Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Orikuchi Shinobu

I crossed over to Iki Island for two summers.
And thus I discovered that this island had become a gathering place for kappa legends from all around northern Kyushu.
Upon further reflection, I realized that the ancient form of water deity worship was still faintly alive and at work among these islanders.
Moreover, I held the conviction that in folklore studies, it is of utmost importance to prioritize one’s own field notes—imbued with firsthand impressions of the time—over relying on inadequately understood records of strange tales and curiosities documented by others. It was for this reason that I devised an attempt to outline this study, centering on the oral traditions of Iki Island and its neighboring isles.

This tale chronicles how kappa blended elements of local water spirits from various regions into the worship of a revered water deity arriving from beyond the sea. However, here I proceeded to write simply by treating it as an established premise, fearing that providing proofs in that regard would be of little interest.

All kappa illustrations inserted into this tale were borrowed from a kappa picture scroll passed down through the family of Mr. Kobori Heishichi, former swimming instructor to the Kumamoto domain.

I. The Kappa Woman

The River Lord’s inn of love beneath the summer moon

In Buson’s haiku, what had been confined within his painting manifested to an extreme degree.
Even he, who comported himself so freely, could not overcome the weight of his stylistic lineage.
The Tosa paintings and ukiyo-e within his spirit emerged cloaked in the guise of haikai.
This haiku was no mere ink sketch.
Nor was it simply what one might call haiga.
A kappa transformed into a man and visited the maiden’s lodging.
The summer moon hung over the water village in the dead of night.
The composition recalled a certain type of serialized illustrated storybook.
Such contrivances might appear to be Buson’s own creations.
To be sure, many legends of modern kappa lack this element—yet they undeniably existed in earlier times.

I investigated Iki Island twice over. As a result, my assumption—that kappa headquarters lay in rivers or other freshwater locales based on place names containing “river”—was shattered. The plateau called Chōjahara facing the sea is said to be the mansion site of a man who became wealthy by employing a gaataro. It took the form of a small child with disheveled hair. From the moment it first arrived, he suddenly prospered, gradually building additions to his storehouses. Wherever the gaataro walked was left soaking wet. It would even climb up onto the tatami mats. In the end, the wealthy man’s wife grew to dislike it and prevented it from coming anymore. Then suddenly, the storehouses vanished without a trace, and the folding screen that had stood behind the wealthy man remained transformed into stone. This one appeared to be a boy.

In Hirado, they tell stories of a female gaataro.
A woman who served a wealthy household would come every day and return every evening.
She never revealed where she came from or where she lived.
One time, when they followed her, the sea waves parted in two.
The visiting woman thudded heavily into its depths and vanished from sight.
The woman, having apparently realized this, was said to have abruptly ceased emerging thereafter.

From these two accounts emerged the understanding that they surfaced daily from the sea; their presence correlated with household prosperity; they could be employed by estate masters; they ceased appearing due to resentment over their masters’ blunders; and some manifested not as children but in female form. Yet beyond these visiting entities, there also appeared to have been permanent residents among them. Tonogawa Residence was a grand household that once stood in Iki Province. A certain master encountered a beautiful woman during his travels and brought her home to become his wife. She even bore him a child before one day leaping into the estate’s well and returning to the sea. When she fled still clutching her bowl, those who peered into the well’s depths claimed to see it submerged below. Even on that island, those who knew this Japanese tale of a sea-dwelling lady—reminiscent of *Shindatsuma*—had grown scarce in number. What this legend revealed was an ancient belief that even well-like springs were thought to connect underground to the sea—a concept made tangible here.

Faith unaccompanied by such narratives persisted throughout Japan in its pure form.
This represented the Wakasai Well-type conception of the otherworld.
It was said that the “Water-Drawing Ceremony” of Nigatsu-dō summoned forth the waters of Wakasa Pond.
Lake Suwa, Lake Biwa, Ōnashi Pond on Mt. Kirishima, and others were said to connect to far-flung wells and springs.
What was strange was also the abundance of wells and clear springs said to lead to the Dragon Palace.
As for those of grand scale, it was said that the Dragon Palace could be reached from beneath Seta’s Karahashi Bridge, among other places.
However, none had elucidated why the waters leading to the Dragon Palace were not saltwater.
I wished to write on another occasion about the fact that there existed mysterious water which was only used during certain times of the year.
It seemed they believed that sacred freshwater, passing underground from the sea, gushed forth for the days of religious observances.
Why saltless water came from the sea—this problem required an explanation too lengthy to expound upon here.
The belief that sacred regional lakes and ponds were connected was in fact a variation on this concept of groundwater originating from this sea.

In this tale, they do not speak of kappa.
But it is known that there were beings who journeyed between wells, springs, and the sea.
Stories of kappa revealing their visages from springs and wells in improbable mountain wildernesses and urban quarters—I believe any among us must have heard one or two such accounts.

Whether male or female, legends where they assume human guise to wed mortals often root their true forms in aquatic realms.
The former Tonogawa Residence's legend too seems to have interwoven this narrative archetype into kappa lore.

