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STETS, SCOTT

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Waiter, There’s a Vampire in my


Sushi – A Cultural Examination of
Japanese Vampire Legends as they
apply to Children’s Literature

by Scott Richard Stets,


The Pennsylvania State University
STETS, SCOTT
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Author’s Note

“By its very nature the study of folklore requires an international breadth of vision. The

materials of folklore transcend all barriers of language and culture, traversing continents

and spanning oceans in vast leaps and drifting across borders in easy stages.

‘Cinderella’ has circled the globe. The ‘Shanghai gesture,’ popular among American

schoolboys as a thumb and finger wiggle of derision, roamed all over Europe in the past

four centuries. One extended family of water goblins unites the Japanese kappa with

the Scottish kelpie. In ballad and legend, romance and epos, the same protean hero

performs the same sequence of marvelous exploits. Proverbs and riddles glide from one

tongue to another to settle comfortably in a new idiom.” (Dorson)

The following monograph is the result of research I began in earnest nine years ago and which

since then has been worked on intermittently until such time as I was finally able to devote to

this paper all the sharpness of vision, devotion and investigative skills that it requires. While the

legends of the Japanese Kappa and others saturate folklore and everyday customs of the Japanese

people, there is very little the average American knows about these unique creatures who serve

as purveyors of mischief and yet, on the other hand, also as allies to humankind. Among other

things. But we will get to that soon enough.

During the course of my ever-evolving understanding of the strange pantheon of the

folkloric Japanese monsters known as Yokai, I have discovered that since the publishing of

Kunio Yanagita’s groundbreaking The Legends of Tōno, a gate has been opened between Japan

and the west; and a wonderful cultural and intellectual exchange has been developing ever since.
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This essay will rely on all available English sources as I have been able to lay my hands

upon at present, as well as select documents in Japanese which have been translated for me. In

addition to this, I shall endeavour to insert the research and photographs I myself have gathered

on my two research trips to Japan. The first excursion I took extended from September 11 –

October 3, 2002, and was to say the very least an extraordinarily eventful exploration into a

strange land which began by flying from Logan to Dulles and then right straight out to Narita

Airport on the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.


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Sensō-ji Temple, Tokyo

From the start of my research in earnest on Japanese vampire legends, I knew that

gathering data in such a foreign world as Japan would be difficult; and yet an essay by Dr.

Richard M. Dorson which I read just before embarking on my second trip in 2010 rang in my

ears even as I returned to that country with a game plan. I beg you, my faithful reader, to indulge

me here by thoroughly reading this rather lengthy piece as doing so shall induce you to better

appreciate some of the mammoth hurdles which this author had to overcome in order to present

this paper to you now:

“In order for the reader unfamiliar with the Orient to appreciate the complexities

behind this seemingly simple task, a few facts about Tokyo and Japan should be

offered. Tokyo is the largest city in the world, with upwards of eight million

people…. One frequently spends two hours traveling from one part of the city to

another in the crowded denshas…. The difficulties of communication cannot be

exaggerated, and to find one's Journal of American Folklore way about, or even to

ask the time of day, may become an interminable chore. Japanese is like no other

language, although it has incorporated the Chinese Kanji characters to make its

three alphabets more confusing. A Japanese youth spends two more years in

school than a Western schoolboy needs to learn his own tongue…. The addition of

honorific prefixes to people and objects further baffles the Westerner, and renders

the Japanese themselves continually uneasy, for the marks of respect and

deference in verbal address and obeisance reflect constant tensions within the

culture. For an American, accustomed to the cult of informality and the shibboleth

of equality, the protocol in daily Japanese life is a mystery. Yet to gain entree into
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a given circlet the forms must be scrupulously observed: a letter of introduction

from a mutual friend precedes the first visit; the great man in the circle and

intellectual activities are knit with interlocking family relationships much like a

village kinship group-needs always receive the initial homage. In a highly

concentrated society, alert and ambitious, packed in small, mountainous islands

(with half the American population, the Japanese occupy an area the size of

Montana), the people of Japan compete fiercely for the available jobs, and still

cherish their traditions of civility and courtesy which keep life at close quarters

tolerable. One slip in protocol can cost the young man his chance for a career.

(Dorson 401-2)

And even though this was written in 1961, it is still very much valid in this researcher’s eyes;

with the sole exception that as of 2010 the population of Tokyo is up to 13 million people

(foxnews)!

Due to time constraints and funding difficulties, I was never able to complete my

research. Other projects came to the forefront and I put the Kappa research paper on the

backburner. But then I entered the Pennsylvania State University’s Master degree program with a

focus on Curriculum and Instruction – Children’s Literature track. As the semesters passed and

my professors queried as to what would be the subject of my Master’s paper, that little Japanese

vampire goblin came jumping out of the waters of my subconscious and leaving its unmistakable

footprints on the sands of my mind.

So, the day after Christmas, 2010, after missing my flight due to an accident on the way

into town, I boarded a later plane out of Boston to Tokyo via Toronto and just barely got off the

runway due to an approaching Nor’easter which was fast closing in on Massachusetts. With a
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number of flights being cancelled, somehow I was able to escape Logan Airport after our plane

was deiced right there on the tarmac. After staying overnight in a Toronto hotel – thanks to the

storm causing me to miss my flight to Tokyo – I was on my way back to Japan to undertake

further field research and collect materials to augment that which I had gathered on that very first

expedition in 2002.

As of this printing, due to budgetary restraints and scheduling conflicts which have arisen

on each trip to Japan, the author has been unable to conclude his study on Japanese vampire

legends with a visit to the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto where a

vast repository of Kappa legends sits. That being said, I am now proud and relieved to say I have

indeed checked off a number of items on my “Stuff To Do” list which included but was not

limited to doing more extensive field research right in the midst of the Japanese social fabric

itself.

Therefore, until such time as I may raise more funding, fly back to that country, make

inquiries at the center as well as finish the work of visiting, documenting and photographing

more of the sites where Japanese vampire legends were manifested, my esteemed readers may

find this paper at a couple of points a tad empty of all the facts, to paraphrase Detective Joe

Friday. For while it is a thoroughly researched paper, still I must admit I look at this as a work-

in-progress. In particular, the reader will forgive the sections on Japanese vampire cats and

spiders being somewhat brief at this point in time, for I only recently began to make investigative

inquiries into this fabulously fascinating subdivision of Japanese vampire folklore. Again, I wish

to make it abundantly clear that this paper is the beginning rather than an end of my

investigations into Japanese vampire legends.


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And I beg your indulgence in overlooking what may become lapses in documentation

straight from the original Japanese sources at points where the only available translated sources

are those of Western researcher/authors. There is a treasure trove of folklore on the Kappa in the

Japanese language, and in my attempts to uncover a bulk of said legends in English, until just

recently I found some of the available documentation wanting. Additionally in my scholarly zeal

to present you, my faithful reader, with an objective treatise devoid of Western, post-Colonial

superiority and condescension towards what truly is an esoteric subject matter, I have

encountered one or two authors who presented their own findings and translations of the Kappa

legends with an arrogance befitting their late 19th and early 20th Century imperialist standpoints.

To which you may ask: “Well, why then should you even rely on these authors if their

findings are skewed by mindsets of a imperialist bent?” A very good question to which I would

respond simply that I never throw the baby out with the bathwater – just because a documenter

may put their own spin on a subject does not mean we should blatantly ignore the meat and

potatoes which they have used to make their soup, for we may take the very same ingredients

and cook up a much tastier dish, n’est ce pas? For the sake of clarity, while referencing the works

where a suspected questionable bias may be present, I will endeavour to inform you of the

discrepancy.

This is not to say that there was not some excellent material I was able to gather from

Western authors in general, nor a number of objective scholars who collected and presented me

with a body of work from which to draw upon. Furthermore, I have used some source material

from western scholars which may appear to some to be outdated, due to the fact it was written as

long as fifty or one hundred years ago. However, again never one to throw the baby out with the

bathwater, I strongly believe that some of these researchers’ findings are still very much valid as
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they deal with a subject matter itself which is dated, for folklore itself spans the gauntlet of the

ages, no? It was not until I arrived in Tōno, Japan that I was able to finally get my hands on a

copy of the translated English edition of Kunio Yanagita’s The Legends of Tōno, a masterful

anthology of Japanese mythical beings whose mention still haunts the Tōno Valley centuries

after their inception. This tome was interpreted by Dr. Ronald A. Morse as part of his doctoral

research “at Princeton University on Kunio Yanagita and the Japanese folklore movement”

(Yanagita Morse 83).

