怪 monster
In the year 1774 in October every day there walked a Samurai from Osaka in the area of Mount Sanadayama 真田山. Many could hear him but not see him. Once a Komuso and a villager walked together and the villager realized that the Komuso was in fact a Yokai monster. So he decided to kill him but could not see him any more. He must have fled in fear.


........................................................... Tochigi 栃木県 .............................................................
宇都宮市 Utsunomiya

daija 大蛇 large serpent
In the beginning of the Meiji period there lived a craftsman who made Chinese lutes (gekkin 月琴). He used the skin of serpents to cover the body.
One evening he was sitting in front of his shop, playing the Shakuhachi. He saw a large serpent coming down the hill and winding itself around his flute. The man soon killed the serpent, but he became ill and died soon afterwards.


........................................................... Yamanashi　山梨県 .............................................................

somabito 杣人 forest worker
When the forest workers go to the mountain forest for work, they take along a person skilled in Shakuhachi playing. They start after he has performed one melody.
This is because the 天狗 Tengu, who is the 山の神 "Deity of the Mountain", liked to hear Shakuhachi.


source : fuwaiin.com/kenendou/hougaku - 正和会

尺八合同競演会(天狗会)


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- reference : nichibun yokai database 妖怪データベース - 虚無僧



source : jxkura007.exblog.jp - 尺八　よもやま話

kooun ryuusui 行雲流水 "wandering monk", Unsui
"To drift like clouds and flow like water"

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

虚無僧の二人つれだつ雲の峰
komusoo no futaritsuredatsu kumo no mine

two Komuso
wandering along -
billowing clouds

Izumi Kyooka 泉鏡花 Izumi Kyoka


. kumo no mine 雲の峰 billowing clouds .
kigo for summer

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話　昔話 - Introduction .

- Yookai 妖怪 Yokai Monsters of Japan -
- Introduction -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



. Join the friends on Facebook ! .

- #komusolegends #komuso -
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- BACK to the Daruma Museum -
. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話 昔話 - Introduction .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Koorai, Kŏrai 高麗 legends about Korai Korea

- quote -
Goryeo, also known as Koryŏ (高麗) (918-1270, 1356-1392)
was a Korean dynasty established in 918 by King Taejo.
- source : wikipedia -

There are various toys and art pieces with reference to Korea.

. komainu, koma inu　狛犬 lit. "Korean Dog" .
and more koma...　 狛　 Shrine guardian animals

.......................................................................

ジ 兕 ji，komainu 高麗犬
When a new emperor ascends to the throne, he has to make a statue of this JI and place it in the garden of the palace. The Ji is a beast with one horn 兕は一角の獣.


source :　mossamossary.blog.fc2.com

角を持つ吽形の狛犬は鎌倉時代以前のものが多く「兕（じ）」という正体不明の生き物という説も。
水牛に似た一角獣で鎧の材料になるほどの硬皮を持ち、角は酒盃に用いたのだとか。
御霊（上御霊）神社

.......................................................................

天平宝字7年8月、初めて高麗に遣使を送った際の帰朝の時、海が荒れたので祈ったら、船霊の力で平安に国に帰れた。

.......................................................................

. The Korean heritage韓国　Kankoku 　朝鮮 Chosen .

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
- - - - - ABC List of the prefectures :


........................................................... Chiba 千葉県 .............................................................

. karabito-dako "Korean person Kite", Kazusa karabitodako 唐人凧 .
This kite has the form of the hairstyle of Koreans 高麗人の弁髪に形どった.


........................................................... Kyoto 京都府 .............................................................

komajishi 高麗獅子
In 宮津市
石の高麗獅子に性が入って宙を飛び、町に行った。そこで獅子は悪さばかりして暴れまわった。浪人がその獅子の足を切ると、獅子は倒れたがすぐ立ち上がって逃げていった。翌朝見ると、高麗獅子の足が切れ、血がにじんでいた。


........................................................... Miyagi 宮城県 .............................................................

In Matsushima 松島町 Isozaki Inari 磯崎稲荷
文禄の朝鮮の役（1592）に、磯崎の水主が伊達勢の水軍として高麗に渡ったが、磯崎稲荷も眷属の狐を従えて出陣したといい、肥前の名護屋に滞陣中、その中の1匹が淀君の侍女について侍女が病気になる。それを追い出そうとすると、「われこそは奥州松島は磯崎明神の眷属なるぞ」と力み返ったので、太閤大いに怒り、「汝早々に狐めを退散させずば、やわかそのままに差し置くべき」と、お叱り状に、稲荷太明神殿、太閤秀吉としたため、花押までつけて遣わしたので、狐も逃げ出し、侍女の病気も治ったという。このお叱り状は磯崎稲荷に長く伝えられていた。



........................................................... Okayama 愛知県 .............................................................

. Koorai inu 高麗犬 Korai Korean Dog .


........................................................... Saitama 埼玉県 .............................................................

. Koma Shrine 高麗神社 .
天下大将軍 / 地下女将軍 Two deities from Korea

ダイダラボッチャ Daidarabotcha
昔、ダイダラボッチャという大男が秩父の方から、モッコに入れた山を二つ天秤で担いで来た。高麗の辺りまできてひと休みしようと二つの山を下ろした。ところが、疲れていたので、一つの山は静かに下ろせたが、もう片方の山はドカッと急に下ろしてしまった。そーっと下ろした山が日和田山で、後から下ろした山は多峰主山であるという。多峰主山は急におろされたので、日和田山より小さくなっている。それからダイダラボッチャは足を洗おうとして日和田山に腰掛け、高麗川で洗った。そこが今の高麗の新井というところだ。
.
昔、巨人が日和田山と多峰主山（とうのすやま）を天に懸けて担ってきたが、高麗で疲れて一休みする時、多峰主山を乱暴に置いたために崩れて低い山となってしまったという。

.......................................................................

高麗丘陵に拾う - Tengu 天狗
弱虫の男が日和田山の金比羅神社に住む天狗に毎晩願を掛けた。九日目に天狗は男をいろいろ驚かそうとしたが、男はがまんした。夜が明けると男は力持ちの豪傑になっていた。
.
男が行方不明になり半月ほどして馬鹿になったようにしてひょっこり帰ってきた。天狗に連れられずっと木の上にいて、食べ物は天狗が運んできてくれたという。


........................................................... Wakayama 和歌山県 .............................................................

tsue 杖
熊野の山奥の請川と日足の村境に、請川の住民が朝鮮征伐のときに持ち帰った杖を刺したところ、成長して桜の木になった木がある。高麗桜ともいう。

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- reference : nichibun yokai database 妖怪データベース -

..............................................................................................................................................

. koorai ninjin 高麗人参 Korean ginseng .
Panax ginseng

. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話　昔話 - Introduction .

- Yookai 妖怪 Yokai Monsters of Japan -
- Introduction -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



. Join the friends on Facebook ! .

- #koraikoreanlegends #koorai -
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- BACK to the Daruma Museum -
. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話 昔話 - Introduction .
Yamazumisama - see below
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Otoragitsune, O-Tora-Gitsune お寅狐 / オトラギツネ Legends about the Fox named Tora (Tiger)
おとら狐 / オトラギツネ

. kitsune densetsu 狐　伝説 fox legends .
- Introduction -


source : anaguma.moo.jp/blog


Otoragitsune no hanashi お寅狐の話
Tōkyō : Genbunsha, Taishō 9 [1920]), by 早川孝太郎　Hayagawa Kōtarō

.............................................................................................................................................

This is a fox Yokai from 愛知県 Aichi prefecture.

The fox was the messenger of the Inari Fox Shrine at the Nagashino Castle, 長篠城の稲荷社. The fox had lost his "home" at the shrine and was now wandering around, causing trouble.
Otoragitsune bewitches people and causes a lot of trouble and harm. The first to have been bewitched was a young woman called "O-Tora", hence the name.
People often loose their eyesight on one eye or begin to limp on the left food. This is because the fox was hurt by bullets during the Battle of Nagashino. When he lay down to rest after his eye was hurt, another soldier came close and shot him in the left leg.
Many bewitched people can also suddenly tell stories about this battle.
Another shrine has later been built in the compound of temple 大通寺 Daitsu-Ji in 新城市 Shinshiro, Aichi.


source : blogs.yahoo.co.jp/hemulen_civa

Nagashino Inari Shrine 長篠稲荷 at Daitsu-Ji

.............................................................................................................................................

- quote -
The Battle of Nagashino (長篠の戦い Nagashino no Tatakai) took place in 1575 near Nagashino Castle on the plain of Shitaragahara in the Mikawa province of Japan (now Aichi).
Forces under Takeda Katsuyori had besieged the castle since the 17 June; Okudaira Sadamasa, a Tokugawa vassal, commanded the defending force. The Takeda forces attacked the castle because it threatened Takeda's supply lines.
Both Tokugawa Ieyasu and Oda Nobunaga sent troops to assist Okudaira Sadamasa and break the siege, and their combined forces defeated Takeda Katsuyori. Nobunaga's skillful use of firearms to defeat Takeda's cavalry tactics is often cited as a turning point in Japanese warfare; many cite it as the first 'modern' Japanese battle. In fact, the cavalry charge had been introduced only a generation earlier by Katsuyori's father, Takeda Shingen. Furthermore, firearms had already been used in other battles. Oda Nobunaga's innovation was the wooden stockades and rotating volleys of fire which led to a decisive victory at Nagashino.
- - - More in the WIKIPEDIA !



- LINK to many ema絵馬 votive tablets with O-Toragitsune:
- source : youkaiodaie.blog.fc2.com -


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
- - - - - ABC List of the prefectures :

........................................................... Aichi 愛知県 .............................................................

There are many reports of people being bewitched by this fox.