The widely known proverb stating that wherever there was standing water deep enough for a horse’s hoofprint, a kappa dwelled also stemmed from this belief in groundwater—that water spirits were thought to traverse anywhere. Those who reached out from beneath toilets to play pranks had mostly ended up being revealed as raccoon dogs, though there were also no small number of cases involving monkeys or cats. However, even toilet styles had their own history. With those changes, suitable animals had come to replace one another. Yet upon reflection, it remained pools of standing water; thus the kappa’s passageway stayed connected. A hairy hand emerged and merely stroked the buttocks; when one thought about it, the purpose behind this act grew unclear. One might normally have viewed this as a demonstration, but for a yokai inhabiting abandoned houses that shunned human company, this seemed an excessively elaborate act. There was no need for such exaggerated explanations by harking back to ancient times when toilets were literally river chambers with river water visible between one’s legs—they could elucidate this without such temporal leaps. But if such interpretations had been permissible, they would also have had to reconsider the origin story of the first national mother—who transformed into a vermilion-painted arrow, drifted beneath a maiden’s river chamber, and struck her shameful place. The purpose behind kappa targeting people from beneath privies might not have been solely to extract shirikodama.

The thing the kappa beneath the privy was peering at was the shirikodama.
There exists a tale within this narrative pattern: someone who had been prophesied to die by water on a certain date strictly avoided water, yet lost their life due to an unforeseen object connected to water—on that very day, they entered the privy and had their shirikodama extracted by a kappa.
An example where they deemed the privy unsuitable and instead had it emerge from the hand basin was reported by Mr. Motoyama Mitsuo from Mii District, Chikugo Province.

The bowl submerged in the well of Tonogawa Residence is also deeply entwined with kappa.
Legends of items left behind by the departed wife have also come to exist in increasing numbers.
Though there may be various things left behind, the fact that she departed leaving a bowl behind is because fragments of the old faith in water spirits cling to it.
This I wish to discuss in relation to the tale of the kappa’s bowl lending.

Stories of kappa coming to serve households during their ancestors' time had generally become simplified.
Every night, it would sneak in, leave a fixed amount of fish, and return.
As if anticipating the question of why they no longer came now, all reached a conclusion.
They intentionally placed something kappa detested in the usual spot.
Upon seeing that, the kappa became afraid and ceased bringing fish, it was said.
The story of how the fish offerings ceased was one where, though the kappa departed and the household's prosperity was diminished, this loss remained confined to only a portion of its former state.
Among the things hung within houses, fish too were one such treasure.
The impression of ancient life—where outsiders would come, present tributes or wrapped offerings, and depart—became linked to the loss of wealth bestowed from the water realm, restricting its diminishment to the bare minimum of forfeiting fish offerings alone.
This was because they believed agrarian communities' prosperity stemmed from water spirits' assistance.
The cause of a household's flourishing had inevitably to be attributed to kappa.
Therefore, I argue there was an era when people actively employed kappa.
The result of employing kappa—which should always have ended in tragedy—was deftly resolved.
Tales of wealthy individuals passed down through generations were now recast as ancient lore belonging to prominent village households.

II. Kappa Manipulators

Why did kappa come to be subjugated by humans?
Throughout Japan, it is generally held that this resulted from their misdeeds.
This is because they were captured for dragging people and livestock into the water or attempting such acts.

Let me state the conclusion first.
Spirits enslaved by sorcerers perpetually watch for an opening.
Finally seizing their practitioners' moment of negligence, they return to untamed fields, mountains, rivers, and seas.
The fact that kappa ceased bringing offerings and the wealthy lost their prosperity—both stem from this principle.

Practitioners wielded enslaved spirits to demonstrate spellcraft and healing wonders.
Among secret techniques passed down to household heads, many were said to have been taught by kappa.
In kappa's case, the methods for imparting bone-setting techniques appear to have branched into diverse forms.
Many accounts describe kappa's teachings about wondrous wound remedies, though anciently they primarily instructed in setting arm and leg fractures.
Horsemanship households performed secret surgeries for those who had fallen from steeds.
Explanatory chants detailing these methods' origins were transmitted alongside them.
These techniques likely migrated from sumo households and adapted to equestrian contexts.
The karmic bonds linking kappa will be addressed later.

A kappa captured by humans would make a vow not to seize people from that village. Alternatively, such vows came to be made for retrieving arms that had been pulled out. The ease with which their arms detached must have been an essential condition during an era when people could not free themselves from kappa. Later, this transformed into the practice of cutting off yokai arms. Professor Yanagita positioned this as the focal point of his kappa studies. The oni arm severed at Rajōmon was explained as a variation of this transformation—a shift from kappa to oni. Similar to this oni, scholars also expounded upon the relationship between kasha—a flying yokai that tries to abduct people from high places—and transformed old cats.