Especially noteworthy is the intense body of knowledge concerning Japanese folklore

and culture collected and put forth by Dr. Michael Dylan Foster of Indiana University. I am

forever indebted to his academic oeuvre and only wish I had found it earlier on in my research on

the Japanese vampire tales.

Aside from the aforementioned source material, for any basic background covering the

vampire folklore of European origin as well as certain allusions to the Hollywood-ized (sic)

Undead, I will draw from the works of and the published and unpublished interviews that I

recorded with Dr. Raymond T. McNally (1931 – 2002) of Boston College, best-selling author of

In Search of Dracula, which examined the links between the historical Vlad Dracula (1431 –

1476?) and Bram Stoker’s vampiric (sic) literary creation. I worked for nearly four years with

Dr. McNally as a research assistant, public relations associate and photographer of historical

sites associated with both Vlad Ţepeş and the Blood Countess Elizabeth Báthory (1560 – 1614).

While I have peppered this research “dish” with plenty of citations, the reader will notice

certain points wherein I will present you with firsthand accounts taken from my field research

journals; for while it is naturally very essential for a scholar to back up his statements with

references based on what we hope are based in objective, factual truth, I have always been of the
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belief that one cannot fully comprehend a subject matter under the proverbial microscope until

they fully immerse themselves in the topic in question. It was therefore that I took it upon myself

to raise funding to jump on a plane on two separate occasions and see for myself what the

Japanese vampire and its legends were all about.

As of this printing in March 2011, the Japanese nation is undergoing its worse

catastrophe since World War Two as the Japanese people struggle to survive the aftermath of an

earthquake, a tsunami and a nuclear crisis which have left mass devastation and destruction

everywhere they go. In fact, in a supreme twist of fate, it is only now as I go back and read all of

my travel journal entries I realize that this author would have found himself in Japan – and

specifically the Iwate Prefecture – during that catastrophic triple trinity had it not been for the

simple God-given fact that this research paper’s revised draft was due by mid-March – I left the

day after Christmas and returned three weeks later but would have preferred to travel during

February and March when the Tōno Folktales and Machiya Doll Festivals and Sapporo Snow

Festivals take place. So I can thank the Pennsylvania State University’s deadline for forcing me

to go when I did.

More importantly, I wish to add that my friendship, best wishes and condolences go out

to the Japanese people as well as any expatriates of other nations living there now. I made quite a

few phone calls and sent out many emails to make sure all my Japanese and American friends

and their families are safe and sound.

My thanks go out to David Ortolano of Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado for

transferring all my photographs from my 2010-2011 field research trip into computer files. Last

but certainly not least, I must acknowledge three people without whom my excursion to Japan in

order to investigate the legends of the Japanese vampire would have been a monumental failure:
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I am forever indebted to my old musical comrade, Michael Harvey of A Major Label Records,

Tokyo, Japan for his priceless aid, gratis airfare to and accommodation in one of the world’s

most expensive cities during my 2002 research trip, and naturally for his valued friendship. To

Yuka Ibuki of Tokyo, for logistics and interpreter duties during my interviews with surviving

World War Two Veterans as well as arranging my trips throughout the Prefectures of Japan. And

to my good friend Ms. Yoko Otake of Sapporo, Japan for her invaluable assistance and incisive

insight into the folklore of Japan, as well as the immense time she took to act as my tour guide,

chauffeur and translator, taking me to various locations in and around Sapporo where the Kappa

legends of Japan thrive as well as translating both pamphlets, tourist brochures and other

assorted documentation from the original Japanese Kanji.

And I would be remiss had I not taken the time to thank you, my good reader, for your

interest in the current findings of this, my treatise on the Japanese vampire legends. So, thank

you and enjoy reading. So, without further ado, as they say in the Japanese: “Domo arigato!

Tanoshinde yonde kudasai!”


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Introduction – Opening the Coffin Lid of

Vampiric Knowledge

Unless you have lived your whole life in a cave while growing up in America, in a secluded

place where there was no television, no radio, and no Internet, you instinctively respond when

someone says the word Dracula. There is an intrinsic power within this name to immediately

conjure up innumerable visions of vampires – regardless of your own personal views, religion,

political agenda, et al. It not only strikes a nerve in our souls, but the very utterance plunges deep

down into our collective unconscious with all the might of Dr. Van Helsing dispatching one of

his Un-Dead foes.

Image Source: misswargo...paces.com/Dracula


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Bela Lugosi in Dracula (1931)

Why? For what reason do we feel this way? What is it about the words Count Dracula

and vampires and Un-Dead that make us react – with either feelings of utter repugnance or

unmistakable awe and attraction – just like Pavlov’s dogs to the dinner bell? Drs. McNally and

Florescu, professors of History at Boston College and the bestselling authors of In Search of

Dracula – which explored the likely links between the fictional Count Dracula of Bram Stoker’s

literary creation and the historical Prince Vlad Dracula of Romania – touched upon this theme in

one of their works:

“(But) terror is the extreme rational fear of some accepted form of reality, whereas

horror is extreme irrational fear of the utterly unnatural or the supernatural. Moreover,

there is realistic horror – the unnatural or supernatural fright presented in the guise of

the normal.” (Florescu McNally Complete Dracula 103)

But whatever the case, speaking only for myself, since I was a child I have been

fascinated by Count Dracula and everything vampires. And I am not alone. For even a cursory

glance at the myriad Halloween costumes or movie reviews as the fall season approaches, the

horror section of your local bookseller or the kids’ breakfast cereal aisle at the supermarket, for

better or worse the Western world has been saturated with everything vampire – and consumers,

both young and old, child and teenager, feed on these marketed materials and ubiquitous images

as the fictional Un-Dead themselves fill their need for blood. And just when it seems that our

fascination with vampires has died, the need to fill our stomachs with another glut of more
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vampire books, and movies and video games rises vampire-like from obscurity and attacks us

once more.

Image Source: http://www.solarnavigator.net/mythology/vampires.htm

Christopher Lee as Dracula

Just the very fact that you are reading my little monograph here implies that you too are

intrigued by this topic; and I sincerely hope that my audience will appreciate this study – whether

they be teenagers trying to move beyond all the Hollywood rehashing of the tired old vampire

stereotype, or folklore scholars wishing to delve deeper into this realm of what we may term an

unorthodox class of vampire without a doubt.

Although popular films like Twilight now flood the mass media markets, just as

television series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its Angel spinoff did before, the presence

of the vampire in children’s literature is of a fairly recent origin. A ban on controversial comic
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books persisted from the 1940s until the 60s when television shows like Dark Shadows came

onto the scene; and most importantly, when authors such as Nancy Garden released her non-

fiction tome, Vampires, to America’s youth (Melton 340).

So, like it or not, folks, the vampire has carved out its niche in children’s literature with

all the enthusiasm of a wide-eyed child cleaning out a pumpkin’s insides for Halloween. And just

what is so wrong about that? Is it a harmful influence on growing minds and should it be

censored? Is the vampire any more dangerous than, say, the Big Bad Wolf or the child-eating

witch of Hansel and Gretel? It is this author’s humble opinion that after having read some rather

disturbing variants of early fairy tales, the vampire pales in comparison to them – no pun

intended.

And yet we have been touched as a culture by primarily one Euro-centric exemplar of the

vampire; while the myths, legends and fairy tales of other cultures and countries have historically

been neglected by our Euro-centric children’s literature pedagogy. This is not to say that scholars

have not already explored the vampire legends of other cultures (for indeed they have) as there

were those who have documented the folk tales of vampires from other lands. The author

Montague Summers (1880 – 1948) recorded vampire legends and their fabulous folklore the

world over in his tome, The Vampire, His Kith and Kin. In it, Summers presented us with

legends of the Un-Dead from ancient times right up to the 20th Century and from nearly all the

corners of the globe; and Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821 – 1890) penned Vikram and the

Vampire, the Indian counterpart to his more popular Arabian Nights after traveling throughout

India and gathering up these stories. King Vikram, a sovereign on a scale with King Arthur,

encounters vampires and the narrator of the book is even one of the Un-Dead (Melton 69).
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Ernest Griset, from the 1893 illustrated edition of Vikram and the Vampire

In my twelve years working in vampire folklore, I have noticed a disturbing trend of

rehashing and – no pun intended – resurrecting the same old, tiresome vampire legends of

Eastern Europe. Countless books have been written and published on Count Dracula and his

heirs; so much so that author Jonathan Maberry quoted me in his book on vampire legends, They

Bite: Endless Cravings of Supernatural Predators: “Doc McNally and I had an in joke… saying

they were staking a dead vampire instead of beating a dead horse” (35). Indeed, in our modern

world where a message may be sent and received in the time it takes to sneeze, there isn’t much

that vampire folklore scholars haven’t already put under the microscope, or vampire-like

creatures indigenous to various sectors of the world that they haven’t sufficiently covered. Or

that have been embraced by our vampire-hungry society craving those shape-shifting,

hypnotizing bloodsuckers.