A young person got bewitched by this fox. After about two years he came back to his normal safe. Then he went to Ise and became a boatsman.
- - -
An old man got bewitched. He had no teeth but he begun to eat raw fish, putting the fish head into his mouth and biting as fast as he could.
- - -
A granddaughter went to the mountain to get firewood. When she came back, O-Toragitsune followed her. He had bewitched her grandmother.
- - -
Another grandmother was bewitched. Every night a dog 牡犬 came to her home, but she was afraid of it. One day before she died, although she had been bedridden for about one year, she suddenly got up and dances like wild the whole night - and then died in peace.
- - -
One day in the morning the rooster was attacked by a fox. It was in fact the grandmother of the family, who had been bewitched by this fox.
- - -
A woman was recovering from an operation, but then got bewitched by this fox and tried to eat her faeces. A mountain priest was called to perform an exorcism for her, but it did have no effect. She died a short while later.

.......................................................................
東加茂郡 Higashikamo district 下山村

This fox オトラ狐 had lost one eye by a stray bullet in the battle.
A person with bad eyesight is said to have been cursed by オトラサン "Otora San", "the honorable Tora fox".
The curse stays in some families for a long time.


........................................................... Shizuoka 静岡県 .............................................................

In this area, there are many stories about people being bewitched by special fox, the
Toragitsune.
When he heard the sound of guns during the Battle of Sekigahara, he run away and became lame on one leg. People who are bewitched by this fox become lame, but also begin to talk about war strategy.

. The Battle of Sekigahara 関ヶ原の戦い .

This seems a mix-up with the name of the battle of Nagashino,
Nagashino Shitaragahara　長篠設楽原　(ながしの したらがはら).
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- reference : nichibun yokai database 妖怪データベース -
オトラギツネ / 山住様

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Yamazumisama山住様 /ヤマズミサマ "Deity living in the mountains"

If someone is bewitched by Otoragitsune, people call for an 陰陽師 Onmyo-Shi Yin-Yang Master or a 修験者 Shugendo priest to perform exorcism rituals.
If this does not help, they have to go deep into the mountains of 秋葉山 Akibasan and call Yamazumisama for help. He has a helper, the sacred 山犬 Mountain Wolf and is also called
Oinusama 御犬様 O-Inusama, "Honorable Wolf Deity".



Yamazumi Jinja山住神社 in Hamamatsu

- - - - - Deities in residence
大山積命 Oyamatsumi no Mikoto - オオヤマツミ（大山積神、大山津見神、大山祇神）
- Deity of the Mountains
事解男命 Kotosakao no Mikoto
伊邪冊命 Izanami no Mikoto
速玉男命 Hayatamao no Mikoto

- quote -
Yamazumi Shrine is a shrine with a long history of Wolf Worship.
It is said that the shrine was founded in 709, when Oyamazu no Kami, or generally called Yamazumi Daigongen, was invited here from Iyo province (present-day Matsuyama Pref.). Enshrined together are Kotosakao no Mikoto, Izanami no Mikoto and Hayatamao no Mikoto.
Yamazumi Shrine is famous for its wolf cult. When Tokugawa Ieyasu took refuge in a mountain to escape from the attack of the Takeda clan, the mountain suddenly began to quake and he heard great roaring of a wolf, which drove away the enemy. Because of this, it is said, Ieyasu paid great respect for this shrine.
Around 1700, Yamazumi Daizennosuke, the chief priest of this shrine, planted 360,000 cedar and zelkova trees in as long as 40 years to improve the rough mountain. Now Mt. Yamazumi is full of fine trees. In the precinct are two sacred cedar trees, which are over 1,200 years old.
- source : nippon-kichi.jp -

静岡県浜松市天竜区水窪町山住230番地
Yamazumi, Mizukubo-cho, Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka
- reference : wikipedia -


. ookami 狼, yamainu 山犬 Okami, wolf legends .
yamainu 豺 "mountain dog" Wolf




........................................................... Nagano 長野県 .............................................................
飯田市 Handa town

クダショ Kudasho Fox
A person bewitched by Kudasho begins to sigh and moan in a loud voice day and night. He might also not be able to get up any more and tremble all over.
In a lighter case a simple exorcism might be helpful. In a difficult case, they have to call Yamazumisama to do the rituals. He brings a special shinsatsu 神札 "talisman of God" and calls on Oinusama to help. When the Wolf appears, the fox has to run away fast and the person is healed.


........................................................... Shizuoka 静岡県 .............................................................
磐田郡 Iwata district

クダショー Kudashoo Fox and Oinusama お犬様
When people get a high fever, stomach ache and begin to mumble in fever, they are bewitched by this fox. They need some exorcism to get healed. Yamazumisama changes his form into the wolf お犬様 Oinusama for the exorcism. But people who take part in this ritual are not allowed to look back at him.
Some say Kudasho is like a weasel (イタチ itachi) wit white hair.
If a family gets a bride from a family with Kudasho experience, this new family home will prosper soon.

.......................................................................

押出（おしで））押出の山住神社分社
a small sub-shrine in the village of Oshide
- reference : mis.janis.or.jp/~takao424

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

kudashoo クダショー, kudashoクダショ "Pipe Fox"

- quote -
Mythology and Folklore - Kudakitsune:
In the area is also known as kudasho and it seems that some people saw a cat capture it.
It had black fur and they say it looked like a marmot.
- source : mugetsu.silverblood.net


. kudagitsune, kudakitsune クダ狐 / 管狐 "Pipe-Fox" .
- Introduction -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

. kitsune densetsu 狐　伝説 fox legends .

. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話　昔話 - Introduction .

- Yookai 妖怪 Yokai Monsters of Japan -
- Introduction -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



. Join the friends on Facebook ! .

- #otoragitsune #foxlegends #yamazumisama -
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- BACK to the Daruma Museum -
. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話 昔話 - Introduction .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Okayama Dialect and Deiteis



荒神とミサキ ― 岡山県の民間信仰
Kōjin to misaki : Okayama-ken no minkan shinkō
book by 三浦秀宥 　 Miura Shūyū

. Misaki ミサキ Legends about the Misaki deity .
Misaki Daimyoojin 御先大明神 / ミサキ大明神 Misaki Daimyojin


- quote -
Misaki is the deity that brings a curse. It's hard to explain because it appears so many varieties of forms,
such as a small mound, tombstone, piled up many pebbles, etc.
usages:
misaki of seven beings, misaki of tombstone, misaki of water, misaki of fire.
- source : elle-fs.com/hohgen -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Okayama dialect blog

Saru
A monkey (saru) is deified as a guardian deity of cattle and horse. So, the figure of monkey is set in the farming hut.

Sanma
Usually, it is a name of a certain fish, but in this case it means graveyard.

Shime / sime
It indicates a god's territory on earth. The sime-nawa (rope) is used to establish the sacrid territory.

Toobyo / Toubyo
Toubyo is believed to be a little snake with yellowish white ring-like mark around the neck and bring many fortunes to believers. There was a couple of shrine dedicated to Toubyo in Okayama area.

Toko
The place to deify old ancestors in a house.

Namera
It is the place where had been sacred in the old days, then turned to the horrible and/or eveil place with going out of faith. It is also called namame, masudi, mamiti, tukinowa. By now, it means especially the track where demons pass to and fro through. Perhaps, it may have the old meaning for snake.

Hebi and Ryuu
Hebi (snake) and ryuu (dragon) is a diety for water. For example, they control safe voyage at sea; also control rainfall probability in mountains. If a drought would happened, people would perform a ceremony to pray for rain. In Okayama, there are many mountains which part of their name contains Ryuu( dragon).

Furo
The woods that had become the target of the faith. So, even if a tree was cut, it was often said that it brought the evils. And many stories in relation to that kinds were left.

- source : elle-fs.com/hohgen/ok_minzoku_eu.html -


Okayama dialect
- source : elle-fs.com/hohgen/index_en.html -



岡山弁の特徴
岡山弁一覧
岡山の民俗
昭和三十年代の遊び
- source : elle-fs.com/hohgen -


イナリ
古来は、春の耕作の頃、山の神を迎えて田の神として祭り、秋の収穫が終わると、山に送り返すという信仰があった。人里に現れる狐は、その神の使者と見なされた。全国にイナリがあるのは、平安初期以来、伏見イナリが東寺と結託して勢力を広めたことに一因がある。

オオカミ
山の神の使者神。

オハケ
神を迎え降ろす神聖な標識。

オモリ
フロとも関係するが、オモリサマといって森を信仰の対象として、このように呼ぶ。

カキ
神聖な場所を囲う物。カキの内部に祠がある場合も多い。

クダン
頭は人、体は牛という。生まれて数日で死ぬが、その間に云ったことは、間違いが無いとされる。

クド
普通は釜や鍋をかけて炊事をする場所の事。これが、イシクドとなると、左右上の三方に石を積んでクドの形を作り、信仰の対象とする。

クロ
ミサキとほぼ同じような意味で使う。祟り神が居る場所。

コウジン
近畿地方でコウジンと云えば、クドの神、つまり火の神であるが、当地ではそれとは異なった神の事。といっても、どのような神なのか、正確には表現できない。つまりあらゆる形をとっているから。場所は、山頂から山の裾まで、平野部、島にかけて存在し、男神であったり女神であったりする。御神体としては御幣や石が多いが中には像もある。

サイ
村と村を結ぶ峠道にいる。サイの神。小石を積んだだけのものもあるし、また、六地蔵のごとく地蔵であったりする。

サル
牛馬の守り神としてサルを厩に祭る。

サンマ
普通は墓地のこと。両墓制では、死体を埋める方の墓のこと。

シメ
神の縄張りを示す。例えば、シメナワとは神の縄張りを示すための縄の意。

トウビョウ
頚に黄白色の輪形のある小さな蛇のこと。そういった蛇に対する信仰。これを飼い、さらには蛇を使うという法者があったようである。

トコ
家の中で神を祭る場所。

ナメラ
昔は神聖であった場所が、その信仰が廃れてくるととともに、恐ろしい所、祟る所に変化する。そのような場所を示す言葉。ナマメ、マスヂ、マミチ、ツキノワ等とも云われる。ナメラは現在では魔物の通る道という意味になっている。ナメラとは古来は蛇のことらしい。

ヘビ・リュウ
水に関わる神。海に関わる地方では、航海安全の神。一方、内陸部では、渇水期などに山頂などで、雨乞いの儀式を行う。リュウの名前が付く山が多いのは、その名残かも。

フロ
信仰の対象となる森のこと。そのため、その森の木を切ると、祟られると云われていることが多い。

ミコガミ
美作地方の憑神信仰のひとつ。巫女神が示すように女性だけに憑くとされる。甘酒で 祭る。憑神から道祖神へと変化したミコ神もあるようだ。

ミサキ misaki
祟り神の事をそのように呼ぶ。実に多種の形態のミサキがあるので、一言では表現しがたい。例えば、自然石を積み上げた物とか、塚、墓等。
【用例】七人ミサキ、墓ミサキ、ミズミサキ、ヒノミサキ
- source : elle-fs.com/hohgen/ok_minzoku.html -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

. Misaki ミサキ Legends about the Misaki deity .
Misaki Daimyoojin 御先大明神 / ミサキ大明神 Misaki Daimyojin

. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話　昔話 - Introduction .