Afterward, the venerable Minakata Kumagusu determined in Hidaka, Kii Province, that the reason kappa were called *kashiyanbo* lay in their association with the *kasha* firecart demon. Presumably, there had been a time when all entities seeking to devour both the living and dead were referred to as *kasha*. There existed books that depicted kasha’s form as resembling cats. Even wolves that killed people and desecrated graves were transmitted through tales as a type of kasha, akin to shape-shifting felines. Japan also harbored stories of these demons transforming into old women to lure out children left home alone and devour them. Furthermore, there persisted the Echigo tale—evolving through countless variations since the *Tales of Times Now Past*—of a hunter named Yasarō whose mother, having taken on a wolf’s heart, lay in wait to consume her son in the mountains he visited, only to be slain by him instead. The imperative to repel such man-eating yokai proved particularly urgent during funerals and grave-digging rites. Through Buddhist priests’ knowledge, one could infer the sequence by which the term “kasha” emerged. The term *kuwashiya*, used in pleasure quarters until the mid-Edo period, carried varied applications. It might denote the madam of an invitation teahouse or refer to women circulated from geisha houses. Though *kuwashiya* were also called *yarite*, the latter eventually supplanted the former in usage. Thus even *kuwashiya*—a term evoking middle-aged women—came to conjure images of elderly crones when replaced by *yarite*. While written with the characters for “flower cart” (Hanaguruma), *kuwashiya* likely originated from “firecart demon” (Kasha). The name probably derived from their method of seizing and dragging victims inward. Even those who left geisha houses to establish invitation teahouses were likely still called *kuwashiya*. Those who entered theater circles under the designation *Hanaguruma-gata* were simply onnagata specializing in aged female roles.

Water spirits whose hands detach also existed among the Ainu.
They were called *mintsuchi*.
Though their forms differed，they corresponded to Kappa.
Professor Kindaichi Kyōsuke explained that the ease with which their hands detached was due to them being transformations of straw dolls.
The cores of straw dolls’ hands were all made of bamboo or wood.
A single stick entwined with grass served as both hands.
It was said that if pulled，both would come out at once.
Just as the term *mintsuchi* itself belongs to the Yamato people，I believe this faith likely also contains elements of Yamato folk practices.

There were also tales in Iki of straw dolls becoming kappa.
Amanjyaugume cursed human villages' prosperity and contended with benevolent deities.
The name of this island's benevolent deities—abundant in civil engineering legends—had likely been forgotten.
They misused the name of Takeda's master carpenter—one who might be called Kyushu mainland's Hidari Jingorō.
Banjo and Amanjyaugume made a pact.
They declared that if a bridge could be built across the inlet to the opposite shore before the first rooster's crow, devouring all islanders would be permitted.
They crafted three thousand straw dolls, cast spells upon them, and set them to work as human laborers.
While no roosters had yet crowed, Banjo—seeing the bridge nearing completion—hid in shadows and mimicked a rooster's cry.
Amanjyaugume halted construction and shouted, "Scatter and be gone!"
The site came to be called Geimagi-zaki.
Then they commanded the three thousand dolls: "A thousand to sea, a thousand to river, a thousand to mountains," and released them.
All became gaataro.
Thus across sea, river, and mountains—wherever water pooled horse-hoof deep—gaataro dwelled.
If human strength prevailed, one could wrestle them and yank out their arm mid-sumo.
This was because they were transformations of straw dolls.

It could not be claimed that both hands detached simultaneously, but they bore such an uncanny resemblance to the Ainu mintsuchi that it verged on excess. It was believed that dolls made to bear human evils and set adrift during summer purification rites had been granted life in the water realm. Among these practices, straw dolls were sent and cast into seas and rivers during field purification rites. That there existed a connection between summer purification festivals, kappa, and straw dolls was only natural. Moreover, from how many who lost in sumo wrestling—a practice not unrelated to kappa—did so through bone dislocation, it came to be thought that the association between kappa and straw dolls had grown profoundly deeper.

In ancient sumo wrestling, it appears there were even methods such as wrenching arms and snapping ribs or hip bones.
After the medieval period, during autumn sumo festivals, wrestlers on the left would affix hollyhock flowers to their heads, while those on the right would affix gourd flowers.
Since gourds are objects associated with water, they likely served as emblems of water deities; viewed in this light, hollyhocks probably represent a category of deities opposed to them.
It cannot necessarily be identified as Kamo, but it is likely a deity of considerable power.
Gourd flowers, gourds—all could be substituted with other melons.

But why did people come to consider cucumbers—introduced in later eras—as favored by water spirits? In shape, they somewhat resembled small gourds, with their horizontally split cross-sections revealing forms akin to circular crest patterns. Many regions claimed this resembled the crest of Gion's guardians. Inside melons appeared something like a divine crest, and when twisted, the core would slip out. "Do not eat cucumbers after the Gion Festival has passed—there's a snake inside," went the folk saying still heard across regions today. Gion was a deity who cherished exotic novelties. This custom of selecting newly introduced melons likely arose to please this god. There existed a practice of drawing faces on melons and floating them away. When eyes and noses were drawn on cucumbers, they became terrifying visages studded with warts. These fearsome-faced foreign melons were set adrift as ritual substitutes for deities bearing malevolence from other realms. Through such reasoning, cucumbers likely became incorporated into summer purification river festivals. Might this not have gradually transformed into being perceived as offerings to water deities? Thus emerged the notion that cucumbers were a kappa's favorite food—an association born from these very customs.

