Folk Legends From Tono: Japan's Spirits, Deities, and Phantastic Creatures Read online

  It is reported that the eleven-headed Buddhist statue was housed inside the Daikokuten statue. This Daikokuten statue is a roughly carved image about fifteen centimeters high. According to the priest Miyamoto of the Shingon Myosenji Buddhist Temple at Mt. Hayachine, his temple is probably related to the deity Daitoku. Myosenji Temple was established as a training area for cult mountain beliefs.

  When his mother was young, there was an old man temple sexton who liked rice wine (sake). His job was to offer the god Daitoku sacred sake every morning. When he made the offering, he always thought that he would like to drink the sake himself. One morning the Daikoku statue spoke, saying it would be fine if he and the others took the sake and drank it. The old man was surprised and ran off to where the others were. He told them what had happened. They doubted him and thought it was a lie. To verify it, another man went and offered the sake. Once again, Daitoku spoke, saying, “I have had some sake. Take the rest to the others and drink up.” Daitoku became quite famous as the “Talking Daitoku.” (138-126)

  The daughter in a house in Hitoichi has the reputation of being a snake-necked monster (rokuro-kubi) that appears at night. One evening, a man was on the bridge in Kagi-machi when the head of a young girl appeared rolling over and over. When he approached it, the head pulled back. This happened over and over, and he followed it until he was at the house of the rokuro-kubi girl. Then the head pulled back inside the house through a broken window above the porch. (139-229)

  The Kannon-sama (the Goddess of Mercy) of Kurahasama is a charred, two-meter-high wooden sculpture. When the temple building burned down in a forest fire, the sculpture also caught fire, but it ran out of the building and threw itself into the pond in front of the temple. It is said this is how it survived the fire. The deity of Furumine Shrine in Tochigi Prefecture is related to fire prevention. This shrine is also related to tengu worship. (140-60)

  In the coastal area of Hei, there is a fish called the “mirror fish.” It is hung at the entrance of each house. It is a round, flounder-like fish that has been dried and has a shine to it. It is said to ward off evil. (141-220)

  Ocean deities bring good fortune. Hunters secretly carry a small fish (okoze) as a charm to ensure successful hunting. Okoze is a small ocean fish caught in seas to the south and, because it is so rare, it is difficult to obtain. On the other hand, fishermen treasure what is called the “mountain” okoze—a small spiral seashell around two centimeters long found in the fields and hills. This is highly valued because it is said that if you have one, you will catch a lot of fish. (142-219)

  One night, someone from the town of Tono passed through a cemetery in the area of town that has a number of Buddhist temples. A strange woman all alone walked toward him. He looked carefully, and it was someone he knew who had died recently. She kept coming closer to where he had stopped in surprise. She said, “Take this!” and handed him a dirty bag. He took it, and it seemed heavy for a small bag. Scared, he ran off quickly. When he got home, he opened the bag and saw that there was a large amount of money in it. There were silver and copper coins all mixed together.

  No matter how much of the money he spent, it always replenished itself. The rumor was that someone who had been poor up to now suddenly became wealthy. This was a fairly recent story. This sudden wealth is commonly referred to as “ghost money” (yureikin). It is said that if one leaves just one small coin in the bag, then overnight the bag will fill up to just as it was originally. (143-137)

  Some time ago, there was a fire in Muika-machi in Tono and a small child appeared out of nowhere carrying a waterproof bamboo basket. He worked very hard to put out the fire. Once the fire was out, he disappeared.

  Because his behavior was so amazing, everyone was curious about where he had come from. Before long, they found the wooden floor of the Aoyanagi bathhouse in Shimoyoko-cho dotted with small muddy footprints. They followed the footprints to where they stopped in front of the family Buddhist altar. Inside the altar there was a small Amida Buddha statue sweaty and covered in mud from head to toe. (144-62)

  A man named Aizumi from Tono got lost one night at Fuefuki-toge (Flute Blowing Pass). He walked around the hills lost for several hours and couldn’t find the road out. He thought it was hopeless, so he climbed onto a high rock and called out the names of his children one by one, starting with the oldest. Finally he got to the name of his youngest child, the one he favored, who was sound asleep at home.