Except one. Japan. For while vampire legends such as those of the Kappa permeate

myriad levels of everyday Japanese life (and while a select number of folklore scholars have
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indeed documented, translated and elucidated exceptionally upon the Japanese monsters known

as Yokai), very little of the their vampire legends which have been put under the microscope here

in the Western World have reached the general vampire-loving populace.

For while many eminent western scholars have already neatly categorized and brilliantly

dissected and translated the Japanese Yokai for our perusal in English, I would like to take that

precious core of data one step further by submitting for your approval an investigation into how

some of the many mythical beings of Japanese folklore may qualify as vampires. And there exist

deep philosophical questions and problems to be answered and touched upon within the intrinsic

center of Japanese culture with more than just a perfunctory glimpse. American and European

children’s literature have predominantly been the domain of the Western vampire of European

origins.

So then, here are our power points of intimate inquiry:

1. How do other cultures – and for the specific purpose of this paper – how do the

Japanese approach the vampire legend in their literature for children?

2. What are the physical characteristics of the Japanese vampire? Do they have fangs

with which to ingest blood? Do they wear a black satin opera cape with red satin

lining? And, no pun intended, do they talk with a Transylvanian accent (seriously,

folks)?

Which brings me to my next question:


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3. Has the Euro-centric vampiric folklore influenced Japanese society, and children

in particular?

4. Has the Japanese vampiric folklore influenced our society, and children in

particular?

5. Are the Japanese mythical creatures of legend even really vampires at all? or has

our search for Japanese vampires been for naught?

6. Is there just one vampiric paradigm in Japanese folk tales? Or are there numerous

supplementary depictions as well?

7. Can the Japanese vampire and its accompanying folklore survive the mass-media

onslaught of modern-day Japan, which is rejecting some of its ages-old traditions

like the male dominant society, and may be moving away from its folklore too? Or

will it forever be relegated and demoted to a sad state of fakelore and folklorism?

8. How will the national catastrophe of 11 March 2011 affect the folklore, folklorism,

culture and mass media of present day Japan?

Now we are presented with a set of questions integral to further understanding a segment of

children’s literature which, while it may seem unorthodox and/or trivial to some of my

colleagues, is at the very foundation of our children’s lives and which beg us to take up the task

of pursuing this line of inquiry – and a mere brief perusal of some of the books and television

shows, movies and video games (Twilight as one of the most recent examples) that our children

watch command that we take a closer look at the folklore of the vampire from as many angles as

possible.
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So, let us journey off to Japan now and as we delve deep into the heart of this nation’s

vampire mythos, know that you may leave your wooden stakes at home… for they will do you

no good against this class of vampire.


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Part One: The Kappa – It’s Not

Just For Sushi Anymore

Let us examine the first of our vampiric suspects, shall we?

When sushi enthusiasts hear the word Kappa they immediately think of a cucumber,

since kappamaki is a variety of sushi made with the vegetable chopped and wrapped up with

white rice in a fish skin. Well, this delicacy was named for the Japanese water sprite of Shinto

origin (Yoda 29) which attacks primarily livestock by sucking their bodily fluids out – hence the

association with a vampire – as well as causing mischief and even going so far as to eat human

livers (Bush 94). This last facet of the Kappa I find a fascinating connection to the West if we

take into account the descriptions of cannibalism in some of our own most classic fairy tales of

European origin. Take, for example, the Wicked Queen of Snow White demanding that the

huntsman take our poor heroine out into the woods and bring back one of her organs for the

Queen to sup upon.

One old European superstition states that the vampire shuns the light, and it should be

noted that even the nefarious name Mephistopheles comes from the Greek meaning “he who is

not a lover of light” (Russell 61). That being said, as diligent vampire hunters on an intellectual

quest for answers, together my friends we must shed some much needed light on this oft-

neglected mythological creature which permeates many facets of Japanese culture.


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The etymological roots of this Yokai’s moniker have a few possible origins. This sign in

the Asakusa neighborhood of Tokyo may hold a clue or two:

So the term Kappa could originate from the Japanese name for raincoat. Okay, but are there

more possibilities? In short, yes. Kappa translates as “river child” and is also known as

Gawappa, Kawataro, Sui-tengu and Suiko (Yoda 26). And returning to our power points of

problematic inquiry we must ask: So just what exactly does a Kappa look like? Does it have

claws dripping with its latest victim’s blood? Hellishly crimson, glowing eyes? Huge fangs?

No. Think Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They’re cute. In fact, they possess the features

of a young boy. “The kappa smells fishy, and in color is often blue-yellow, with a blue-black

face, but there are countless variations of these elements. Almost always the kappa has a
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carapace on its back, and its face is sharp with a beak-like mouth” (Foster Kappa 4). Imagine if

you put a frog, a fish and a monkey together and cap it off with a pointed face of a dark blue hue;

in the middle of their full head of hair, the Kappa have a bowl-like recess on the tops of their

heads filled with water (Herbert 480). In fact, in many of the variants of local folklore and books

cataloguing Japanese myths and legends I have read about them state that if you are trying to

escape from the Kappa, or wish to avoid facing this formidable foe in combat, simply bow to

them, as they are obsessive-compulsive about politeness and courtesy: and when the Kappa

returns your bow, the water will spill from its head, temporarily incapacitating it (Davis 350).

Please make a mental note of this last feature of the Kappa as I will address it further on.

So now we know how to beat it since it is invulnerable to wooden stakes and crucifixes –

be nice to it! And once you have the Kappa in your power, that is when you can strike a bargain

with it for it to grant you something you wish, which I have found a prevalent theme in the

legends of this water-born creature.

In order to better understand the kappa and its influence on the Japanese, we must first

observe the culture from whence it came. Let’s face it, folks, anyone who has spent any

significant amount of time in Japan will concur: the Japanese and their culture in general are

“cutesy”, for lack of an academic term. While walking the streets of their cities and towns, I

found that they embrace an almost child-like way of looking at life.


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For example, their public signs: in Tachikawa I saw one of a cartoon dog and its

droppings, an admonition against pets dropping their excrement on the sidewalk; another in Tōno
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showing a big monster steam shovel stood as a warning for workers using construction

equipment not to dig where there were gas pipes and water mains; while yet another in Tokyo

told you not to use a certain access road:

And now just take a look at the following illustration for an online tour guide article called

“Tokyo: Town of Terror”:


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http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/play/tokyo-map-terror-143802

Not very terrifying by Western standards now, is it?! Please note the green figure on the far right

is a kappa, denoting both the Kappabashi neighborhood as well as the Sogenji Temple dedicated

to the kappa and even having a “real” kappa hand in its possession. But we’ll get to that later on.

The Kappa is tied in with a people who, like many island peoples, have relied on the sea

and moving water to survive and sustain themselves for centuries:

“Japan’s industrial sector is heavily dependent on imported raw materials

and fuels. A tiny agricultural sector is highly subsidized and protected, with

crop yields among the highest in the world. Usually self sufficient in rice,

Japan imports about 60% of its food on a caloric basis. Japan maintains one

of the world's largest fishing fleets and accounts for nearly 15% of the global

catch.” (cia.gov)
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That the kappa is clearly tied in with waterways in general is an undeniable fact supported by

folklore and fairy tales dating back to 379 C.E. where a “water snake” resembling the kappa

actually makes its first known appearance in the literature of Japan (Foster Kappa 2). Jean

Herbert elucidates on this matter:

“Since, in what was exclusively – and still is to a large extent – an agricultural country,

water is a determining factor, it is not surprising that considerable attention is paid to it

and to its three main sources of supply: rain, springs and rivers. The Kami associated

with them are therefore naturally the object of intensive worship. In addition to which, as

we have seen (cf. pp. 79-82 above), water is one of the great purifying agents.”

(Herbert 478)

Moreover, here we find a distinct difference between the Euro-centric exemplar of the Un-Dead

and its Japanese counterpart – the old folklore of Europe clearly tells us that the Slavic vampire

type cannot cross running water (Summers Europe 308, 310).