III. Kappa’s Horse-Dragging

Both horses and cows dwelt under the same roof as people.
In the countryside, even now, many do not separate cow sheds and stables.
For such livestock that came to somewhat comprehend human sentiments, people began to feel a certain necessity for purification rites.
Around February, though mostly on Horse Days, there were also instances when they were held on other days according to the temple fair schedule.
They led cattle and horses to make a mountain pilgrimage.
This represented an evolved custom of having livestock employed in the fields undergo mountain retreats for agricultural rituals commencing from the day of Ritual Commencement.
It appears that the practices first conducted for cattle were later extended to horses.
Later, as the uses of horses expanded and mountain pilgrimages with horses increased in number, shrines and temples also came to select Horse Days as the temple fair days for spring festivals.

When rice planting was over, a time of rest would come for the cows.
Horses had no such thing.
When a calf was born, they would impress its hoofprint onto damp paper and affix it above the entrance. This served as a mark indicating that only already purified cattle dwelled there.
They did this to prevent evil spirits from entering and violating the calf.
Cattle are beasts with a deep connection to water.
On Doyo Ushi no Hi, they had to be immersed in water, even if only ceremonially.
In many places, cattle are spoken of as belonging to the lords of deep pools and waterfall basins.

Horses too had their day of river immersion.
Because of this, horses too came to have dealings with water deities.
The Owari Tsushima Festival also included, in part, horse purification rituals.
The shrine attendants of this shrine went about distributing stable amulets to allow the many horses to partake in the benefits of the sacred horse’s purification.
The horse was Tsushima’s sacred horse.
The one holding the horse’s bridle was a monkey.
It could also be a shrine attendant.
The depiction of monkeys existed because traditions from outside Tsushima had been incorporated.
This was the faith of Anō’s Monkey House, which had relocated to Ōtsu Higashimachi.
This was because the Divine Monkey of Hiyoshi Sannō was thought to serve as an intermediary for the Sacred Horse and accompany the deity.
It was also this monkey that performed the purification of the sacred horse.
Where this monkey resided, no harm came to the sacred horse.
That which sought to avert such misfortune was the amulet of the horse-leading monkey.
Even now, they are still encountered along the way.
On the horse’s belly band, they had attached one dyed with “Ōtsu Higashimachi.”
This mark signified that the horse had received the protection of the Monkey House and had participated in the purification of Hiyoshi’s sacred horse.

In ancient times, across all of Japan's terrestrial realms, there was nothing that could match the strength of horses.
When they took a step into rivers, people believed they might be dragged under by small water sprites submerged beneath.
They linked the kappa's formidable power—essential for receiving water—to its preexisting cranial dish.
This rationale developed further into understanding that spilling this water would nullify a kappa's strength.

Hiyoshi's messenger monkeys tasked with purification discerned water quality with precision.
They descended near lakes to observe the waters,
waited for the purest currents to arrive,
informed the deity,
and conducted purification rites.
Through such beliefs,
people became keenly aware of tainted waters
and malevolence lurking within.
This understanding led monkeys to appear
in garden incantations centered on praising estate waters.
From there emerged customs of monkey dances
to bless buildings
and repel evil spirits
and epidemics entering premises.

When people first perceived deities astride horses remains unclear in its specifics, but in ancient Japan, they did not conceive of deities riding livestock.
Even after horses became established as noble steeds, no deities were permitted to ride them in such fashion.
It was only after humans began riding them that this practice extended to deities.
When horses came to be offered from the court, those deities' status became elevated.
In ritual prayers too appear phrases summoning white horses, and though other reasons exist for why dedicating votive horse tablets was practiced relatively early on, this aspect must also be explained.
After the Heian period, low-ranking gods earnestly coveted horses.
When a horseman passed by, they would halt its legs and make the rider fall.
Yet through a later-period lens, this appears as reprimanding the act of riding.
Water deities too—now regarded as equally low-ranking gods—coveted horses.
Thus people conjectured that gods and spirits sought to seize horses approaching water.
This became the origin of tales where kappa tried dragging horses underwater but failed.
And so they appended explanations—linking them to river deities controlled by humans—that they would swear oaths begging for life, offer sacrifices, and impart secret methods.