  The youngest child couldn’t sleep and woke up alarmed after imagining that his father climbed up onto his body, starting from his feet, then grabbed his chest, pressed hard with both hands, and called out his name. The child’s heart was pounding, and he couldn’t sleep. He worried about his father’s situation until morning.

  The next day his father followed the sound of bells on a horse and finally found the road. He was saved and returned home safely. The family discussed the previous night’s events, and the father and the children seemed to agree about what happened. People talked about how this was somehow like being able to know or read the future (shirumashi). (145-145)

  After a family member goes off on a trip or into the military, as a prayer for their safety, at each meal food is set out for them on a separate tray by the Buddhist altar. It is said that if there is no steam inside the lid of the dish of rice on the tray, or if the tea cup or chopsticks on the tray fall off, this is the moment when something unfortunate will happen to the person who is away. If the person preparing the tray eats some of the food intended for the tray, it is said the person who is away will be very hungry. There are many instances of this happening. Mr. Marukichi from Yamaguchi, who went off to the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), suddenly smelled a special meal of cooked rice with soy sauce during the Battle of Kokkodai in January 1905. When he returned home, he spoke about this experience and found out that this was the smell of the food prepared on the tray on that day. (146-260)

  There is a family named Miya in Tono. It is reported to be the oldest family in the Tono area. The founding fathers are said to have come over from Kesenguchi along the coast riding on salmon. At that time, the Tono basin was still a wide circular lake. I heard that the person who traveled to Tono on the salmon lived on a ridge at Uguisusaki, what is now the range of hills of Mt. Monomi.

  At that time, there were two families at Uguisusaki and one family on Mt. Atago. Some other people in the area are said to have been cave dwellers. This Miya ancestor went hunting in the mountains one day when a large eagle saw the deer skin he was wearing, grabbed him by the neck, and carried him off high into the sky. The eagle then rested on a branch of a large tree on the bank of a river somewhere to the south.

  At that moment, the hunter pulled out his knife and killed the eagle. They both fell onto the rocks below. They landed on a steep ledge, and the hunter didn’t know what to do. So he took off his underwear made from tree bark, tore it into strips, and then made it into a rope using the eagle’s feathers. This is how he got down to the water’s edge. But the river current was so strong he couldn’t get to the other side. Just then a swarm of salmon came up the river, and he could cross over by stepping on their backs. Thus, he was finally able to get home. (147-138)

  When the Miya family lived in Uguisusaki, the ancestors of the current Kurabori family lived on Mt. Atago. One day, someone from the Kurabori family went to the spot on the river where kitchen utensils were washed and saw some salmon skin floating by. Thinking that something terrible must have happened at Uguisusaki, they set out in a boat to see what they could do to assist them. From then on, for a long time, members of the Miya family never ate salmon. (148-139)

  To make it rain, people in this area usually climb a tall mountain like Mt. Ishigami or Mt. Rokkoushi, make a fire, and pray. Or they throw horse bones into the pool of water at the base of a waterfall. Making the water impure with bones is a way to provoke the rain god.

  There is a small pond in the mountains of
Sai-no-kami of Komaki where the deity Myojin is worshipped. It is said that if anyone disturbs this pond, it will rain or something evil will happen to the person responsible. Someone doubted this and threw horse bones, sticks, and rocks into the pond, and on the same day he went mad and disappeared. Villagers searched for him for several days but couldn’t find him. Over half a year later, when the leaves on the trees around the pond had fallen, they found him in a big tree as if he had been thrown up there. Only his bones remained. (149-42)

  In the 1300s, when the Buddhist Chief Priest Mujin wanted to build Tozenji Temple, he climbed on top of a large round stone and prayed to the god of Mt. Hayachine off in the distance. He wanted the god to grant him a pure spring of water inside the temple grounds. One night, a beautiful female deity on a white horse appeared on this round stone. She promised to grant Mujin a sacred spring. Mujin then wanted to sketch the goddess, but just as he began to draw the ear of her horse, she disappeared.