- Yookai 妖怪 Yokai Monsters of Japan -
- Introduction -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



. Join the friends on Facebook ! .

- #okayamadialect #misakiokayama -
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- BACK to the Daruma Museum -
. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話 昔話 - Introduction .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Misaki ミサキ Legends about the Misaki deity
Misaki Daimyoojin 御先大明神 / ミサキ大明神 Misaki Daimyojin
Misaki sama ミサキ様



荒神とミサキ ― 岡山県の民間信仰
Kōjin to misaki : Okayama-ken no minkan shinkō
book by 三浦秀宥 　 Miura Shūyū


- quote -
Misakiis the deity that brings a curse. It's hard to explain because it appears so many varieties of forms,
such as a small mound, tombstone, piled up many pebbles, etc.
usages: - - - misaki of seven beings, misaki of tombstone, misaki of water, misaki of fire.
ミサキ misaki
祟り神の事をそのように呼ぶ。実に多種の形態のミサキがあるので、一言では表現しがたい。例えば、自然石を積み上げた物とか、塚、墓等。
【用例】七人ミサキ、墓ミサキ、ミズミサキ、ヒノミサキ
- source : elle-fs.com/hohgen -


. Koojin sama, Aragamisama 荒神様 Kojin Hearth Deity .
- Introduction -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

........................................................... Okayama 岡山県　 .............................................................

There are quite a few entries for Okayama in the Yokai Database:
- reference : nichibun yokai database 妖怪データベース -
121 to explore 岡山県 ミサキ (07)

misaki koojin ミサキ荒神 / misaki no koojin ミサキの荒神
A special deity of the Southern parts of Okayama. It is no always the vengeful soul of a person dead through unnatural circumstances, but also a protector deity.
鎮守 - 守護神

御先大明神 Misaki Daimyojin is the Misaki Deity of 吉備津神社 Kibutsu Jinja.
岩山大明神 Iwayama Daimyojin is the Jinushigami地主神 the land god of Kibitsu Jinja.
. Kibitsu Jinja 吉備津神社 - Introduction .


furo フロ (森) "sacred forest"
is a part of the woods that had become the target of faith. So, even if a tree was cut, it was often said that it brought great misfortune.

shichinin misaki 七人ミサキ "Misaki and seven people"
a Misaki curse for seven people
- - - - - 42 to explore

tooboo トウビョウ Tobyo
Tobyo is a little snake with yellowish white ring-like mark around the neck. It brings good fortunes to its believers. There are some shrines dedicated to Tobyo.
- - - - - 28 to explore

....................................................

BTW - I live in a town in Okayama called Misaki 美咲 "Beautiful Flowering"



Misaki (美咲町 Misaki-chō) is a town located in Kume District, Okayama Prefecture, Japan.
- source : town.misaki.okayama.jp -


..............................................................................................................................................

..............................................................................................................................................
Niimi 新見市 西方 Nishigata

tsurugi misaki ツルギミサキ / tsuna misaki ツナミサキ
On the place where someone found an unnatural death, a ミサキを祀る Misaki ritual is performed. A tree is planted, called ミサキ様 Misaki Sama.
A person who killed himself Harakiri cutting his own stomach with a sword (tsurugi) is called tsurugi misakiツルギミサキ.
A person who killed himself by hanging with a rope (tsuna) is called tsuna misakiツナミサキ and rituals are performed for them.

- - - - - - other tsurugi misaki ツルギミサキ

.......................................................................
上房郡 Jobo district 北房町

この部落の観音堂の前には、ツルギミサキが祀られている。これは、昔ここの城に泊まった六十六部が殺されて奪われた金の刀に摩利支天が祈りこめられていたため、これが祟るのを恐れてのことだという。
- - -
畑を耕していたときに出てきた刀と兜を埋め戻して塚を築き、ツルギミサキ（埋剣様）と呼んで祀っている家がある。このように、土中から出てきた刀を祀る例は多い。


.......................................................................
久米郡 Kume district 久米町

城山にツルギミサキを祀る家がある。これは昔、法者が城山の本家の屋敷の下に下りて来ている摩利支天を祀らなければ祟るというので祀ったものだという。

.......................................................................
真庭郡 Maniwa distric

美甘村延風では、岩穴に刀を納め、ツルギミサキとして祀っている。

In Yubara : tsurugi misaki marishiten 摩利支天
湯原町仲間の大庭皿には、離村した本家のツルギミサキがそのまま同じ場所に祀られている。これは昔武士が祀ったものなので、位が高く、摩利支天の威光がついている。また、守り神であって、これを祀ると狐や魔性のものが近づかなくなるという。
.
ここで祀っているツルギミサキは、遠祖が津山藩主森家から拝領した両刃の剣を祀っている。

.......................................................................
苫田郡 Tomita district 富村

大は、昔ここに身分の高い王が住んでいたところからこの地名になったと言われているが、この王の墓である古墳の中にある塚には王の剣が祀ってあり、これはツルギミサキと呼ばれている。
.......................................................................

- - - - - - other tsuna misaki ツナミサキ

.......................................................................
上房郡 Jobo district 北房町

明治初年頃、北房町阿口に身体の不自由な老人がいたが、首を吊って死んでしまった。その後、半年ほどの間に村に様々な変事があるので、村の者が山に桜の木を植えて祀った。そうすることをツナミサキを祀るという。


..............................................................................................................................................
..............................................................................................................................................
上房郡 Jobo district有漢町 Ukan

shichinin misaki 七人ミサキ "Misaki and seven people"
tooboo トウビョウ Tobyo
Tobyo is a little snake with yellowish white ring-like mark around the neck. It brings good fortunes to its believers.
The snakes come down the Southern slope to the village maybe once every 30 years and bewitches seven people, who become crazy and die. There was no medicine or exorcism ritual to help these people.


..............................................................................................................................................
落合町 Ochiai

. 栗原不動寺 Kurihara Fudo-Ji .
岡山県真庭市栗原不動寺和田山 Maniwa, Ochiai, Wadayama

.................................................... Kurihara 栗原
misaki marishiten ミサキ摩利支天 / ushirogami ウシロ神 / 後神
gedoo ゲドウ
落合町栗原余河内では、本家の屋敷の北西隅にある榊の古木のところに小祠を設けてミサキを祀っている。先祖のようにも言われているが、ミサキ摩利支天とも呼ばれている。これはウシロ神（守護神）であり、祀ればその威光によって他人はこの人物に立ち向かえなくなり、またゲドウ（悪霊）も近づけなくなるのだという。

gedoo ゲドウ Gedo is a Yokai of Western Japan and Shikoku. It looks like a weasel (itachi).

itachi 鼬 Yokai weasel - ten 貂 the Japanese marten
..... Itachi are tricksters and pranksters, .....
- source : yokai.com/itachi/ -

and
tsurugi misaki marishiten ツルギ　ミサキ　摩利支天
see above

....................................................

senzo no misaki 先祖のミサキ
落合町吉では、山麓の畑に接してフロ（森）があり、その中に小祠を設置してミサキを祀っている。これを先祖のミサキともいい、そのフロの枝を折ると叱られてしまうのだという。ちゃんと祀れば守ってくれるが、そうしないと叱りを受けるという。


.......................................................................
湯原町 Yubara

misakigurui, misaki gurui ミサキ狂い "Misaki Insanity", Misaki madness
People belonging to a Misaki worship group (ミサキの氏子 misaki no ujiko) are prone to become insane.

.............................................................................................................................................

. Okayama Dialect and Deiteis .

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
- - - - - ABC List of the prefectures :


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- reference : nichibun yokai database 妖怪データベース -
212 to explore
ミサキ荒神 3 to explore

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Ushirogamiウシロ神 / 後神 / 後ろ髪
後神（うしろがみ）は、鳥山石燕の妖怪画集『今昔百鬼拾遺』などにある日本の妖怪.
... 妖怪漫画家・水木しげるは「後ろ髪」と「後神」とは関連性のないものとし、岡山県津山地方に後神が現れた話を述べている。それによれば、臆病な女が夜道を歩いていたところ、突然現れた後神がその女の束ねた髪をくしゃくしゃに乱し、火のように熱い息を吹きかけたという。
また、風を起こして傘を飛ばしたりして驚かしたり、冷たい手や熱い物を首筋につけたりするものともいう。
...
- - - More in the WIKIPEDIA !

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話　昔話 - Introduction .

- Yookai 妖怪 Yokai Monsters of Japan -
- Introduction -


. Koojin sama, Aragamisama 荒神様 Kojin Hearth Deity .
- Introduction -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



. Join the friends on Facebook ! .

- #misakilegends #misakikojin -
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- BACK to the Daruma Museum -
. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話 昔話 - Introduction .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Misaki ミサキ / 御先 / 御前 / 御崎 the Misaki deity
Misakigami ミサキ神 Misaki Kami Deity
Misaki Daimyoojin 御先大明神 / ミサキ大明神 Misaki Daimyojin
Misaki sama ミサキ様 / ミサキサマ, Osaki オサキ

A deity that can bring misfortune or curses (tatari-gami 祟り神).
This can be the vengeful spirit of a person who died with many regrets in this world
and can not leave this earth yet to go to heaven in peace.