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Image Source: www.tenchinohoukai.greatnow.com/backgroundinfo/weapons

The Japanese legends of the Kappa depict it as both a malevolent as well as benevolent

force. The earliest depictions of the kappa in Japanese folklore treat it as a malevolent monster;

and only in the modern era has it undergone a makeover, coming out “as a cute, harmless

creature, the kappa of folklorism” (Foster Kappa 3). Some tales I have collected speak of it

making deals with farmers, helping mankind in a peaceful coexistence; while others attribute the

disappearances of children and the deaths of farm animals to this devilish water imp. But no
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matter how the Kappa is described, all these stories are equally fascinating, and I must dedicate

the bulk of my paper for its contemplation and examination under the proverbial microscope.

But before we go and attempt to classify a Kappa as a vampire, the first question we must

ask is simply what is a vampire? A vampire is a parasitic being which sucks blood or energy

from other beings for its sustenance. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a vampire

is a “reanimated corpse that is believed to rise from the grave at night to suck the blood of

sleeping persons” and additionally “(O)ne who preys on others” (750). In addition to this, the

dictionary states it may also be “(A)ny of various tropical bats thought to feed on the blood of

living mammals” (750). We may glean two inferences from this – from the first two definitions

that this is how Americans (read: Westerners) view and define the vampire; and secondly that

our culture has already looked elsewhere in the animal kingdom for examples of what we may

refer to as animal vampires.

In fact, Mother Nature has had quite a bit of fun at our expense, let’s face it, folks. The

Mexican bloodsucking bat scared the bejesus out of the natives – who associated it with the

dreaded Chupacabra (batcon 12), a creature of legend “that viciously attack(s) livestock and

drink(s) their blood and other vital fluids” (Maberry 202-203). And even the all-conquering

Conquistadors gave in to their own superstitious fears when these superstitious Catholic

adventurers came face to face with it while exploring Latin America; prompting Hernán Cortés

(1485 – 1547) to dub them “vampire bats” (McNally Florescu Search 154). Perhaps the Japanese

tried to explain certain occurrences of natural phenomena as being the work of the Kappa, just as

our primitive ancestors thought the rolling thunder to be the gods angry with humankind.

Furthermore, one additional type of vampire is what has been called a “living vampire”, a

person who believes they are a vampire, drinks the blood of others for sexual and/or
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psychological stimulation, or has “a chemical or physical need for healthy human blood”

(McNally Woman 118). But we needn’t bother ourselves with this form of vampirism as it drifts

too far away from the purpose of this monograph.

So, now that all the foregoing has been established, we must ask Is the Kappa really a

vampire? And as I answer this, I would like to point out that while it doesn’t rise from the grave,

it certainly rises from the water:

“The Kappa possesses the propensities of a vampire, for he strikes people in the water,

as they bathe in lake or river, and sucks their blood. In a certain part of Japan the Kappa

is said to claim two victims every year. When they emerge from the water their skin

becomes blanched, and they gradually pine away as the result of a terrible disease.”

(Davis 350)

Okay, so we have answered Question #5: for all intents and purposes, the Japanese kappa

is indeed a vampire for though it does not possess fangs, it certainly goes for the jugular. Well,

figuratively speaking in any case. But my little pun brings up a good point now that I think of it –

if this fabulous creature of Japanese legend does not drink your blood via biting you on the neck,

then just how does the kappa go about getting its meal?
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Part Two: Fabulous Folklore of


the Kappa
The Kappa have been known to strike bargains with the people they encounter. One such tale is

that of “The Kappa’s Promise”. Starting out like a fairy tale by stating “In ancient days a Kappa

dwelt in the river Kawachi, and he made a practice of seizing and destroying a number of

villagers, and in addition many of their domestic animals” (Davis 351). The yarn the storyteller

proceeds to spin is one wherein the Kappa tries to capture a horse that wanders into the river.

Rather than succumbing to the water-borne creature, the horse leaps from the river with the

Kappa still holding onto it! The horse runs back to the owner who, along with some neighbors,

captures “the Child of the River” by binding it (Davis 351). Against the advice of all the villagers

present, the farmer decides that rather than kill it, why not make him swear an oath that he will

do no further harm to either the peasants or their livestock. As he was illiterate, the apologetic

Kappa signs his name to a contract they prepared by pressing his handprint onto the paper (Davis

351).

There is a similar tale told in Kunio Yanagita’s The Legends of Tōno. In Legend #58, a

child brings his horse to “the Obako deepwater pool of the Kogarase River” and after a vain

attempt to drag the horse in with it, the kappa is “dragged off to the stable… (and hides) under

the horse’s feed bucket” (36). And after its discovery, a similar pact ensues betwixt the village

elders and the mischievous kappa (36-37). So while the Kappa may share bad luck with Wile E.

Coyote, sometimes he ends up making out after all.

In other tales, human-kappa relations become awfully congenial if not downright

intimate! As in “The Kappa Son-in-law”. Here we have a story related by Keigo Seki of
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Shimabara, Nagasaki. A bureaucrat in the village of Kitaarima had a strange occurrence happen

to him at a most inopportune time: right at the time of the season when his rice paddies needed to

be watered, he found his water supply cut off out of the blue. No matter how hard his farmhands

tried, they could not repair the ditches. One evening he has a dream. A Kami (or Japanese Shinto

spirit) comes to him in the dream and tells him that the kappa inhabiting the Arima River wants

his daughter – who just so happens to be approaching marrying age – and if she gives the kappa

her hand in marriage, “the water will flow immediately into your paddies” (Mayer 40).

Looking out upon his rice fields he could see the ground bone dry and the plants dying;

as compared to the paddies of his neighbors which were growing abundantly. He meets the

kappa as it is corking up the dam and asks it why it is doing what it is doing. To which it replies

– just as was prophesied in the dream – that it wants his daughter. After keeping it to himself for

some time, the man finally confides in his daughter after she sees that something terrible is

troubling him. She assures her father she will get to the bottom of matters and make all well

again. She picks up a gourd and goes down to the Arima River, and says to the kappa:

“ ‘I have come as you wished to be your bride, but you must put as much water on my

father’s field as there is on the others. I will put my spirit into this gourd which I have

brought, and when you have sunk it into the river, I will go any time to your place.’ She

tossed the gourd into the river and went home. Then water flowed into the official’s

paddies and the plants revived.” (Mayer 41)

Then the tale ends simply by stating: “From that time there has been a gourd in the Arima River

every autumn, floating, sinking, and floating” (Mayer 41). I find it worthy of note that the
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daughter “puts her spirit” into the gourd, as this supports Foster’s theory that “the hyotan, with

its womb-like nature (and the fact that hyotan often contain seeds), represents the female aspect”

(Foster Kappa 5).

In the Asian Folklore Studies journal published through the Nanzan Institute for Religion

and Culture, the aforementioned Japanese folklorist Keigo Seki compiled many different tale

types within which we find our friend, the Kappa, swimming around. And, directly concerning

the foregoing piece of folklore courtesy of Mr. Seki, he has labeled this tale under Tale Type IV

– Supernatural Wives and Husbands, specifically filed under No. 133 – “The Serpent

Bridegroom” (Seki Asian 69). In the one variant which explicitly mentions the kappa, a father is

concerned about his dry crops and proclaims he will give one of his daughters’ hands away in

marriage to “whoever will irrigate” (69) the fields. After finding his fields well irrigated, he goes

to his three daughters and asks them if one of them will marry the man who saved his crops.

After the two older siblings rebuff their father’s request, the third daughter agrees (70).

This is what ensues – and please be advised that all the italics and parentheses are Seki’s

and not mine:

“Serpent (kappa*, mud-snail, or demon) who has transformed itself into a young man,

comes for his bride. Youngest daughter, taking gourds (or cotton) and a thousand needles

(nails, swords, silver, pepper, mustard, or oil) with her, follows young man. They come to

a pool. Daughter puts gourds into the pool and says that if he can sink all the gourds, she

will marry him. Young man turns into a serpent and tries to sink gourds (or cotton).

Meanwhile girl throws needles in the pool. Serpent dies from the evil effect of needles.

Girl (a) returns home safely; or (b) goes on a journey.” (Seki Asian 70)
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Okay, now this is interesting; we have much to glean from this tale type. First of all, we

find that the kappa is called a serpent and bunched in with a mud-snail and a demon. Secondly, I

will add that even the folklore of the Tartars carries a tale in which a witch survives lethal knife

blows due to her soul hiding as a “seven-headed speckled snake” within her shoe; in essence a

soul within a sole (Frazer 676). I will not be condescending with you, my fine reader, by going

on and on and on explicating for you the assortment of associations and archetypes of evil that

the snake or serpent has taken on in our Western society historically based in old Judeo-Christian

values and social mores. Nevertheless, in my research on Japanese vampires I have uncovered

some animals which flawlessly are able to cross cultural borders and make fine fanged foes for

children in Toronto and Tokyo, Massachusetts and Miyagi.