  This round stone is referred to as raigoseki (welcoming stone). It is also said that the goddess of Mt. Hayachine climbed on this stone to hear the chief priest read the Buddhist scriptures (sutras) after she felt the supreme virtue of Chief Priest Mujin. The water spring he received from the goddess is called kaikeisui, and it is a branch of the water on Mt. Hayachine. The water still gushes out of the spring.

  It is said that if the shadow of a person is reflected on the spring water, it will rain hard. So that it won’t rain, the temple monks have placed long-handled water scoops beside the spring. In this way, people have to reach out for the water and their shadows won’t be reflected on the water. (150-40)

  A long time ago, a deity came down the Hashino River in a stone boat. The boat came to Wasedochi. The deity liked the spot and went into a cave on a hill beside the river. This spot is called kakure-zato (hidden hamlet) by the local people, and they built a shrine there and worshipped the spirit. Even now, there are two stone boats there. Villagers are sternly warned that they will be cursed if they sit on or lean against the boats. (151-38)

  There is a large bell from the sea god’s Dragon Palace sunk in Matsuzaki Pond. The story is that Magoshiro’s millstone at Mt. Monomi rose up out of this pond.

  Two rocks representing an old man and an old woman are standing side by side at the bottom of the pond, and no one is allowed to go beyond them. If one does go past them, since the pond is bottomless, they can’t come back. (152-23)

  Inside the grounds of the Komagata Shrine in Ayaori village there is a meter-high brown stone called ryu-seki (dragon stone). A long time ago, someone from the village dragged the stone to that spot but couldn’t move it any farther. That is where it has remained. Why it was dragged to that spot is unknown. Originally, it was not called ryu-seki. Once a well-informed traveler came and heard about the stone. He wanted to see it, so they took him into the grounds and showed it to him. He said it was a “dragon stone.” He pointed out the eyes, nose, mouth, ears, head, and the form of the dragon. The villagers seemed to agree. (153-14)

  There is a hill called Ota Fortress in Sabinai. Around 1600, Lord Ishida Munehare, who lived there, was defeated by attackers from Kesen on the coast. At that time, the lord of the fortress mounted a white horse and plunged into a pond called Maru-ido (round well) at the base of the hill and died. It is said that the one-thousand-handed Buddhist Kannon (Goddess of Mercy) image attached to his armor sank with him and remains at the bottom of the pond.

  During the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), when Ota Hatsukichi, a descendant of this lord, was going off to war, he prayed for protection by the Shinto and Buddhist deities. A shrine medium and sorceress (miko) told him that before he went off to battle he should recover the Kannon image and Daikokuten (god of wealth and prosperity) submerged in the Maru-ido Pond. He got people to help him dig in the pond, but he couldn’t find Daikokuten. But he did find the Kannon image, which was a tiny 2.5 centimeters. This is now the main object of worship in the Sawaguchi Kannon Temple. (154-130)

  The Rinkichi family in Onara of Tsuchibuchi village were wealthy and prosperous but now there is no trace of them. The family had a white dog, but for some reason the dog was killed, skinned, and the carcass left in a field. The next day someone in the house got up to heat food for the horses, and they found that the dog that had been killed had come back and was red and warming itself. Surprised, the person killed it again and threw it into the field. Soon after this, many horses died one after another, and a flood washed everything away. The household declined and was eventually destroyed. It was thought that these were omens of the decline of the wealthy family. (155-134)

  At one time there was a choja (wealthy farmer) called Nizaemon in Taishida. And in Sabinai there was another choja named Tobei of Haba. At one time, Tobei of Haba said that he was so wealthy he could line up straw bags of rice all the way to Yokota town. Not to be outdone, Nizaemon said that he could line up gold coins all the way to town.