. Misaki ミサキ / 御先 / 御前 / 御崎 Legends about the Misaki deity .
- Read this Introduction first ! -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- - - - - One of the most dreadfull Misaki is


source : toei-anim.co.jp/tv/kitaro
ゲゲゲの鬼太郎 Gegege no Kitaro

shichinin misaki 七人ミサキ / 7人ミサキ / 七人みさき / シチニンミサキ
"Misaki of seven people"
(nananin misaki)
a group of persons who died in an accident or in unnatural circumstances, for example in a fire or at sea.
A Misaki curse for seven people.

There are also groups of seven cursed people who will develop a high fever and die.

They are a kind of 集団亡霊 group of dead spirits, group of dead souls, unable to go to heaven.


source : japangod.dip.jp
Fox, Raven and Seven Human Shadows

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- quote -
The Shichinin misaki (七人ミサキ or 七人みさき), which means "7-person misaki," are a group of ghosts first known in Kochi Prefecture, told about in the Shikoku and Chūgoku regions.

They are dead souls 死霊 shiryō of humans who die from calamities and accidents, especially drowning at sea. As according to its name, they normally, together as a group of 7, appear mainly near water, like seas and rivers.

Humans who encounter the shichinin misaki experience a high fever, and die.
By possessing and killing one person, one of the spirits of the shichinin misaki are able to go to peace, and in its place, the one who was possessed and killed becomes one of the shichinin misaki.
For this reason, the shichinin misaki are always a group of seven, never increasing nor decreasing.

There are several accompanying legends about the progenitor of this spirit, but among the most well-known is the ballad of the vengeful spirit of the Sengoku military commander of Tosa Province (now Kochi Prefecture), 吉良親実 Kira Chikazane, told about in classics like the "Rooho Kidan" (老圃奇談) and the "Shin'i Kaii Kidan" (神威怪異奇談).
- - - - - At 吉良神社 Kira Jinja
During the Azuchi–Momoyama period, after the death of the 長宗我部元親 Chōsokabe Nobuchika, the eldest son of Kira Chikazane's uncle Chōsokabe Motochika, since he opposed Motochika in supporting Chōsokabe Morichika as the successor, he was ordered to commit seppuku. At that time, several vassals also followed suicide (and thus 7 people in total), but afterwards, various strange events started happening at their graves, and the vengeful spirits of Chikazane and the rest were feared as the shichinin misaki. Motochika, who heard of this, held a memorial for them, but there was no effect, and in order to pacify the vengeful spirits, Kizuka Myojin (木塚明神) was deified at the gravesite of 西分村 Nishibun Village, 益井 Masui (now Kōchi). This is the currently existing Kira Shrine.
Also, according to the "Doyooiken Kidan" (土陽陰見奇談) and the 神威怪異奇談 "Shin'i Kaii Kidan,"比江山親興 Hieyama Chikaoki, who also opposed Motochika along with Chikazane, was also made to commit seppuku, and all 6 of his wife and children were also given the death penalty, and it is said that the total of 7 people became the 比江村七人ミサキ Hie Village shichinin misaki.

Also, in 広島県三原市 Mihara,Hiroshima Prefecture, there was a mound called "Kyoozuka" (経塚, "sutra mound" or 狂塚, "insanity mound"), where there were once 7 brutal mountain priests, and when the people they tormented worked together to kill them, their vengeful spirits became the shichinin misaki, and it is said that this mound was made in order to pacify that curse.


source : kowabana.jp/specters

It is also said that these spirits are the fleeing defeated Taira clan soldiers who fell and died in a boar trap,
7 female pilgrims who were thrown into the ocean, the soldiers who lost their lives in Tenshō 16 (1588) from the Chōsokabe Motochika inheritance controversy, the spies of 伊予宇都宮氏 Iyoutsu no Miya who died in the Eiroku period, and so on.

In 山口県徳山市（現 :周南市） Tokuyama,Yamaguchi Prefecture (now Shūnan), it is said that shichinin misaki appearing as monks, while ringing bells, would walk down paths at high speed, and kidnap female children. For that reason, girls were warned not go outside after it has gotten dark, but in times when it was necessary to go outside,
it is said that it is possible to flee from the shichinin misaki by going about while hiding one's thumb in one's hand.
People built a Hall for 地蔵 Jizo Bosatsu and recite the sutras to appease their souls.

The shibuya shichinin misaki (渋谷七人ミサキ)
is an urban legend told about in the later half of the 1990s.
In the Shibuya area in Tokyo, seven female high school students met death one after another. It is said it is because these students who performed compensated dating got pregnant and aborted their children, and the children's vengeful spirits became the shichinin misaki (or, the vengeful spirits of the children resurrected the shichinin misaki of the above legend), and were taking their revenge on their mothers, who were the female high school students.


source : twitter.com/urei_150


七人ミサキ（しちにんミサキ）または七人みさき（しちにんみさき）は、
高知県を初めとする四国地方や中国地方に伝わる集団亡霊.
広島県三原市 / 山口県徳山市 / 渋谷七人ミサキ（しぶやしちにんミサキ）
- - - More in the WIKIPEDIA !


shichininzuka 七人塚 mound for seven people
kyoozuka 経塚 "sutra mound" or spelled with a different Kanji,
kyoozuka 狂塚 "insanity mound" for a Misaki group


source : satoden.at.webry.info


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
- - - - - ABC List of the prefectures :

........................................................... Aichi 愛知県 .............................................................
北設楽郡 Kitashitara district

There are various mounds named Shichininzuka七人塚, or 七人落ち Shichinin ochi.
The deity here 狩人の神 is venerated by the hunters. Once seven hunters went deep into the mountains after their dog and never came back.
Other mounds were erected for seven Samurai who lost in a battle, some for seven priests.


........................................................... Ehime 愛媛県　 .............................................................
今治市 Imabara town

Mostly seven people who drowned or were killed together. If they drown on a certain day, there will often be another accident in the next month, prolonging the curse.
By possessing and killing one person, one of the spirits of the shichinin misaki are able to go to peace, and in its place, the one who was possessed and killed becomes one of the shichinin misaki.

.......................................................................
喜多郡 Kita district内子町 Uchiko

Once upon a time, the whole family of seven of the village elder was killed and then strange things begun to happen. A priest advised to use a boulder in the river as a Misaki stone for their souls. Now every year during the O-Bon rituals for the ancestors, people come here to perform ritual dances and say 念仏 Nenbutsu prayers.
If they forget to do that one year, there will surely be a curse.

......................................................................
南宇和郡 Minamiuwa district御荘町 Misho

At the hamlet of 節崎 Fussaki there is a large 用水池 irrigation pond with, where Shichinin Misaki have a sanctuary. Every year a person drownes in this pond, so that one of the souls can go to heaven. This is a place where the bones of people, probably samurai were found burried. Children who nearly drowned in this pond tell about a woman at the other side, trying to invite them to come over.

.......................................................................
南宇和郡 Minamiuwa district 一本松村 Ipponmatsu

Seven people are venerated at the Misaki in 一本松村小山 Ipponmatsu Koyama.
They are seven people who have been killed by a young Lord with the figure of a serpent, or so they say.

.......................................................................
南宇和郡 Minamiuwa district 城辺町 Johen

Near the beach of 大浜 Ohama there is an evil Misaki, which often invites living people. If someone dies there, a great dragon might be seen. Sometimes a body of someone who drowned is washed ashore here. Anyway, there are now seven people dead.

.......................................................................
西宇和郡 Nishiuwa district伊方町 Ikata

The Shichinin Misaki come out in the evening and lure people who walk here, to get near the cliffs and drown.
Sometimes if a dog barks, the person comes to his senses and is saved.

.......................................................................
越智郡 Ochi district上島町 Kamijima

大正年間、七人が乗った船が遭難したが、島の人は危険であるため助けなかった。その30年後、夜船の番をしていた青年が水死した。その後も同様のことが起ったので、それは七人ミサキの祟りであると言われるようになった。

.......................................................................
温泉郡 Onsen district 中島町 Nakajima

海難事故等で死んだ人の霊をミサキと言い、人を一人殺すと成仏するといって恐れられた。ミサキに行きあって災いを受けるのをイキアイと呼び恐れた。ミサキには天ミサキ、海ミサキ、七人ミサキがある。

.......................................................................
温泉郡 Onsen district 重信町 Shigenobu

Once a family of seven went hunting for hawks, (which was forbidden), and even ate the hawk. They were executed by chopping off their heads. Later if people walk by that ground, they will soon encounter some misfortune. The souls of the seven are now venerated at a small Hokora sanctuary as
七社権現 Shichisha Gongen - The Gongen Deities from Seven Shrines .

The same legend is told in 東温市 Toon town西岡 Nishioka.

七社権現とは - The official Seven Gongen are
伊豆権現 Izu Gongen、箱根権現 Hakone Gongen、日光権現 Nikko Gongen、蔵王権現 Zao Gongen
白山権現 Hakusan Gongen、熊野権現 Kumano Gongen and 山王権現 Sanno Gongen.


賑岡町岩殿160 - Nigioka village, Iwadono, Otsuki, Yamanashi
- source : otsuki-kanko.info -

. Gongen Deities of Japan権現 - Introduction .

.......................................................................
越智郡 Ochi district関前村 Sekizen

水死人を見たら、七人ミサキといって、七人取りあげなければならない。見捨てると祟られ、よくないことが起こる。

.......................................................................
越智郡 Ochi district 魚島村 Uoshima

Once a fishing boat with seven people on board was in great danger during a storm. But it was to difficult for the other fishermen to get out and help them, so all seven died.
30 years later a young fisherman of just 18 years died at sea. And after him one more and one more. This was the curse of the Seven Misaki.