Secondly, we discover one of the magical items which may kill it – on the one hand,

while a Slavic European vampire is susceptible to crucifixes and garlic (Garden 38-39) as well as

wooden stakes and mirrors, a kappa may be adversely damaged (or worse!) by nails, swords,

silver, pepper, mustard, or oil (Seki Asian 70). “Other kappa aversions include sesame, ginger

(TAKEDA19 88, 12), saliva and iron (ONO 1994, 42). This dislike of iron is a characteristic of

almost all water spirits (ISHIDA 1950, 33-34).” (Foster Kappa 6). Other sources give deer

antlers and monkeys as other potential threats to the Kappa’s health, not to mention the obvious

dehydration which comes from the loss of water from out of its life-giving recess atop its head

(Yoda 26) called a sara (Foster Kappa 5). So, unlike its Western Euro-centric counterpart, the

Japanese vampire possesses a need for water and shirikodama as well as human insides. But we

will cover this last aspect of the kappa a little further on down the road, as I would first like to
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scrutinize both the similarities as well as the dissimilarities betwixt Tale Type No. 133 and “The

Kappa Son-in-law”.

Thirdly, the gourd acts as a plot device. In the tale type itself, Seki tells us the kappa must

submerge them all before the girl will consent to be married to him. The gourd then becomes the

bait to get the creature to go into the water. Once there, our heroine is able to cast a thousand

needles into the pond, which thereby destroy the kappa “from the evil effect of (the) needles”

(Seki Asian 70).

In the former (the tale type itself), the kappa arrives on scene as an agent of good who

merely wants what’s coming to him after having fulfilled his part of the bargain in assisting the

farmer in his plight. And yet in the latter (“The Kappa Son-in-law”), the creature acted as an

agent of evil, having been directly responsible for sabotaging the farmer’s crops in the first place.

Marriage is a theme that permeates a few of the kappa tales I have read. In “Netaro, the

Lazy Man Next Door”, courtesy of the Yanagita Kunio of Hachinohe, Aomori, we find the plot

centers around a comic character named Jinshiro, who “lived on nothing but baked turnips”

(Mayer 19)! Apparently, this single guy had some cool friends, because a plan is hatched to get

him hitched. They band together and act like his servants, and continuously walk by the wealthy

Choja’s house; and eventually the man figures that their master must be a rich man if his servants

come to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage.

So, after the Choja agrees to this union, the poor girl shows up and finds that he lives in a

crummy, rundown shed and has no rice to make a meal with (well, in defense of Jinshiro, he did

like his turnips). So she sends him on an errand to town to trade her “three bolts of silk” (Mayer

19) for rice. Twice he comes back with nothing because he was robbed two times of his silk. But

after securing some money in exchange for the last silk bolt, Jinshiro heads home – “but along
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the way he saw some children tormenting a crippled hawk”; he buys the hawk and “set(s) it free”

(Mayer 19). So being the turnip-eating fun guy that he is, he hangs around “watching the hawk

and enjoying it, instead of going home” (Mayer 19-20) to his dutiful wife. (Pay attention, folks,

spoiler alert: this is where the kappa comes in).

So then “(T)he crippled hawk flew down to the moat and caught a kappa” (Mayer 20).

Mind you, this must be one big hawk. Befitting the kappa’s bargaining skills, it promises that if

Jinshiro lets him go, he would give him treasure – something called a Life Bag and a Life Mallet.

Jinshiro loved the sack because he could now carry his beloved turnips all over town (So what is

it with this guy and his turnips?!) but he discards the Life Mallet because he cannot think of

anything to do with it. Well, maybe this is just me, but I suppose he hadn’t heard of mashed

turnips as a side dish. Anyway, he returns home and his wife instantaneously realizes that they

must possess both of the two magic items, otherwise they are useless – “(B)eing the daughter of

a choja” (Mayer 20) and all.

She goes and retrieves the Life Mallet herself and upon shaking it… well, I had better

quote the entire passage for you here because it can get a tad confusing:

“First she shook the mallet and out came a big house. Jinshiro thought that was fun. (and

now why does this not surprise me) He tried shaking it and saying ‘Komekura, come

out!’ but only a lot of little blind men came jumping out. [A play on words: ‘ko-mekura

means little blind men, and ‘kome-kura’ rice storehouse.] His bride was astonished, and

shook the mallet correctly. (well, at least we know who wears the pants in this family,

eh?) Then rice and rice storehouses came out for some time. The young couple invited the
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father-in-law, the choja, to a big banquet. When it was over they threw all the dishes into

the river. To light the road for their guest’s return trip, they burned their house.

“Then it was the choja’s turn to invite them. When the feast was over he would have liked

to throw the dishes into the river, but he couldn’t, because that would mean he would

have no more. Then he said he would light the way for his son-in-law to return home, and

burned his house down.

“Since he could not rebuild it, Asahi Choja went to Jinshiro’s little shed to live. Then

Jinshiro shook out a new house for him with his Life Mallet.” (Mayer 20)

While the kappa does not play a leading role in this little melodrama, it is worth noting that the

River Child has bestowed the magical items upon the protagonist of this playlet and it is this plot

device which gives the tale all its action. Additionally, I purposely quoted the section on the

wedding banquet to point out that the kappa is sometimes required to bring dishes to a dinner

table.

Then there is “The Water Spirit’s Letter Carrier”. One night a man spots a fisherman

trying to catch little fish in a stream, and who calls to him, requesting that the man carry a letter

for him down to another fisherman fishing by a pool on the stream bank. The man takes the letter

downstream to the other man fishing and gives it to him. After he opens up the letter and reads it

to himself, he suddenly jumps into the water, claiming that something fell into the pool. Coming

back out of the water after a while, he finally says:


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“ ‘The truth is that I am the kappa that lives in this pool. That kappa has written that

your purple buttocks look good to eat. He told me to catch you and eat you, but you are

so honest that I can’t do it. I will give you this treasure instead.’ He handed the man a

package of gold and told the man not to tell anyone what had happened.” (Mayer 109).

The kappa returns to his pool, and the man goes on to become “a wealthy choja” (Mayer 110). I

bring your attention now to this kappa’s posterior fetish.

One of the most strangest tales of the Kappa I have read is one entitled “A Story Like a

Sanbaso” as told by Noguchi Tadayoshi of Hotaku-gun, Kumamoto. What had immediately

puzzled me about this story was very simply put: just what was a Sanbaso? Looking it up, I

finally found it to be some sort of a folk dance related to the Noh plays (city.narita.chiba.jp).

Researching this topic further I discovered this:


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“Monkey Performing the Sanbaso Dance by Mori Sosen (1747–1821)


Dated 1800, the first day of the Monkey year” (pacificasiamuseum.org)

“Kotobuki Shiki Sanbaso 寿式三番叟. A celebratory dance piece of divinely-inspired

puppetry that originated in masked Noh drama, the Sanbaso is meant to purify the theater and

scatter good fortune on the audience with lively gestures that mimic the planting of rice and also

suggest felicitous creatures like turtles and cranes.” (bunraku.org)

Hmm. Very interesting. But before we analyze this, let us first look at the story itself, shall we?
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An old man goes into the hills to chop wood while his wife (?), an old woman, goes down

to the river to wash their laundry. A kappa rises from the water and calls out to her: “Granny,

give me a pull on your bottom!” Misinterpreting the kappa’s demands that he wanted fire, she

replies that she can’t give him fire, for it would be extinguished by the water. Getting angry at

the imp’s odd demand, she goes home and tells her husband what happened. He decides that he

will give the kappa what it wanted. So he takes some burning sticks – of the sort used for

kindling – and takes it upstream while his woman goes downstream, yelling into the river that

she will give him his “fire”. The kappa comes out of the water “all dressed up with a hat on and

called, ‘Really! Really!’” To which she replies: “‘I’ll give you fire, Kappa!” and he again says

“‘Really! Really!’” (Mayer 313).

Which makes me ask: Is the gift of fire a sacrifice to the kappa as the cucumber is? I must

look deeper into the myriad folklore of the Kappa to see if this thematic element reappears.

Originally I had suspected that the gourd too may be, but discounted this soon after as Foster’s

work on this matter set me straight so to speak. For while “(o)ther foods to which the kappa is

partial include nasu (Japanese eggplant), soba (buckwheat noodles), nattō (fermented soybeans),

and kabocha (pumpkin) (TAKEDA 1988, 12)” (Foster Kappa 5), it should be noted that as far as

the Kappa are concerned the gourd is anathema.