  However wealthy Nizaemon-choja was, as fate would have it, he was bankrupted in one night. In the spring, he sent a number of young men with horses to a mountain he owned to gather katsuhiki (a plant used as fertilizer at rice-planting time). The horses that were sent ahead went to Kirikake-Nagane, a good five or six towns away. The remaining horses still hadn’t left the stable. Before the young men who had gone up the mountain could gather the katsuhiki and load the horses, a rainstorm came up, and they returned home. Nizaemon-choja saw this and said, “There has never been a case in my family’s history when the workers returned home before they finished their work. If I allowed such a thing in my generation, it would ruin my reputation.”

  He scolded the workers for coming back and ordered them to finish their work in the rain. But the young men wouldn’t go back to the mountain. They left the horses by the river in Odaira and spent the night in a nearby farmhouse. The next morning, when they got up and checked by the river, the horses were all gone. They had been washed away in the flood. It is said this led to the undoing of Nizaemon-choja. (156-133)

  It is said that this happened a little before 1868. There was a fire in the Kegon-in Temple, and half of it was destroyed. In the beginning, the firefighters were concerned that the fire could not be put out because they had exhausted their fire-extinguishing capabilities.

  Just when they thought the temple building would be completely burned down, two young boys were seen coming down from the castle. They used the branches of a nearby tree to climb onto the temple roof, and they systematically extinguished the flames, bringing the fire under control.

  Later, when the head priest of the temple heard this story, he went to the main hall to see what happened. He found two Buddhist statues burned black. One statue was the Tantric Buddhist god Fudo Myo-O (Acala Naatha). The other statue was the Shingon Buddhist god Dainichi Nyorai (Mahavairocana). They were both made by a well-known carver of Buddhist statues. They were small statues only about eight centimeters tall. (157-63)

  The deity Atago is known as the fire-preventing god. The people praying to Atago in Tono have not had a fire in their neighborhood for fifty or sixty years. When there was an accidental fire in one house, the chief priest of Daitokuin Temple, in the same Shinmei area, scooped water out of a wooden bucket with a small ladle and poured it on the fire. By the time the local people had arrived, the fire had been extinguished.

  The next morning a person from the house where the fire had started went to Daitokuin and said, “Thank you very much. Last night, thanks to the chief priest, the fire did not get out of hand.” Nobody at the temple knew anything about it. Then they realized that the deity Atago had taken on the form of the chief priest and put the fire out. (158-64)

  In the spring seven or eight years ago, the Imabuchi family of Iide gathered some cherry blossom branches, put them in a vase, and placed the vase on the Buddhist altar. Candles were also lit and placed on the altar as an offering to the household deity. Everyone went into the rice fields to work
. After a bit, they looked back toward the house and saw dark smoke billowing out of it. They ran home from the fields and, as they got closer, the volume of smoke seemed to decrease. When they got home and went inside, they saw that the source of the fire was the Buddhist altar. The fire from the candles had spread and burned the Buddhist mortuary tablet and the house floorboards. The cherry blossom branches were seared.

  Only the Kobugahara scroll, which was hung in the same narrow alcove, was not burned, not even on the edges. Everyone knows that the deity in Furumine Shrine (in Kobugahara) protects against fire. The Imabuchis believed that it was this scroll that extinguished the fire, and they are still very grateful. There seem to be many stories like this from earlier times. (159-66)

  5

  Survival on the Edge

  There are always those who opt for the wild freedom of the mountains yet crave the companionship of mates and city foods like rice cakes and rice wine (sake). It is the comings and goings of these marginal semi-human predators, the rule breakers, that strikes terror into the hearts of the settled townsfolk. The townsfolk and farmers forced to go into the mountains for grasses, wood, and wild game find themselves head to head with what they see as threatening strangers, foreigners, or even monsters. Yanagita Kunio conjectured that spirits like kara-kasa in the first legend below, which had at one time been the object of strong religious belief, lost their sacred stature over time, surviving in recent times as simply uncanny and eerie monsters (yokai).