.......................................................................
西条市 Saijo town木曳野 Kibikino

otachikisan, otachiki san オタチキサン Otachiki San
This is the local word for 七人ミサキ Shichinin Misaki, especially for seven people who died in the war or at sea.
Long long ago 戦国 in the period of the warring states, 石川源田悠人 (石川源太夫, 石川備中守通昌) Ishikawa and six of his followers were killed here. He was known as
おたちきさん（大太刀君） Otachiki san "Master of the Big Sword".
Later when villagers passed by this spot, they heard seven invisible people talking and then built a sanctuary in their honor.

.......................................................................
西予市 Seiyo town, 野村町 Nomura

During a severe drought (旱魃 / 干ばつ), the farmers begun fighting for water and seven of them got killed, bringing a curse to the village.



........................................................... Hiroshima 広島県 .............................................................

At the Western end of the island 鶴島Tsurushima near 箱崎 Hakozaki, the Seven Misaki are venerated as
Toobyoosan トウビョウサン Tobyo San, "the Bewitcher",
being possessed by an evil spirit
When a fishing boat hits the watch tower at the rock of the cape, there will e a bad catch.
The same holds for 亀島のエビス岩 the Ebisu Rock at Kameshima Island .
If this happens at the Eastern end of Tsurushima and cape 伊勢ヶ鼻 of 弓削島 Yugeshima Island, then people will get a stomach ache.

.......................................................................
三原市 Mihara town

kyoozuka 経塚 "sutra mound" or spelled with a different Kanji,
狂塚 "insanity mound" for a Misaki group
- see above


........................................................... Hyogo 兵庫県 .............................................................
豊岡市 Toyooka town

Near the river people get a high fever for unknown reasons, said to be haunted by Seven Misaki.
Others suddenly begin to tremble during the rice planting season, they are said to be
神様のユキアタリ cursed by the deity.


........................................................... Kochi 高知県 .............................................................
former Tosa 土佐

The Seven Misaki bring sudden chills, fever or other illness.
ガンドー gandoo, numanetsu 沼熱 /ヌマネツ fever or ショーキ shooki.

If a fishing boat is bewitched by the Seven Misaki, it will not be able to move any more and seven crew members will die.
Someone getting lost in the mountains is ユキアイ "meeting a deity", the malicious Doorokujin 道碌神 Doroku-Jin.. When they come back, they must stand at the entrance and be fanned by a willow and paste an amulet at the entrance.

. 道祖神 Dosojin, 道六神. 道陸神 Doroku-Jin, the Wayside Deities .
They are usually protector deities, but can turn malignant.

If someone has died in a river or mountain forest, people come together for the funeral and eat a meal together 産火（サンビ） sanbi"fire of life" and 死火（シニビ）shinibi"fire of death".
Some get a sudden fever from it or a severe stomach ache.

.......................................................................

吉良神社 Kira Jinja
安土桃山時代の７人ミサキ Azuchi Momoyama Misaki of Seven People
高知県高知市山ノ端町 / Kōchi-shi, Harunochō Nishibun, 3521
- see the story told above -

......................................................................
吾川郡 Agawa districtいの町 Inomachi village

They never call it "Seven people Misaki", but simply みさき Misaki.
On August 16, the day after the O-Bon rituals, the seven often come to roam the rivers, rice fields and sweet potatoe fields. Often they also come after strong rain.
Some Misaki are for children who die during the rainy season.
There are also sanctuaries for
sannin misaki 三人みさき / サンニンミサキ three Misaki people.
or シチリコツバイ shichirikotsubai.

......................................................................
安芸郡 Aki district 北川村 Kitagawa

Once seven young woodsmen went to the mountains and stayed over night in a hut. While they were making jokes in the evening, one got killed by a hatchet by accident. So the others commited Harakiri, cut their stomachs and died too. Now they are appeased with a special Mound.
Sometimes people get a sudden chill for no reason and feel their presence.

The legend of seven Shikoku Henro pilgrims turning into Misaki is also told here.

.......................................................................
幡多郡 Hata district大月町 Otsuki

At the hamlet 尾浦集落 Oura three used to be some mikoミコ shrine maiden, who performed oracles and divination. They also used to perform rituals for the Seven Misaki.
.
Once an old woman suffered from severe pain in the shoulder. From an oracle she learned that her grandfather was one of the "Seven Misaki", which could not find peace in heaven. He had first tried to bewitch his own son, but he did not pay attention to it. So Grandfather begun to bewitch the woman, his granddaughter.
.
Another old woman got ill and collapsed in the toilet, her illness got worse and worse.
From an oracle she learned that this was a curse of the Seven Misaki. So she prepared seven dumplings and burned incense in a ritual to appease their souls. Her seven ancestors had perished at sea and cursed the world. So now she had to perform regular rituals to get her health back and diminish the curse.
.
.
When the eldest son of 長宗我部元親 Chōsokabe Nobuchika was killed in the war against the Shimazu clan 島津征伐, his second and third son begun to fight for the right to the family head (which was usually the eldest son). The second son and seven of his followers got killed. These seven could not go to heaven and became a storm, later to be venerated as Seven Misaki.
.
hi no tama 火の玉 ball of fire
Sometimes a strange ball of fire was seen on the horizon above the sea, sometimes a sound like an earthquake was heard from the mountain. Anyone who experienced this got ill and had to undergo exorcism rituals. Sometimes the spirit healer had to drink seven cups of tea to make the Seven Misaki souls go away.

.......................................................................
幡多郡 Hata district 西土佐村 Nishi-Tosa

At a dangerous place called Takiyama six people had died. The villagers called a diviner and learned that this was a curse of the Seven Misaki. So they built a small temple for Jizo Bosatsu and prayed there carefully every year to prevent them from killing another person.
Other areas are especially haunted in Summer. People built small five-story stone pagodas to appease the wandering ghosts.
If someone gets ill, he has to stand at the entrance of the home, facing outside and the family members fan him with a 箕 winnow to make the illness go away.
This healing is also performed at 香南市 Konan town, 香美市 Kami town and 南国市 Nankoku town.

One reason for the Seven Misaki in the Tosa region is said to be the Shikoku Henro pilgrims, seven women of them died here. They sometimes come back as balls of fire at the bottom of a cliff and curse the village.

.......................................................................
室戸市 岬町 Muroto Misaki

People come in contact with the Seven Misaki while on boats, near rivers, mountain roads, crossroads or along the coast, on days of bad weather in summer. They can not see them but feel the heat. If they hit one straight on, they will have to die, to make one of the seven go to heaven and take his place with the cursed souls to keep the number of SEVEN.
The curse of their souls haunts the region.
Priests or special healers perform exorcism rituals when this seems to turn into an epidemy.

.......................................................................
宿毛市　Sukumo town

In the area of 宇須々木 Usuki, the legend of Seven Misaki dates back to the Eiroku period (1558 - 1570).
Spies tried to enter the land of Lord 土佐一條 (土佐一条) Tosa Ichijo and were killed. These seven spies from 大州宇都宮 Utsunomiya are appeased here.

.......................................................................
須崎市 Susaki town

If someone gets ill suddenly, they he kazefukeカゼフケ "met the bad wind", the Seven Misaki, the local ガンドー gandoo.
He has to stand at the entrance of the home, facing outside and the family members fan him with a 箕 winnow to make the illness go away.

......................................................................
高岡郡 Taoaoka district

The 四万十町 village of Shimanto has a special
misaki doo ミサキ堂 Hall for the Seven Misaki.

There is a road crossing 越知町 in the town of Ochi where people often get a sudden chill and die. They are haunted by the Seven Misaki.

........................................................... Oita　大分県 .............................................................



Heike Shichininzuka 平家七人塚 Mound for Seven People of the Heike clan
宇佐にいた平家一門が駅館川の支流の院内川を遡って大門に辿り着いた。
大門の地は、平安時代に宇佐神宮に参籠した僧の行基菩薩が開山したと伝えられる龍岩寺周辺に仏典を書き写して、経筒に納め埋納した経塚がある。
信仰厚い平家落人が住むには安全な地だった。
門脇中納言平教盛公の子孫らは矜持を保ち塚を築いた。
- source : sence-net.com/heike/tsuka -


........................................................... Okayama 岡山県　 .............................................................

Okayama prefecture has a lot of legends about Misaki.



荒神とミサキ ― 岡山県の民間信仰
Kōjin to misaki : Okayama-ken no minkan shinkō
book by 三浦秀宥 　 Miura Shūyū

.......................................................................

At the hamlet 大石 Oishi the Seven Misaki are venerated.
Once a bewitched grandfather had suddenly complained of being cold on the hottest day of summer. He got his heating table (kotatsu 炬燵) and warm blankets to hide and then when all had gone he hang himself. Then more suicides of hanging begun to happen in the hamlet and the local priest had to perform exorcism to appease the souls of the dead and stop the suicides.

.......................................................................
上房郡 Jobo district有漢町 Ukan

tooboo トウビョウ Tobyo "The bewitching Snake"
The トウビョウ Tobyo snakes come down the Southern slope to the village maybe once every 30 years and bewitches seven people, who become crazy and die.
There is no medicine or exorcism ritual to help these people.

.......................................................................
真庭郡 Maniwa district勝山町 Katsuyama

At the hamlet 荒田 Arata, they venerate the
jinushi sama 地主様 "The Deity of the Land"
Once upon a time
the villagers killed seven travelers and got cursed by them instead. So they build a sanctuary and perform rituals to appease their souls.


........................................................... Shizuoka 静岡県 .............................................................
磐田郡 Iwata district龍山村 Tatsuyama

shichininzuka 七人塚 mound for seven people
Once seven hunters went into the mountain forest to hunt but never came back. So the villagers built a mount for them ミサキ塚.
Even now sometimes in the mountain forest the call of a rooster can be heared. Anyone who hears this will be dead within three days.
Therefore people are afraid to go deep into the mountain.

........................................................... Yamaguchi 山口県 .............................................................
徳山市 Tokuyama town- see above

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



七人ミサキも恋をする
by 丸山 英人 (著), かれい (イラスト)

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



source : qublic-goods.stores.jp/items


- reference : nichibun yokai database 妖怪データベース -

- reference : 七人ミサキ -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話　昔話 - Introduction .