The theory that Enko/Enkō derives from monkeys is one that anyone finds easy to believe, and for this reason, it seems unlikely to be displaced for the time being. However, I cannot determine why they deliberately avoided "monkey" and chose a more distant-sounding term. Alternatively, inferring from analogous examples such as “Iko” and “Kago,” it may be that what originated from “Ino ko” (well child) came to be pronounced associatively as “enkō”—simply *monkey*—as is. If one were to consider Enkō as none other than monkeys, then it could also be interpreted that the divine monkeys protecting water eventually came to be viewed as water spirits—monkeys being Kappa—and those abundant in the aquatic realm were distinguished as Enkō.

To regard horse-leading monkeys as transformations of kappa remains untenable, even with an explanation of the relationship between monkeys and Enkō. However, I believe I have at least discerned why affixing this amulet became a method to avert equine calamities. The traditions of equestrian households likely branched from the same root as those beliefs described by shrine attendants—the practices involving monkey-leading and horse-leading monkeys.

IV. Bowl-Lending Abyss

Within the bibliography of Professor Yanagita’s works compiled by Mizuki Naoyumi of Yamato, "Bowl-Lending Mound" occupied an important entry.
For me personally, this research was one that imparted a profound impulse.
At present, I wished only to state that such a way of thinking also appeared tenable within another facet of Professor Yanagita’s logic, thereby avoiding redundancy.

Many bowl-lending legends make no mention of kappa. However, I believe this occurred because stories originally situated in mounds containing spring water later extended even to ordinary mounds. I maintain that referring to places like waterfront caves, pools, or what are understood as underground water channels would better approximate their original form.

If one wrote down the required number of tableware sets on paper and cast it into a mound, cave, or abyss, by dawn the precise quantity of wooden utensils would invariably appear arranged at the cave entrance or upon rocks. There was an instance when they neglected to return the exact number borrowed; ever since, lending ceased—an ending that unfailingly accompanies these tales. Numerous traditions concerning these bowl lenders refrain from identifying them explicitly. Among those that do specify, clear examples name the Dragon Palace, kappa, or foxes. This conviction that such marvels required foxes arose from observations of foxes frequenting waterless mountain and field mounds—places where these wonders otherwise remained absent.

While such practices still exist today, they were not as prevalent as in the past.
Many households collected and stored dozens of sets of wooden utensils for hosting guests once a year or even once every few years.
Among these, there even existed events referred to as “once in a generation” within upper-class society.
Even judging by the tale’s pre-modern nature, it becomes evident that this legend likely existed even during times when small-scale farmers could scarcely dream of hosting guests with wooden tableware.
Now, one might ask: did this story not exist in the era before lacquered wooden utensils? However, it can also be surmised that they had conceived of tableware suitable for guest seating even in those times.
But delving further back, one arrives at an era when this was not legend but life itself.

In the lives of court nobles after the Heian period, grand banquets occasionally held were major events.
When a high-ranking official was promoted, they would host large-scale feasts with their immediate superior serving as sonja (the honored guest).
That evening, the protocol for the sonja’s arrival was strictly observed.
The banquet scene too was a mysterious affair.
It was as though it brimmed with the solemnity of households welcoming deities during nights of sacred festivals.
I believe Japanese banquets have continued without significant change since the time when capitals were agrarian communities—that all were repetitions of rituals performed on nights when gods would come.

It was the Fujiwara family that regarded vermilion vessels (cups) and tray-stands (dining trays)—undoubtedly banquet utensils—as their most important treasures above all else.
The qualification of the clan leader of the great Fujiwara clan was determined by the location of these utensils.
They were treasures approaching the significance of the Three Sacred Treasures within the imperial court.
This is said to have been made during the era of Fujiwara no Yoshifusa.
I consider that time to have been when a revolution had occurred in the history of tableware and old items were renovated.
In any case, the fact that tableware came to hold such significance implies that there were obligatory banquets to be held as a condition for clan leadership.

The term "master" originated from the concept of hospitality and came to refer to those responsible for hosting.
The qualification of the household head stemmed from the burden of responsibility in hosting guest entertainment.
The banquet was the foremost principle of family life.
The custom of meticulously preserving sacred utensils remained unchanged even as eras passed.
However, even in tableware, there was transition.
Inevitably, they came to use modern ones in place of those handed down.
The contributing factors were breakage and loss, along with new households—lacking traditional utensils—that gradually emerged afterward.

The number of guests was often fixed according to religious precepts.
Thus even as eras changed, these numbers largely remained constant.
A complete act of hospitality proved impossible if even a single bowl or plate was lacking.
The sense of hardship endured in securing full tableware sets persisted even when adopting new vessels.
This lingering impression likely explains why lost wooden utensils became the ascribed cause for bowl-lending caves ceasing their loans.
The array of dining trays and bowls at banquets made a household’s wealth immediately apparent.
This prosperity had been bestowed by the water deity who governed the rural economy.
The weathered patina of wooden utensils spoke to a household’s long history.
Utensils whose storage locations even families forgot would suddenly be produced when occasion demanded.
Through repeated witness of such phenomena, the notion of bowl-lending took shape.
Numerous dining sets formed one facet of the wealth granted by water deities.
People could only conceive these as items received through beseeching the water god.
Until they witnessed how rarely this manifested, it stood as fact—an accumulation of experiences from rural communities perpetuating ancient lifestyles, and a history ripe with unanswered questions.