Like Snow White’s Wicked Queen, the Kappa desires internal organs and pulls humans

and animals alike into the water in order to get at their livers via their anal cavity – as well as to

pluck an imaginary organ named the shirikodama, the removal of which ends in death due to the

fact it may contain the soul (Foster Kappa 6-7). Foster further posits that this rural legend may

have started due to “drowning victims (having) an ‘open anus’ as if something has been removed
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(ISHI-KAWA19 85, 120)”, then going on to hypothesize “that this loosening of the sphincter

muscles in death is not limited to drowning victims (ONO 1994, 51” (7).

True, but here let us reconsider the idea of the gourd in Kappa literature. After a Kappa is

said to have sucked the shirikodama out of the anus, the corpse comes to resemble a hollowed-

out gourd:

“Almost without exception, a corpse lying on the bottom of a lake or river eventually will

surface because of the gas formed in its tissues as a result of decay and the action of internal

bacteria. This results in reduced specific gravity of the body so that it rises. Witnesses to this

event have described corpses breaking the surface of the water with force, like the popping of a

cork.” (Haupt freelibrary).

Popping of a cork, eh? Or perhaps a gourd breaking the surface of the water. Coincidence?

Paul Barber, a longtime folklore researcher who has explained Euro-centric vampire

origins by incorporating and applying modern forensic science directly towards the folklore

field, has this to say regarding drowning fatalities being victims of guilt by association:

“The tendency of bodies to return to the surface has generated a great deal of folklore in

Europe and elsewhere in the world. The form of such lore is derived, as we have seen, not

from the entire process that takes place but from that part of it which is observed, so that

we get a series of tableaus crystallized into statements about revenants.” (Barber 150).
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Taking into this context, revenants aside, could the aforementioned excerpt not also apply to

“The Case of the Missing Shirikodama” as well?

Also, while the kappa is an aquatic creature, it seems to have no problem whatsoever in

journeying inland in search of prey or mischief, and it seems to this researcher that the deaths of

the rural peasantry found at crime scenes further inland with their “insides and shirikodama

removed” could very well have been placed at the webbed feet of the Kappa by the finger-

pointing superstitious villagers too. Following death, the face becomes discoloured and swells

up, as do the genitals (male and female it should be noted), abdominal gases cause the abdomen

to distend, culminating in the “(b)ursting open of the abdominal and thoracic cavities” (Barber

106). So, therefore, is it so much of an academic stretch to theorize that a feudal era would-be

Sherlock Holmes may attribute certain otherwise unexplainable deaths to “death by removal of

the shirikodama”? Quite understandably, as is demonstrated in “Sanbaso” as elsewhere, the

Kappa seems to have an anal fixation.


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Image courtesy of: printsofjapan.com

I have retrieved the following two stories from the very informative website entitled

http://hyakumonogatari.com/category/kappa-stories/. The first is “The Kappa of Mikawa-cho” by

Zack Davisson in Kappa Stories, Yōkai Stories and was translated from Edo no Kimyou no

Hyakumonogatari:

“In Kanda, in the vicinity of the town of Mikawa, there was a man named Kichigoro. One

late, rainy night he was out running errands for his business when he passed by through

the gate leading to Sujikai bridge. There he saw a young boy, about five or six years old,

shuffling along the path. “That is a brave kid to be out like this in the middle of the night.

Hey, were are you going?” he asked the young boy, and when the boy turned his face in
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answer, he saw a face with a swarthy completion, eyes the color of blood and a mouth

that stretched across his face from ear to ear. Kichigoro was generally a brave man and

so even this was not enough to shock him. But when he stretched his neck to take a closer

look, the strange creature suddenly jumped into the shadows and disappeared.

Kichigoro flew home as fast as he could where he quickly fell into bed. “So it seems that

the famous kappa does exist after all…” (Davisson Hyakumonogatari)

The second, also courtesy of Zack Davisson, is called “The One-Armed Kappa” and was translated from

Nihon no Obake Banashi. In the words of Davisson: “This is a folktale from Gifu, although

similar tales can be found almost anywhere. The kappa is a terrible creature of mischief, and can

be found in Japan anywhere rivers are present.” It starts off like a fairy tale:

“Long, long ago, a kappa lived in the river. This kappa would threaten children who

were swimming in the river, pull the tails of horses walking along the river banks and

drag them into the water, and generally cause mischief to those around him.”

(Davisson Hyakumonogatari)

This opening passage is vital to understanding one usage the Japanese have found for their

Kappa legends to teach children to behave, lest the Kappa come and grab you and drag you into

the river.

According to Davisson, the river was located in the Hida province, which is now part of

the Gifu prefecture. And this particular Kappa was causing a great deal of problems for the
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village folk. “That damn kappa. I would sure like to give him a beating at least once! He’s

getting worse and worse every day” (Davisson Hyakumonogatari)

“Finally, some young men who were an excellent swimmers (sic) went to the river to get

rid of him. The kappa himself was unbothered by this, and was swimming as always

easily at the deep bottom of the river. ‘Inside the river is a kappa’s heaven! Anyone who

wants to try their luck with me here is welcome to come. They will be the ones in for a

beating!’ When the young men entered the water, the kappa shot out in a flash, wrapping

his body around a young swimmer, pulling harshly on his legs and fixing his face with a

terrible glare. When he was in the water, the kappa was even stronger than on dry land,

and he was filled with a mysterious power. When he was in the water, the kappa would

lose to no one. The young men, afraid of drowning, soon lost confidence and fled from

the river and the kappa.” (Davisson Hyakumonogatari)

Next, the boys get together and formulate a new strategy: they plot to figure out a way to

coax the kappa out of the water where he is strongest. This way they will be able to grab hold of

the kappa and flip him “upside down to force the water to spill from his head-plate” (Davisson

Hyakumonogatari). The very next day, one of them noticed that the trail which led to the

cucumber fields was sodden. They followed the strange footprints which took them down to the

river, surmising that the kappa has been eating their cucumber crop. “ ‘The kappa! These are

clearly the footprints of a kappa… he has come to steal the cucumbers.’ Kappa’s (sic) are well

known for their love of cucumbers” (Davisson Hyakumonogatari).


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In Jean Herbert’s Shinto: The Fountainhead of Japan, an otherwise excellent

authoritative study on “(T)he national indigenous religion of Japan” (Shinto front flap), he

postulates that “(P)laces where the current is swift are apt to be rather feared and their Kami have

to be propitiated. It is probably not in them, however, that the odd-looking Kappa (water-tiger),

more Buddhist than Shinto, is to be encountered and placated” (480). Now forgive me if I am in

error (because he may be simply stating that the kappa is not to be elabourated upon due to it not

having much to do with Shinto beliefs perhaps? – though there are other sources which state

exactly the opposite!). But just for the sake of argument, from both other data I have gathered as

well as my personal experience gathering kappa legends at the precise location of their folkloric

origin, if Herbert is implying that the kappa need not be appeased with sacrifices, he is in grave

error. The Japanese have been known to throw cucumbers into their rivers, pools and other

assorted waterways in order to placate this creature dwelling beneath the dark depths, going so

far as “writing the names of their family members on a cucumber” in order to protect them from

its attacks (Melton 335).

And now this also brings us back to the beginning of Part One of this monograph on the

kappa wherein I mentioned the sushi called kappamaki, aptly dubbed thusly due to this

amphibious vampire’s notorious love for cucumbers (Foster Kappa 19).


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Image courtesy of www.seasaltwithfood.com/2009_01_01_archive.html

But back to our research: So, then the villagers gathered up their weapons of “sickles and

wooden bats, (and) they crept into position around the cucumber plantation” and amongst the

shadows between the cucumber vines, they find what appears to be “a small child hiding”

(Davisson Hyakumonogatari), who is naturally our amphibious demon friend. Again this tale

gives the uniform description found across the board in many of the kappa fairy tales: “His

skin was green and shiny as if slicked with oil, and on the top of his head was an indented plate

filled with water.” This band of vigilantes knows to strike the kappa on its head so he will dump

his water. They jump on him, hoping for a quick victory.

But this is not to be:


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“For you see, the kappa is not only strong in water. Even on dry land he is something to

fear. Unless you manage to spill the water from his head plate and dry it out, he has the

strength of a hundred men. Nay, a thousand men! The kappa effortlessly threw the young

men as they came at him. However, he was having so much fun flinging the young (man)

around that he didn’t notice that the water had spilled from his head-plate. ‘Oh no! What

have I done!’ But it was too late. Picking themselves up off the ground, they saw the

kappa lose his power. Fully drained of strength, the kappa plummeted to the ground.

‘What did I do…what did I do…’ Without his water, the kappa was truly helpless.”