- Yookai 妖怪 Yokai Monsters of Japan -
- Introduction -


. Koojin sama, Aragamisama 荒神様 Kojin Hearth Deity .
- Introduction -

. goryoo, onryoo 御霊、怨霊 vengeful spirit .
- In the Heian period (AD 794–1185) Goryo were generally considered to be spirits of nobility who had died as a result of political intrigue and who, because of their ill will for the living, brought about natural disasters, diseases, and wars.


. hokora, hokura, shi 祠 （叢祠　神庫） small Shrine .

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



. Join the friends on Facebook ! .

- #misakisevenlegends #shichininmisaki -
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- BACK to the Daruma Museum -
. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話 昔話 - Introduction .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

sanbi 産火 / 産忌 - - shinibi 死火 / 死忌 fire taboos for birth and death
サンビ / / 死に火
shinippi 死火 /しにっぴ / シニッピ

This is closely related with many other taboos (忌み imi) related to birth and death.

kegare 穢れ spiritual contamination, uncleanliness, or pollution.
. imi 忌み / 斎み taboo .
- Introduction -

The kegare of childbirth lasted 32 days, and during this time the new mother could not leave the house through any of the rooms that held a household shrine. For the first 15 days, the mother must do no cooking, and if she went outside, she must cover her head in order

shi-e, shie 死穢 kegare that pertains to death, death impurity

.......................................................................

. kinki 禁忌 taboos and legends .



.......................................................................

Since a family eats meals cooked on the same fire, if a birth or death happens in a family, people from other groups must take a distance so as not to adhere to the family taboos and impurity.

.......................................................................

aka fujoo 赤不浄 "red impurity" - "blood impurity"　from bleeding wounds or menstruation

shiro fujoo 白不浄 "white impurity" through childbirth

kuro fujoo 黒不浄 "black impurity" through death

.......................................................................

bekka 別火 "separate fire", - - the sacred fire of a shrine or temple
Also a separate fire for cooking meals, if the family is in the time of a taboo for birth or death.

. Homusubi no mikoto 火産霊命 Deity of Fire .
火結神

Hinokagutsuchi no Kami 火之迦具土神 fire deity for blacksmiths
. kajiya　鍛冶屋 kajishi　鍛冶師　 blacksmith .


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Fishermen call the taboos connected to birth in the family
aka fujoo 赤不浄 "red impurity" - "blood impurity"
Those with this family situation are not allowed to go fishing during this time.

People who do not keep the taboos connected to birth will be eaten by bears in the forest.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
- - - - - ABC List of the prefectures :

........................................................... Akita 秋田県 .............................................................
鹿角市 Kakunodate town

When the frame for a new home is set up (mune-age 棟上げ), there should not be a case of birth or wedding taboo in the family.
iwaibi 祝儀火 / イワイビ fire taboo for a wedding

.......................................................................
仙北郡 Senboku district

yama no kami 山の神 Deity of the Mountain
This deity spends the summer in the fields (ta no kami) and the winter in the mountains.
It is a female deity and likes stonefish (okoze 虎魚, Okoji in local dialect).
She is also
o-san no kami お産の神 the deity of birth.
For a difficult delivery, she comes to welcome the dead to the mountain.
Since she dislikes Sanbi, a family where a birth happened is not allowed to enter the mountain for one week.

. Yama no Kami　山の神 - Ta no Kami 田の神 .


........................................................... Fukushima 福島県 .............................................................
南会津郡 Minami Aizu district檜枝岐村 Hinoemata

The hunters of the region are more afraid of the taboos for a death.
If there is a death or birth in their own family, they do not go to the forest and stay home, "eating fire"火を食う.
Other families do not come for a drink or food and stay away.


........................................................... Ehime 愛媛県 .............................................................
南宇和郡 Minami Uwa district 愛南町 Ainan

yamainu 山犬 wolf
If someone takes food or drink within three days of a family just having a birth, he will be bewitched by a wolf.
"If you have eaten in a Sanbi home, do not walk alone at night!"
The wolf likes the red color and therefore often bewitches women in menstruation. But they are not behaving too bad, not biting people.


........................................................... Kochi 高知県 .............................................................

If someone has died in a river or mountain forest, people come together for the funeral and eat a meal together 産火（サンビ） sanbi "fire of life" and 死火（シニビ）shinibi "fire of death".
Some get a sudden fever from it or a severe stomach ache.

. shichinin misaki 七人ミサキ "Misaki of seven people" .
.
yamainu 山犬 wolf
If someone eats or drinks in a family with a Sanbi taboo, he will get mixed up with the Sanbi (産火をまぜる) and get defiled.
A man called 寿太郎 Jutaro did not care, went to such a family of his relatives, had a feast with them and then . . . on his way home in the dark he was attacked by two wolves.
He swung his torch and called out "I am on official business!"天下の御用
Thus he could drive away the wolves.


........................................................... Miyagi 宮城県 .............................................................

kinki 禁忌 all kinds of taboos
For seven days it must be avoided to share food and drink at a family with a birth or death.
If someone got involved with a Sanbi family, he had to be especially careful with construction work and forest work. They were also not allowed to use New Year decorations.
Even they had an urgent business to help the family, outsiders had to stay away during a taboo period.
A fisherman should not step on a boat during one week. It might cause shipwreck and a bad catch.
Nobody should accompany a Shinibi family to a shrine.
Other sources quote a period of 21 days to stay away, called
hi ga warui ヒガワルイ "these days are bad", otherwise they would encounter 3 years of bad fortune.

If someone had a smoke in a taboo family and then went to the forest, he would not be able to get a shot out of his gun, if he happened to meet a bear. Even if he would hit, the animal could not die from it. Such a man had to go back as fast as he could and have some exorcist rituals performed.

A man with a pregnant wife was not supposed to help with funeral preparations.


........................................................... Nagasaki 長崎県 .............................................................
壱岐市 Iki town

Fishermen with Sanbi taboos are not allowed on board.
They have to call an exorcist, called ホリドン Horidon, to perform cleansing rituals.


........................................................... Yamagata 山形県 .............................................................
西村山郡 Nishimurayama district

sanbi no tatari 産火のたたり curse of the Sanbi
A woman in the family of her husband usually calles a midwife to give birth in the living room or a storage room. At that time the Sanbi taboos for the family begin.
All members of the family are now prohibited to go to the forest and work in the mountains.

.......................................................................
米沢市 Yonezawa town笹野町 Sasano village

. Yama no Kami　山の神 - Ta no Kami 田の神 .
It is a female deity.
She is also venerated as
o-san no kamiお産の神 / ubugami産神 the deity of birth.


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- reference : nichibun yokai database 妖怪データベース -

..............................................................................................................................................

. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話　昔話 - Introduction .

- Yookai 妖怪 Yokai Monsters of Japan -
- Introduction -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



. Join the friends on Facebook ! .

- #sanbi #shinibi #firelegends #taboo-
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- BACK to the Daruma Museum -
. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話 昔話 - Introduction .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Okayama no Misaki Densetsu　岡山県のミサキ伝説 Misaki Legends from Okayama



Okayama prefecture has quite a lot of Misaki legends.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

. Misaki ミサキ / 御先 / 御前 / 御崎 The Misaki deity .
- - - - - Introduction - - - - -
Misakigami ミサキ神 Misaki Kami Deity
Misaki Daimyoojin 御先大明神 / ミサキ大明神 Misaki Daimyojin
Misaki sama ミサキ様 / ミサキサマ, Osaki オサキ

A deity that can bring misfortune or curses (tatari-gami 祟り神).
This can be the vengeful spirit of a person who died with many regrets in this world
and can not leave yet to go to the Paradies in heaven.
henshi変死 / へんし unnatural death

Misaki are often appeased and venerated at
. hokora, hokura, shi 祠 （叢祠　神庫）Hokora small Shinto Shrine .

The name MISAKI is also used for the messenger of a deity,
for example the Inariキツネ Kitsune fox or the カラス Karasu raven from Kumano.

misaki daimyojin 御崎大明神 at Inari fox shrines 稲荷社 as a messenger.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- - - - - The most dreadful is the group of
. shichinin misaki 七人ミサキ / 7人ミサキ / 七人みさき
"Misaki of seven people" .
who died in an accident or in unnatural circumstances
henshi変死 / へんし unnatural death.
They have a page of their own!

In Okayama there are legends from 勝山町 Katsuyama, 大石 Oishi and 有漢町 Ukan.


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

- - - - - 岡山県 general

ミサキは主神や本尊の御前であり、お使いしめから発生したものである。主神を直接に拝して祈願することを憚る感覚から起こったものかと考えられる。

.

misakigiri performed by Kanbara Daiyu ミサキギリはカンバラ（上原大夫）
でないと出来ないのだという。依頼に従ってカンバラは拝み、死人に語らせると、島中の人々が集まって聞いた。これを聞いてやらないと供養にはならないのだという。

..............................................................................................................................................


misaki koojin ミサキ荒神 / misaki no koojin ミサキの荒神
A special deity of the Southern parts of Okayama. It is no always the vengeful soul of a person dead through unnatural circumstances, but also a protector deity, if venerated properly.
鎮守 - 守護神

..............................................................................................................................................

御先大明神 Misaki Daimyojin is the Misaki Deity of 吉備津神社 Kibutsu Jinja.
岩山大明神 Iwayama Daimyojin is the Jinushigami地主神 the land god of Kibitsu Jinja.

. Kibitsu Jinja 吉備津神社 - Introduction .


furo フロ (森) "sacred forest"
is a part of the forest that had become the target of faith. If a tree was cut or branches broken, that could bring great misfortune.


tooboo トウビョウ Tobyo
Tobyo is a little snake with yellowish white ring-like mark around the neck. It brings good fortunes to its believers. There are some shrines dedicated to Tobyo.
It also posesses people.
- - - - - 28 to explore

..............................................................................................................................................