Such experiences seeped into the depths of memory and passed through generations.
Thus, the material assets that symbolized the prosperity of these rural households were transformed into anecdotes, which in turn coalesced into narratives explaining the very causes of their wealth.
These explanations, conforming to old legendary patterns, turned reality into fantasy.
The imagination grounded in the factual notion of borrowing dining trays and bowls from water spirits at appointed times to explain their sudden appearance, and conversely, the association of eventual collapse easily conceived by those who received the spirits’ aid, simultaneously came into play.
And in between these, old memories of lost or damaged utensils resurfaced, giving the legend its coherent form.
Then again, rather than attributing it to mere loss, the rational desire to explain through patterns of human guile—deceiving gods and spirits—further tidied this tale into an even more commonplace form of legend.

Though one says to hang a golden net, the moon on the waves— (Nobuaki)

A kappa captured alive mourns autumn (Nobuaki)

Hearing your tall tales—you are but the rustling reeds (Momoao)

Is this the eve of hell? (Sho)

The firefly-lit water instead blazes upward (Ao)

The rake, the kite shrine—Seta’s long bridge (Sho)

The well-bucket drawer would search even to the Dragon Palace (Ao).

The turtle suddenly appears with a maid (Sho) (Edo Ryōgin-shū)

The associations with kappa had not yet been severed; stimulated by Seta’s Long Bridge four verses removed, they revived.
The verse about the well-bucket drawer also pertained to this.
The turtle’s maid likewise belonged here.
It was merely fleeing involving the kappa’s maid.
From our perspective, it still amounted to transcendence.

V. The Head Dish

Even if one understood the reason why the water deity exclusively lent dining trays and bowls, something still felt unsettled.
I wished to present two underlying causes behind the lending of wooden utensils for guest hospitality.
This explanation posited that the main guest receiving hospitality was likely the water deity itself, while also addressing why the kappa's dish became problematic.
Those attending rural banquets, though appearing in varied forms, when restored to their true essence, always proved to be the water deity and its kind.
At least until a certain era, people had welcomed them with this belief, and they came when summoned.
Of course, these water spirits were merely disguised as humans.
Over time, they began appearing in ordinary human form.
Conversely, modern times saw instances where deities became so abstracted that dolls fashioned from bundled seedlings or scarecrows whose purpose had expired were treated as honored guests.
Even after forgetting these were rituals for the water deity, a lingering sense remained that they were ceremonies connected to it.
This became the rationale for attributing the lending of dining ware to the water deity.
Though it may sound paradoxical, within legend's framework, this constituted sound reasoning.

Before discussing the head dish, I will first state the conclusion regarding its relationship to bowl-lending. Since ancient times—from an era when deities had not yet degraded to the level of kappa—there existed traditions of these beings being bestowed with dishes; thus arose the notion that water deities possessed such utensils. Are these dining trays and bowls submerged somewhere in water bodies, or have they entered into the kappa’s dish alongside inexhaustible treasures? This I shall address later. In any case, had people since antiquity conceived of the kappa’s dish as such a diminutive object? This too remains problematic. The kappa constitutes both a water deity and its attendant retinue—so much so that they might manifest divine potency at one moment yet swarm like mischievous imps at another. One might conjecture that divided spirits of the sea god proliferated as countless kappa inhabiting all watery realms. From the vantage of modern kappa lore, such explanations appear obligatory—yet I maintain a divergent view.

When viewed through kappa, our country’s concept of water deities had long been disordered. Was it a benevolent deity arriving from distant seas, or a local spirit? The distinction remained profoundly hazy. Gods and the spirits that opposed them were clearly distinct. Nevertheless, people transferred the deeds of gods onto spirits and, before one knew it, treated what had once been spirits as gods. Even kappa—who had originally been gods—had become mere spirits that tormented villagers. There were regions that still retained transitional forms where these beings, though spirits, had not completely shed their divine elements and were said to possess the power to bestow happiness upon farmers who flattered and served them.

The kappa's dish appeared to combine its conceptualization as a storehouse of wealth with the belief in its role as a repository of life force. It was not originally a vessel for holding water; rather, water came to be contained within it as the source of hydraulic power at sites where faith in the dish already existed. Thus, the belief regarding this sanctuary of vitality became twofold. This is why I regard the water within the dish as a later addition, viewing the dish itself as the primordial element.

My reasoning for accepting the dish's small size stems from prioritizing consideration of the water's nature. In certain regions, the head dish seemed indistinguishable from the shaved spot at the crown characteristic of the Poppy-Seed Monk haircut. Some accounts proposed that the cranial bone there naturally formed a depression. Others maintained that the dish remained concealed within the hair. Generally speaking, these conceptions remained nebulous to this degree.