(Davisson Hyakumonogatari)

His foes then pick up the creature and take him to the village elder’s house and tie him down

good. Weakened by the loss of his energy source, and shedding many sorrowful tears, the kappa

pathetically begs of them to forgive him, for he knows that he was wrong. After numerous

apologies and entreaties to let him go, the elder and his men have a meeting to decide just what

to do with this troublesome monster (Davisson Hyakumonogatari).

When the village senior’s daughter comes on scene, the kappa begs and pleads with her

to convince her father and his men to have mercy on him. In a fit of anger at all the difficulty and

problems it had caused, she seizes a soup ladle and hits him, only the blow strikes him in the

head – right at the source of his power. Just one tiny water droplet escaped the serving spoon

and went right straight into the empty recess on his head. And that was all it took for the kappa to

regain his strength back. The kappa frees himself of the rope. But the rope around his right wrist

had been tied tighter than that of his left, so in breaking free his right arm is torn off! Not
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expecting him to do what he did, and not knowing where he would be headed to for asylum, the

villagers let him escape – and in all the commotion the beast “flew like the wind, escaping to his

river home where he dove in and swam quickly to the bottom. From then on, the one-armed

kappa no longer threatened or annoyed the people of the village (Davisson Hyakumonogatari).
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Part Three: Field Studies


In Search of the Kappa
I wish to present you now with field research I conducted in three regions of Japan where I found

the folkloric legends of the Kappa to be the strongest. On my two research trips to Japan to

research, photograph and document Japanese vampire legends, I collected some valuable data

and visual evidence of this folklore as well as made some personal observations on the subject in

as objective and academic a manner as possible. It is this author’s wish that if you wish to delve

even deeper into the pool of knowledge where the kappa and their folktales live (whether for the

purpose of gleaning further knowledge on them either as simply Yokai, or as vampires as this

paper seeks to classify them) you will take said observations, draw your own conclusions and

pick up from where I have left off.

While this author does realize that an academic paper must contain an abundant amount

of claims and findings backed by reliable and trustworthy sources, firsthand objective field

observation plays a role in our understanding of the folklore as well – yes, Dr. McNally taught

me well.

The Kappa of Hokkaido

Lying southwest of the city of Sapporo on the Japanese isle of Hokkaido – the northernmost

province in the island chain that makes up the country of Japan – is the ‘Kappa Buchi’ at

Jōzankei. According to the available local literature which my translator, Yoko Otake, was able
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to furnish me with, this is derived from the Japanese pamphlet “The Origin of the ‘Kappa Buchi’

at Jōzankei”:

“The Toyohira River, until the Choshinokuchi Dam was built about 100 years ago, was

the river habitable for big fishes deep down (in) the water. A young man named Seyama,

who as hired for the dam construction, one day, was fishing by this riverside. Suddenly he

was pulled down and sank under the water. The porters on the floating logs in the river

immediately dived for his rescue, but it was too deep to save him and he could never be

found. On the very night of Seyama’s death memorial day, his father back home had a

dream of his son saying, ‘I am now living happily with my Kappa wife and a child…’ The

young man was said to be the most handsome boy in the village and maybe he was

bewitched by a young Kappa girl…. Since then, this riverside has been called ‘Kappa

Buchi’ and nobody has been missed until this date.” (Kappa Buchi)

Nearby to the sight of Seyama’s disappearance lies the “Kappa Rock”, where “(O)n the clear

days Kappas in the river used to sunbathing (sic) on the rock” (Kappa Buchi).

One observation I have noticed at the kappa sighting spots I have personally visited is

that the locals have since capitalized on the phenomena associated with this folklore and turned

these destinations into tourist traps; especially at Tōno and Jōzankei. This is akin to what has

happened in Romania and Transylvania where a great Dracula tourism industry has evolved and

grown into a moneymaking venture for the Romanian government (McNally Interview).

The Kappa of Tōkyō


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The Kappabashi neighborhood of Tokyo is a smorgasbord of the culinary arts with restaurant

supply stores, museums and tourist traps abound, everywhere the hungry eye may roam. It is also

the home of a notable Kappa legend.

According to the material translated for me from Ms. Otake, the Sogenji Temple is also

known as the “Kappa Dera” or “Temple of the Kappa”. I present you with the facts translated for

me by Ms. Yoko Otake of Sapporo, Hokkaido Prefecture:


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Sogenji (Kappa Dera) Temple

Originally built in 1588, center of Tokyo near Wadakura Gate.

1657: destroyed by fire. This temple is transferred to present location – Matsugaya.

1786: July, because of heavy rain, the temple neighborhood was flooded. River nearby

did not run smoothly and people living here had difficulty with small rivers (5 meters

wide). So, Kappa maker (raincoat maker), Kappaya Kihachi, put his own money to

rebuild river (dam? Or) reconstruction.

Legend (pictured below): Kappas living in the Sumida River (a big river) was (sic)

excited and happy by Kappaya’s fixing the river. So, they came to help him fix this small

river with him. The small river (Shibori River) to stop flooding. Shibori means tying

knots.
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1814: January 31 Kappaya dies and his body was buried in Sogenji Temple. Since then,

temple called Kappa Temple. People had appreciated Kappaya’s construction, so people

built Kappado. On ceiling, Kappa paintings. Paintings on ceiling done by famous

Japanese illustrator, Tezuka Ozamu.

Every year on 23 August, there is a Kappa festival.


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“Kappa mummified hand” at Kappa Dera


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Now, please note the discrepancies between the data Ms. Otake provided me with and that which

we see here on this tourist sign I photographed in Tokyo.

One extraordinarily odd aspect of the Kappa Dera which I observed was that, standing

outside at the foot of the staircase leading up to the temple, were little stone statues of the Kappa

– which were being used as incense burners, for their sara showed obvious signs of ash residue!

Naturally this goes against the grain as far as our little blue-green friends are concerned and

brings up this simple question: If this temple was originally built and designed to honour the

Kappa of Kappabashi, then why are their idols not only devoid of water but being used to sustain

the element diametrically opposed to it? Moreover, this is why I asked earlier if the gift of fire’s

a sacrifice to the kappa as the cucumber is?


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The Kappa of Tōno

“The wind blew and the snow whirled around them. Great white flakes blew against their eyes

like feathers so that they could hardly see, and the wind cut through their straw capes right to

the bone. As they staggered on, the drifts piled up around them. In no time the trails were

completely buried. The two men were lost and night was falling. They needed to find shelter soon

or they would die. They came to a river with ice floating in the water. They would freeze if they

tried to swim across. Then just ahead along the shore, they saw an old, abandoned fisherman’s

hut. They stumbled in, exhausted, and propped the door closed behind them with a piece of

wood.... At last, shivering and shaking in the darkness, they drifted off to sleep. Around midnight
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the young woodcutter awoke. The door of the hut was open. The wind had stopped blowing. All

was quiet and still. And standing there in the moonlight was a beautiful woman. Her face, her

hands, and her robe were white as the snow, while her eyes and hair were black as night. The

young woodcutter thought he must be dreaming.” (Martin Snow Woman 29)

While the Japanese countryside is peppered with folkloric sites associated with the kappa, my

expeditions to Japan would be incomplete if I hadn’t allocated a significant amount of time to

visit the town of Tōno nestled in the folklore-rich region of the Iwate Valley; for in this valley

not only hops (for beer brewing) and rice grow, but fabulous and fantastic legends of the kappa

were cultivated right alongside them. 2010 marked the centennial of the first publication of

Kunio Yanagita’s folkloric classic, The Legends of Tōno, a collection of 119 legendary stories

detailing the myriad mythical creatures found in and around Tōno town and the valley it sits in

(Tōno map). Kunio Yanagita’s tome gives us five folkloric portraits of the kappa.

Most importantly in this researcher’s eyes – as well as in the telescopic focus of this

monograph’s subject matter – is that it was in Tōno, after eight years of study, where I finally

discovered the archetype of the Kappa which truly could be classified as one of the vampire

species. These are the Asian aquatic equivalents to the sea monsters who sprang right out the

mad imaginings of the Captain’s logs of the European explorers. And just as the artists of the

European continent depicted Jesus in their oil paintings of him as a blond-haired, blue-eyed saint,

so too was the fearsome, deep water-lurking kappa of the Iwate Prefecture painted with all the

crimson colours of that precious bodily fluid which pumps through our hearts and out to all

points of our bodies even as we contemplate this paper.


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Indeed the Kappa of the Tōno Valley deviate from the stereotypical skin shades of their

brethren located elsewhere across the Japanese isles. But let’s let the folklore speak for itself,

rather than have me rattle on and on, shall we?