BTW - I live in a town in Okayama called Misaki 美咲 "Beautiful Flowering"



Misaki (美咲町 Misaki-chō) is a town located in Kume District, Okayama Prefecture, Japan.
- source : town.misaki.okayama.jp -


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

There are some special Misaki in Okayama

tsurugi misaki ツルギミサキ Sword Misaki and tsuna misaki ツナミサキ Rope Misaki

Let us look at the Tsurugi Sword Misaki first.
..............................................................................................................................................

.......................................................................
北房町 Hokubo - Jobo district

In front of the 観音堂 Kannon hall of this village there is a Misaki Hokora.
これは、昔ここの城に泊まった六十六部が殺されて奪われた金の刀に摩利支天 Marishiten が祈りこめられていたため、これが祟るのを恐れてのことだという。
- - -
畑を耕していたときに出てきた刀と兜を埋め戻して塚を築き、ツルギミサキ（埋剣様）と呼んで祀っている家がある。このように、土中から出てきた刀を祀る例は多い。

.......................................................................
久米町 Kume

At the 城山 castle mountain there is a family venerating Tsurugi Misaki.
Once a priest came down the mountain toward the home of the family. He told the people that they must venerate 摩利支天 Marishiten or otherwise will be cursed.

.......................................................................
西方 Nishigata - Niimi

On the place where someone found an unnatural death, a Misaki ritual is performed. A tree is planted, called ミサキ様 Misaki Sama.
A person who killed himself by Harakiri cutting his own stomach with a sword (tsurugi) is called
tsurugi misakiツルギミサキ.
A person who killed himself by hanging with a rope (tsuna) is called tsuna misakiツナミサキ
and rituals are performed for them.

.......................................................................
真庭郡 Maniwa district

The ancient ancestors of 津山藩主森家 the Lord of the Tsuyama domain, the Mori clan, are venerated at places where their swords have been found.

- - - - -
In 勝山町 Katsuyama

At the hamlet 美甘村延風 Nobukaze in Mikamo there is a grotto, where a sword is kept and venerated as Tsurugi Misaki.

- - - - -
In 湯原町 Yubara : tsurugi misaki marishiten 摩利支天
湯原町仲間の大庭皿には、離村した本家のツルギミサキがそのまま同じ場所に祀られている。これは昔武士が祀ったものなので、位が高く、摩利支天の威光がついている。また、守り神であって、これを祀ると狐や魔性のものが近づかなくなるという。

- - - - -
苫田郡 Tomita district富村 Tomison

Once there lived a high-ranking King in this area, who's grave is in an old 古墳 Kofun burial mound, where they found a sword and venerate it as Tsurugi Misaki.


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

tsuna misaki ツナミサキ Rope Misaki

.......................................................................
北房町 Hokubo - Jobo

In the beginning of the Mejiji period, there livend an old man who became quite infirm and finally committed suicide by hanging himself. For more than 6 months after that many strange things happened in the village, so the villgers planted a cherry tree in his honor and venerated it as his Misaki soul.


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

In 岡山県 Okayama Prefecture
家に災難が続いた場合、それは何らかの祟りによるということがあるが、その祟るものをミサキとして祀ることもある。

.......................................................................
吉備高原 Kibitsu Kogen highlands

死者のミサキは吉備高原以南に特に多い。ミサキの中で多いのはシニミサキと呼ばれ、行き倒れの死者を組の者が交代で祀るものである。クビツリミサキは首を吊った者を家族がその場で、火事で亡くなったヤケミサキはその家で祀る。

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::.

..............................................................................................................................................
備中町 Bitchu - Kawakami district

Since olden times, old trees are venerated as Misaki. The 山の神 Deity of the Mountain - Yama no Kami, is also seen as Misaki.

If a person is posessed by a Misaki, exorcist rituals have to be performed.

If someone has killed himself by hanging, or has died from starvation, he becomes a Misaki and to prevent him from becoming a bad ghost, people prepare a funeral and grave for him with great care.

備中町では、不慮の死を遂げた者がいると、家族が法印に依頼して、死者のミサキを本地にひきとってもらう。ミサキは、年を追うといって、年忌には友を呼ぶというので、その際には、このようなことがないように拝んでもらうのだという。

gakibutsu ガキ仏
ガキ仏は炭坑や穴などの不憫な場所で死んだ霊で、ミサキは川にはまるなど不憫に感じる死に方をした霊。
.
笠神岩には、筏流しのとき座礁して死ぬ人が多いので、ミサキを祀る。

.......................................................................
Marishiten as hifubyoo no kami 皮膚病の神

備中町平川平弟子では、摩利支天はミサキ、皮膚病の神、勝負事に勝たせてくれる神であるとかいう。

..............................................................................................................................................
日生町 Hinase - Wake district

misaki oroshi ミサキオロシ
水死人の怪異譚であるミサキの話はよく聞かれるものだが、これに憑かれたときは、巫女におがんでもらう。

..............................................................................................................................................
北房町 Hokubo - Jobo district

kawa misaki 川ミサキ
北房町下呰部には、溺れた子供を祀った川ミサキがある。それが祀ってある川に落ちると生きては帰れないといい、これをミサキが誘うという。
.
丘の上に祀ってあるミサキは、昔、この土地の豪族同士が争った際に、相手の家が見えるところに祀れと遺言されたことから設けられたものだという。

.......................................................................
sannin misaki 三人ミサキ Misaki of three people

北房町下呰部にはまた、三人ミサキといわれるものがあり、これは、子守とそれに負われていた子の溺れ死んだ霊と、そこを通りかかって川に落ちて死んだ人の霊とを祀っている。



..............................................................................................................................................
石蟹 Ishigae - Niimi

ミサキ様 Misaki Sama

新見市石蟹ハリガ瀬の山道に祀られているミサキ様の祭りは、高瀬舟の船頭たちの祭りとして、1年に1回、旧暦の10月に催される。正月のハツフネの際には、高瀬舟を停めてこのミサキ様に参拝し御幣をたてたのだという。

..............................................................................................................................................
笠岡市 Kasaoka town

In 高島 Takashima
死者の亡霊の中でも祟るものをミサキという。このミサキが憑くとクチバシルのだという。

In 北木島 Kitagi shima Island
天気の悪い夕方に着いて来る火の玉をミサキという。
上半身は見えず、下半身が下駄を履いた者が後から着いて来るのをミサキという。


..............................................................................................................................................
勝山町 Katsuyama town - Maniwa district

勝山町原方では、木の小祠に石仏を納めて、ミサキとして祀っている。


..............................................................................................................................................
川上郡 Kawakami district

juunijin sama 十二神様 and kitsune 狐 the fox / oyatei オヤテイ

十二神様は家や株内、部落の守護神で、祟りやすい性格と狐の信仰を伴うものである。そのオヤテイである狐は、鳴いて災難を告げるとされており、このことから古い使者に関する信仰、広く言えばミサキ信仰の流れの一つと考えられる。

..............................................................................................................................................
倉敷市 Kurashiki town

In 下津井 Shimotsui
不慮の死者に限らず、死者全てに対してミサキを離すためにミサキギリをする。死後直ぐにはミサキは離れないので、1～3ヶ月ほど経過してから行う。死人には必ずミサキが憑いているので、供え物をしても死者の口に入らなかったり、また良い仏になれなかったりするのだといわれた。
.
倉敷市下津井の松島でも、ミサキが憑くとか、ひっぱるとか、人をとるなどというが、御崎大明神を祀ると、そうした悪いミサキが近寄らなくなるのだという。
.
in 六口島 (one of the Mizushima Islands)
六口島では、溺死者の死体が漂着したり、変死者が出たりすると、その死体を運ぶときに「ここからいのうぞ、必ずいのうぞ」と声をかけないと亡霊のミサキが残るといわれている。


..............................................................................................................................................
栗原 Kurihara - Maniwa district

. 栗原不動寺 Kurihara Fudo-Ji and the Misaki .
岡山県真庭市栗原不動寺和田山 Maniwa, Kurihara, Fudo-Ji, Wadayama

misaki marishiten ミサキ摩利支天 / ushirogamiウシロ神 / 後神
gedoo ゲドウ
落合町栗原余河内では、本家の屋敷の北西隅にある榊の古木のところに小祠を設けてミサキを祀っている。先祖のようにも言われているが、ミサキ摩利支天 とも呼ばれている。これはウシロ神（守護神）であり、祀ればその威光によって他人はこの人物に立ち向かえなくなり、またゲドウ（悪霊）も近づけなくなるのだという。

gedoo ゲドウ Gedo is a Yokai of Western Japan and Shikoku. It looks like a weasel (itachi).

itachi 鼬 Yokai weasel - ten 貂 the Japanese marten
..... Itachi are tricksters and pranksters, .....
- source : yokai.com/itachi/ -

and
tsurugi misaki marishiten ツルギ　ミサキ　摩利支天 - - - - - see above

..............................................................................................................................................
久世町 Kuse - Maniwa

ミサキ様は仏様の古いのを言う。近寄ると頭痛がするという。
.
久世町樫西中屋の氏神三社神社の境内にミサキ社があり、ここでは、村に異変があるとこのミサキ様のヤテイが鳴いて知らせるのだという。

.......................................................................
guhin sama グヒン様 Guhin Tengu
In the compound of the Kawabata family is a special Misaki for daily venerations.
Once year there is also a ritual for the Guhin Tengu, who is living in the 天狗岩 Tengu boulder.


..............................................................................................................................................
美作 Mimasaka town

Jizoo Gongen 地蔵権現 Jizo Gongen
50 years after an unnatural death the wandering soul will finally come to rest as a Misaki.
It might also become a Jizo Gongen, a deity venerated at Mount Atago.

. Jizoo Bosatsu 地蔵菩薩 Jizo Bosatsu - Kshitigarbha .