The region facing the West Sea in northern Kyushu remains the place where faith in kappa persists most vividly even today.
There are many places where it was said that the dish was properly placed.
However, regarding this dish, there were those who argued that it faced upward, those who said it was placed face-down on top of the head, and those who explained that two dishes—upper and lower—were joined together like a lidded container.
The third one, seemingly intended to prevent water from spilling, was interesting, but I believed it to be the newest form.
When speaking of the head dish—in an era when whether it faced upward or downward had been so self-evident that no one questioned it—later generations who inherited this form with explanations omitted likely soon became unable to visualize how the dish was positioned.
Thus it came to be explained in various ways.
I believed the dish was likely placed face-down.
I thought it was not limited to small objects like those we had considered thus far.
I thought it might have been a much larger thing.

There existed a tale of a princess who wore such a dish from childhood until her wedding.
This was the story of Princess with a Bowl on Her Head.
Here it was called a "bowl" because it deeply covered her face.
Even within this shared absurdity, they likely recorded this tradition—choosing a bowl over a dish for being marginally more reasonable.
Though not particularly large, a mysterious force allowed objects to be contained beneath that dish.
Whether called bowl or dish made no substantial difference.
The episode where Princess with a Bowl on Her Head served at the imperial bathhouse and first met a nobleman carried echoes of ancient water priestesses who conducted purification rites.
Yet serving at bathhouses alone seemed a motif found in other tales too.
What made it distinctive was specifically meeting a man there.
Mr. Takase Gen’ichi of Keio University had questioned whether Hachikazuki’s scene of entering water and being swept away particularly revealed her profound aquatic connections.
When Hachikazuki’s bowl shattered, treasures amassed abundantly and matters reached felicitous resolution.
Viewed thus, this princess’s tale too bore water deity form.

The water deity wore a dish placed face-down upon its head. It was believed that beneath this lay numerous concealed treasures. Should the dish expand, it would become a conical hat. That many statues of rice field deities—water spirits—don such hats may hold some trace of this reasoning. In our childhoods growing up in Osaka, play songs like this still lingered:

The head dish—itsu-sara, mu-sara.

Nana-sara, ya-sara.
Ko-sara, to-sara.

On the to-sara, they placed moxa,

Heat, oh! Sorrow, oh! Kanabutsu Kei!
Kei-ya.

…………………

It had lost all meaning but appeared to be a phrase counting dishes. As for dish-counting expressions, the Tosa "Zeze-gakō" phrase cited in *Kiyū Shōran* was rich in implication.

At Mukaigawara, the earthenware kilns (Yakiha?).

Itsu-sara, mu-sara, nana-sara, ya-sara.

Late for the ya-sara mark, stumble-don-tsari.

"That there’s the ogre!
Wearing a straw raincoat and sedge hat—the one who comes is the ogre!

While singing this song, they struck the backs of their hands in turn.
At the song’s conclusion, whoever was struck on the back of the hand became the ogre.
By documenting it thus, he showed an intriguing insight—this must be the origin of society’s monster proverb about dish-counting.

Songs resembling dish-counting chants existed even in antiquity within the Konjaku Monogatarishū.
When a wife abandoned her husband and departed transformed into a swan, she left behind this poem:

Asamoyoi—the Kii River’s waters shake and flow—itsu-sa ya, mu-sa ya.
iru-sa ya, mu-sa ya"

The lower verse seemed utterly unintelligible—something resembling a children’s rhyme or folk ballad.
Yet I perceived a connection between “itsu-sa ya mu-sa ya” and “itsu-sara mu-sara.”
Taking into account how dish-counting chants apparently begin with five or six dishes made this seem especially plausible.
Establishing chronological precedence among similar folk practices based on their era’s antiquity proves particularly hazardous where folk songs are concerned.
Still, one might reasonably conclude that within this song’s variants, those preserving archaic vestiges represent an older stratum from which dish-counting forms later diverged.
Could people truly have conceived dish-counting monsters from a single such chant?
The notion felt somewhat inadequate.
For my respected colleague Mr. Kitamura’s sake, I resolved to cultivate this hypothesis further.

“In the era of ‘itsu-sa ya mu-sa ya,’ it seems reasonable to conclude there was largely no association with dishes.”
If that were so, they could have borne no relation to dish-counting monsters either.
When *saya* shifted to *sara*—with *itsu* denoting five and *mu* six—the progression to *nana-sara ya-sara* would follow naturally.
Once dish-counting forms coalesced, associations with object-enumerating yokai emerged.
In a kappa tale from Iki Motoori, someone counted the meshes of a net drying at a gate; covering it revealed a *gaataro*.
Though none explained why they counted meshes, since yokai nationally fear multi-eyed things, people likely thought completing the count would nullify the threat and permit entry.
Among permissible object-counting yokai are skulls ceaselessly reciting poems and sutras.

When object-counting monsters advanced to this stage, they began to change through mutual interaction with dish-counting songs. The most suitable entity for dish-counting was the kappa. By linking these elements, I believe people began asserting they could hear voices counting dishes from within wells. Presumably originating as a rural ghost story, it gradually diverged from kappa lore until tales of young women being cut down into old wells proliferated everywhere. There was a reason for the kappa to take the form of a young woman. Stories existed of early maidens buried alive in rice fields as offerings to water deities, alongside rituals formalizing this practice—such as ceremonially making the "First Early Maiden" fall deep into muddy fields. Moreover, many legends claimed that female human sacrifices had been offered during water-related civil engineering projects. This was not truly human sacrifice. The folklore of chosen maidens serving as brides of water deities had become distorted into this form. When legends of maidens sacrificed to fields and waterways became interwoven, it was young women who were cut down. The cause of dish-counting was explained as either breaking or losing a dish. Yet breaking a dish alone did not necessitate repeated dish-counting. The compulsion to count derived solely from inheriting what had originally belonged to the kappa.

In Hirado, there also existed such a legend.
In a certain large samurai residence, there was a maid.
When ordered to dispose of the dishes, she dropped one and broke it.
When the master drew his sword and slashed at her, the woman ran and leaped into the sea.
When her form was seen, it was said to be a kappa.
This tale—where the dropping of the dish was attributed to a female kappa who then immediately transformed into a young woman—was a rare example that could not be definitively concluded, though its structure remained simple.
The practice of shaving the crown of a child’s head into a round shape, creating a poppy-seed monk haircut, was done to signify their status as shrine children of the water deity and prevent them from being taken away.
Similarly, the gatsuso or okappa hairstyles—both involving long, hanging hair—were also forms resembling kappa.
This one did not shave the crown.
This was probably seen as a form where the dish remained concealed.

Among oni games, many centered around oni that specifically targeted children. Even what we call "hide-and-seek" (kakurenbō) might not have originally involved a literal "hiding person." In the three provinces of Satsuma, Osumi, and Hyūga existed a kappa dialect term kagure that shared morphological similarities with kagoto. During earlier periods when this was more widespread, could this not have become the etymological root of kakurenbō?

The terms menashichigo and menashidochi—referring to blindfolding—likely signified "eyeless child ogres." Dochi belongs to the mizuchi lexical lineage, while chigo in Fukuoka-area dialects denotes either kappa or their preferred delicacy shirikodama (the mythical anal ball). Beyond kappa existed other entities called momonguwa, gagoji, kotoro, mekakou, and more.

VI. The True Nature of the Kappa

As commonly spoken of in society， he had thus far avoided complication by subsuming them under the single term “kappa，” but had taken as standard those so-called kappa figures referred to as “Kawatarō” and “kappa.”
However， there also existed beings whose forms were ill-suited to be called kappa.

In the vicinity of Tsushima Shrine—which issues horse talismans—kappa were not found across a considerably wide area. Terms of the *mizuchi* type were employed there instead. These generally seemed to refer to soft-shelled turtles. Even in widely separated regions, areas that notably used this term called them *mizushi*, *minchichi*, *medochi*, *dochi*, and the like; however, villagers typically regarded them as water lords and held them in awe. They mostly lacked the capacity to discern human prayers or such matters. Possessing only one characteristic of kappa—the said tendency to kill those who approached—their true nature in most cases remained largely a product of imagination. Therefore, *mizuchi* did not necessarily refer to any fixed animal. I wish to consider the case of Yamashiro Kuse no Mizushi Shrine (水主), which stood at the apex of *mizuchi* worship. Rather than viewing these beliefs as having arisen naturally in various regions, it seemed more accurate to consider that this shrine's faith had been propagated institutionally. But nowadays, even *mizuchi* possessing dedicated shrines had become few. The types of soft-shelled turtles included among *mizuchi* were also clearly distinguished through other terms such as *dongame*, *dongasu*, and *game*.

Mizutengu and mizuten were widely employed in Tosa and are still said to remain vigorously active there even now. Their true nature straddled that of kappa and tengu, earning them this name through their pointed beaks. They forced people into sumo wrestling, dragging those who lost into the water. These beings stood somewhat closer to humans than mizuchi did. This term once saw use even in Northern Kyushu—a region teeming with kappa—where people came to phonetically read the characters as *mizutengu* ("water tengu"). In one prominent household, practitioners publicly enshrined their feudal domain’s water deity as the tutelary god of their Edo estate. Thereafter, it endured for ages as a popular deity. Adhering strictly to ancient covenants, they were said to ward off waterborne calamities while granting devotees boons beyond this sphere.

Hyōsube were still active in southern Kyushu.
Their form was exceedingly vague.
They resembled both kappa and birds.
Like Mizushigami before them，they too had once seen their faith propagated far and wide.
According to my observations，long before Nara became capital，the Anashi shinjin wandered and proselytized in countless groups.
They were descendants of Yamato Anashi Hyōzu no Kami.
They maintained large footholds in Banshū and Gōshū.
Traces of their missionary work—spanning from Ōshū in north to westernmost reaches of Kyūkoku—had severely deteriorated by later ages，becoming utterly incomprehensible.