..............................................................................................................................................
新見市 Niimi town

In 草間 Kusama
新見市草間広石の荘の宮にはミサキが祀られているが、船頭はこの前を通るときには必ず拝むのだという。

In 豊永 Toyonaga
埋葬の直後、もしくはそれと同時にミサキを離すことがあるが、それをトリジンバナシ、もしくはトンジンバナシという。


..............................................................................................................................................
落合町 Ochiai - Maniwa district

senzo no misaki 先祖のミサキ Misaki for the ancestors
In the hamlet of 落合町吉 Yoshi there is a Furo sacred forest right close to the fields. A small Shinto sanctuary for Misaki in the forest, for the ancestors.
People are not allowed to break any branches of the trees in this forest.
If they venerate it properly, the deity will protect the hamlet. If they forget to venerate it, they will be scolded.

.......................................................................

Many people in Ochiai have a small Hokora for Misaki, who is venerated as a 屋敷神 Yashikigami Protector deity of the Estate, near the North-Western side entrance.

. yashikigami　屋敷神 "estate deities" .

Near the main entrance of an estate in the field a natural stone is burried in the ground, and a small Hokora erected as Misaki Sama.

.......................................................................

戦後引き続いて首吊り人が2人でた。誰にも思い当たる理由は無かった。こういう死に方を世間ではミサキがとりついたといった。死者は50回忌の法事が終わるとミサキになるともいい、ミサキが先祖霊なのか、とりついて人を殺す怨霊、悪霊なのかは分からない。

.......................................................................

Tengu misaki 天狗ミサキ Tengu

近在に聞こえた旧家の主人が、ある日、近くの天狗松で羽を休めている大鷲を撃ったところ、手ごたえはあったのに、大鷲は飛び去ってしまった。この主人はその夜から高熱を出した為、拝んでもらったところ、その大鷲は天狗ミサキであったことが分かった。結局、この主人は発狂して死亡してしまい、家は途絶えた。

.......................................................................

tengu 天狗 Tengu and Yatei ヤテイ
落合町栗原余河内部落の鎮守であるミサキ社のご神体は天狗の面である。精進の悪い者や不浄のある者、女性が近づくと天狗が谷底に投げ落としてしまうと言われ恐れられているが、部落の信仰は篤い。部落に危難があると、ミサキ様のヤテイが鳴くという。


..............................................................................................................................................
小田郡 Oda district (former part of Kasaoka and Ibara)

juunijin sama 十二神様 and kitsune 狐 the fox / oyatei オヤテイ

十二神様は家や株内、部落の守護神で、祟りやすい性格と狐の信仰を伴うものである。そのオヤテイである狐は、鳴いて災難を告げるとされており、このことから古い使者に関する信仰、広く言えばミサキ信仰の流れの一つと考えられる。

..............................................................................................................................................
邑久郡 Oku district

死者が出た直後や四十九日の前後に次の死者が出ると、ミサキのためにカンバラに依頼してミサキワケをしてもらった。墓地の隅に石や小祠を設けて祀ってあるミサキについては、墓参りの際にまず供え物をする習わしである。
.
岡山県邑久群の北池部落では、墓地の隅に小石を置いて、変死者があったときにミサキをまつるという。

..............................................................................................................................................
Oosa 大佐町 Osa - Niimi

Marishiten Misaki 摩利支天ミサキ
大石の久右衛門屋敷の南東隅には小祠が設けられており、摩利支天ミサキが祀られている。これは別名鎮守荒神とも呼ばれる。

..............................................................................................................................................
勝北町 Shooboku - Katsuta district

前に竹やぶ、後ろに墓地を負う茂みの中にはミサキの小祠がある。これをきちんと祀らないと部落に狂人が出るのだという。

..............................................................................................................................................
総社市 Soja town


source and more photos : hardcandy.exblog.jp

Along the embankment of the river near the bridge 水内橋 Mizuuchibashi is a Misaki Hokora to protect the waterways from accidents.


..............................................................................................................................................
高梁郡 Takahashi district

kinoyamasama 木野山様 and Ookami 狼 wolf
備中では殆どの部落に木野山様の小祠があるが、そのようにして木野山神社を勧請したのは明治期にコレラが大流行したときのことであった。この流行の背景には、以前から既に木野山のミサキである狼を迎える習俗があったためである。

..............................................................................................................................................
高倉町 Takakura - Takahashi

Shrine Misaki Jinja御鋒神社, also known as
みほこ神社 Mihoko Jinja
at Takahashi-shi, Iibe / 高梁市高倉町飯部3493


The shrine is located along the river 高梁川 Takahashigawa.
Fishermen come here to pray before they go to sea. Here the 水神 Deity of Water is united with the Misaki Deity.

This shrine is famous for its old cedar tree, 御鋒神社の古杉 furusugi.
This tree is more than 1000 years old.


source : hitozato-kyoboku.com/misakijinja-sugi
The tree may also be called Kosan 「古杉」「こさん」- Old Cedar.

reference : okayama-jinjacho.or.jp

..............................................................................................................................................
玉野市 Tamano town

In 石島 Ishijima a lost soul with no one to appease is called Misaki. If it bewitches and posesses someone, his is "pulled along by the Misaki" (ミサキがひっぱるmisaki ga hipparu ).
Once an old man suddenly disappeared one evening. Although he was blind, he climbed up a steep cliff. When people saw this, they knew he was pulled along by Misaki.

- - - - -
For a lost soul rituals to "cut them off" (ミサキギリ misakigiri, misaki-giri) are performed about three months after an unnatural death, caused by being posessed by a Misaki.


..............................................................................................................................................
哲西町 Tessei - Niimi

misaki no ki no sawari ミサキの木のさわり
川上美佐雄氏方にもミサキの木として伝えられているフジの木があったが、知らずに伐って腹をこわしたことがある。
.
ミサキについて。不慮の死をとげた人をフリョミサキといったり、願をかけて拝んだ木をミサキと言ったり、病人が出ると“ミサキにさわっている”と言ったり、各家で祀ったりする、など。

..............................................................................................................................................
富村 Tomison - Tomita district

The 蛇は水神のミサキ White Serpent is the Misaki Messenger of the Water Deity. It is also called
nushi ヌシ "the Master".
苫田郡富村大のある家では、種籾を浸す神聖な泉に現れる蛇によって水神の神意を占ったよいう


.......................................................................
misaki furo ミサキブロ（森） sacred forest
苫田郡富村大のある家では、部落の西南のはずれにある山中のミサキブロ（森）の中にミサキを祀っている。

..............................................................................................................................................
有漢町 Ukan - Jobo district

misakibanashi ミサキバナシ
新墓供え物を烏がとらないとミズノコ（鉢に水を入れて野菜などを浮かべたもの）があがらないという。ムズノコがあがらないのは亡者にミサキが憑いているからであると考えられ、僧や法印に拝んでもらってミサキバナシをする。

.......................................................................

備中、上有漢村でもミサキがとり憑いて首を吊ることが昔は随分あった。ある部落では恐ろしいミサキがいて、33年の年忌ごとに必ず首吊りがあり、最近の例では大石という女性の本家の老人であった。真夏なのにとても寒がり、これはミサキが憑いたのだということで見張っていたが、ちょっとの隙に首を吊ってしまったという。

..............................................................................................................................................
矢掛町 Yakake

misaki no michi kiri ミサキのミチキリ "Cutting off the road for a Misaki"
Priests from a temple in Yakake are sometimes called to 真備町 Mabicho to perform rituals of Michikiri.
- - - - - a similar custom is
misaki osame ミサキオサメ "ending a Misaki curse"
At 矢掛町西川面 Nishikawamo there are ofteh accidents of all sorts, especially drownings. To get rid of the curse of a Misaki, people from families of diseased persons come together to have an exorcist perform rituals of Misaki Osame.

..............................................................................................................................................
湯原町 Yubara

misakigurui, misaki gurui ミサキ狂い "Misaki Insanity", Misaki madness
People belonging to a Misaki worship group (ミサキの氏子 misaki no ujiko) are prone to become insane.
.
湯原町粟谷の杉成では、屋敷の外れの大木の下にミサキを祀っている。これはツルギとは言われてはいないが、その祠は剣をかたどったものである。

.
Marishiten 摩利支天，山伏 and wolf
天正の頃、村人が村にやって来た作法知らずの山伏を切り殺してしまったところ、悪疫が続いた。これは山伏の祟りであろうということになって祀ったのが、現在ある摩利支天なのだという。

.......................................................................

Tokuemon Misaki 徳右衛門御崎

国道のわきに「清眼則勇信士」と刻まれた石碑があるが、牧部落では、これを「徳右衛門御崎」と呼んで祀っている。この徳右衛門とは、享保年間に行われた一揆の指導者であったという。


.............................................................................................................................................

- reference : nichibun yokai database 妖怪データベース -
121 to explore ミサキ 岡山県 (80)
- reference : yokai database - ミサキ信仰 -
94 - not all include the word "ミサキ misaki" in the text.

. Okayama Dialect and Deiteis .





荒神とミサキ ― 岡山県の民間信仰
Kōjin to misaki : Okayama-ken no minkan shinkō
book by 三浦秀宥 　 Miura Shūyū
- reference : nichibun yokai database -
102 to explore


. Koojin sama, Aragamisama 荒神様 Kojin Hearth Deity .
- Introduction -

. Misaki ミサキ / 御先 / 御前 / 御崎 The Misaki deity .
- Introduction -


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Ushirogamiウシロ神 / 後神 / 後ろ髪
後神（うしろがみ）は、鳥山石燕の妖怪画集『今昔百鬼拾遺』などにある日本の妖怪.
... 妖怪漫画家・水木しげるは「後ろ髪」と「後神」とは関連性のないものとし、岡山県津山地方に後神が現れた話を述べている。それによれば、臆病な女が夜道を 歩いていたところ、突然現れた後神がその女の束ねた髪をくしゃくしゃに乱し、火のように熱い息を吹きかけたという。
また、風を起こして傘を飛ばしたりして驚かしたり、冷たい手や熱い物を首筋につけたりするものともいう。......
- - - More in the WIKIPEDIA !


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

. Japanese legends and tales 伝説　民話　昔話 - Introduction .

- Yookai 妖怪 Yokai Monsters of Japan -
- Introduction -

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::



. Join the friends on Facebook ! .

- #misakiokayamalegends #okayamamisakilegends -
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::