In Legend # 55, we are told of a house in Matsuzaki (a village now incorporated into

Tōno) wherein women are constantly having monstrous and ugly “kappa-children” that are

chopped up, stuffed into “small wine casks, and buried in the ground” (35). This legend goes on

to state that after spotting a smiling woman kneeling by the river, a strange, unknown villager is

coming at night to be with the woman while her husband is away (35). As time goes by, this

mysterious figure starts to consort with her even as she is in bed with her husband sleeping right

beside her! Then – and here is where it gets really weird – the woman’s mother-in-law comes to
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sleep with her in order to save the girl, but at night as she hears the wife and visitor having a

good old time, “she found it impossible to move her body” (35). After much labour, the woman

gives birth to a bouncing baby kappa complete “with webbed hands” after being submerged in a

“tub that horses ate from with water” in order to “ease the delivery” (36).

Now here again we have the connection between the kappa and the horse – except that it

would seem that having been immersed in the horses’ bathtub has had curative properties for the

kappa, a point which may cast a slight shadow of doubt upon Foster’s inference regarding the

kappa being averse to everything equine (Foster Kappa 10).

“The relationships between the monkey and the kappa, and between the monkey and the

horse, are indeed provocative. The monkey has been characterized in various legends as

the natural enemy of the kappa. On the other hand, as Yanagita and Ishida document, the

monkey is a protector of the horse. Monkey performances, and monkeys themselves, have

traditionally been associated with stables, and in many of the legends concerning the

defeat of a kappa, the pledge making takes place in a horse’s stable, where the kappa is

at its weakest.” (Foster Kappa 10)

Indeed there seems to exist some sort of trinity betwixt the kappa, the monkey and the horse.
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Legend # 56 concerns a human giving birth to a kappa child as well. While there was no

conclusive evidence that this particular infant was a kappa child, “it had bright red skin and a

large mouth… indeed a disgusting child” (36). And here we see a deviation from the common

folkloric description of a kappa, for the breed of kappa found in Tōno is said to have red skin,

not green or blue-green (37).

Running the kappa-child out of town, it is taken “to a fork in the road and sat down” (36).

Turning away to abandon the thing to the elements, this would-be entrepreneur suddenly decides
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he can start a freak show with this kappa-child as its headlining star and so goes back to collect it

“but it was already hiding and nowhere to be seen” (36). In another translation of Legends # 55

and #56 interpreted by A.W. Sadler, we read that:

“Every now and then a child is born in greater Tōno who has a conspicuously red face,

or red skin all over, or a big mouth and webbed hands. Such a child is immediately

identified as a kappa Mi, and put to death by being hacked to bits (and the pieces placed

separately in small sake tubs and buried)-or else simply abandoned at the crossroads

(from which they quickly disappear, retrieved by their unnatural kin). A rumor is spread

that the mother of the child was making whoopee with a river demon. Tōno is, culturally

speaking, not so far from Salem, Massachusetts.” (Sadler 221)

Now, there is a parallel to this point of delivering a grotesque monster to the fork in the

road. But I shall tackle that one particular point while detailing my visit to the Jokenji Temple

and Kappa-buchi Pool in the Tōno Valley further on down the proverbial road in this piece.

Legend # 57 talks of the common occurrence of finding kappa footprints on riverbanks,

“especially true on the day after it rains” (36). It then goes on to compare the feet of a kappa to

that of a monkey and “the handprint of a human being” (36). As was stated with regards Legend

#56 – and is aptly pointed out in the brevity of the last tale which mentions a kappa, Legend # 59

– we find that the kappa indigenous to the Tōno Valley differ from their other provincial cousins

in the colour of their skin:


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“Kizen Sasaki’s great-grandmother was playing with friends in the garden when she saw

a boy with a dark red face behind three walnut trees. It was a kappa. Those big walnut

trees are still there. The area around the house is now filled with walnut trees.” (37)

Here are some travel log excerpts relevant to this monograph edited for content:

Traveling north on the Shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo station – after first stopping in

Sendai and Shin-Hanamaki – I ventured deep into the folkloric heart of the Iwate Prefecture.

7 January 2011 – 1402 hours: Somewhere between Koriyama and Fukushima. As my pictures

show, just as we bulleted outta Koriyama a line was drawn across the sky and we crossed it like a

New England Patriots’ receiver scoring a 1st down from Tom Brady – from being overcast,

moody skies into sunny, snowless skies again.

1412 hours: Fukushima. Snow and overcast again. Either weather changes fast up here in

northern Japan or else the train is flying to meet the next front!!

1422 hours: This is the heartland of Japan what with mountains, mountains and fields; small

communities away from the manic hustle and bustle o’ Tokyo = fertile ground for folklore,

legend and myth.


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1430 hours: Sun again coming into Sendai. This train is (expletive) fast! Need to get off

somewhere and eat soon. Hands shaking a bit; oh, well what’s new. Food too expensive on these

JR trains.

1455 hours: Arrived at Furukawa right outta Sendai. Snow over fields! Awoke to see fields and

mountains and trees blanketed with snow. Sehr schön!

1541 hours: Arrived at Shin-Hanamaki. The cold hits you, an Undead cold. Toto, we’re not in

Tokyo anymore. Sun setting fast chased away by the rapidly dropping temps.

1609-11 hours: Board train for Tōno. Rice fields covered in snow. Trains wails its lonely horn

through tunnel. We seem to be going deeper and deeper into the valley moving east away from

the sun.

The very next day, after a good night’s rest in a cozy, warm Washitsu room with its characteristic

tatami flooring over at Minshuku Tōno, I set off early to head for the cradle of Tōno folklore. My

first stop was the tourist center adjacent to the train station where, very much to my chagrin, the

words of Richard Dorson echoed in my ears like the temple bells of New Years’ Eve. For though

I had sent an email requesting assistance in my expedition, none would be forthcoming and no

one was alerted that I was coming – I simply knew no one for that much-needed connection. Oh,

well. I’ve been in much more dire circumstances before wherein language was an impenetrable

barrier and I had to overcome it. Take Romania in 2000 for instance when no interpreter/guide

was provided for me as I marched off into the Transylvanian Alps to document the legends of the
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historical Dracula amid the real dangers of thieves and bears – leave a mind any worries of

vampires! But that’s another “tale to be told” so to speak. I merely mention it because I should

be used to the old Irish axiom of something going wrong at the worst possible moment by this

point in time.

After grabbing all available English maps and materials at my disposal – and stopping to

snap a quick picture of the police station shaped like a giant Kappa! – I hopped a bus out of town

headed off to the Jokenji Temple and the Kappa-buchi Pool. Gazing out the bus’ windows under

the all-seeing brilliance of broad daylight, the breathtaking panorama of the Tōno Valley

becomes immediately apparent. After encouraging him to rouse me from my visual wanderings

when we finally had made it to my stop, the bus driver dropped me off on Highway 340 at the

crossroads just two hundred meters southwest of the Denshōen village.


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If you recall, my dear reader, I mentioned earlier the red Kappa children of the valley

being “simply abandoned at the crossroads” placed in a spot “from which they quickly disappear,

retrieved by their unnatural kin” (Sadler 221). Sadler promotes the notion of Tōno being

culturally related to 1692 Salem; and when you consider the inbred human trait to fear that which

we do not understand or which may appear deviating from the norm, I wholeheartedly concur.

Additionally I would take this concept one or even two steps further by connecting Tōno to the

Mississippi Delta Blues as well as medieval European vampire folklore.

For indeed, for one, early 20th Century Afro-American blues music folklore embraced the

concept of the crossroads as being a place where a budding black musician could go to sell his

soul by having the devil tune his guitar in exchange for fame, fortune and musical prowess – the

most famous and enduring example being that of Robert Johnson (1911-1938) who was

rumoured by many of his associates to have sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for the

immense musical talent and success he would achieve after his untimely death (Guralnick 18).

Secondly, regarding vampires, “(b)urial at a crossroads, as for suicides, was another

means of prevention” as the four differing directions of the compass which they could choose to

go, along with the crossroads’ striking resemblance to the Christian cross, would “therefore keep

him from coming out of his grave” (Garden 40).


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As I walked from the bus stop to the temple, the first thing I noticed was that the layout

of the land in this valley becomes immediately apparent: the valley in the area of Tōno is

surrounded by mountains, and the only geographical entities between me and those peaks were

miles of empty rice and hop fields covered with up the three feet of snow. And the second aspect

of the Iwate Valley I couldn’t help but to notice was that even in spite of the sun shining

brilliantly on you and reflecting off the snow covering the hop and rice fiends, due to biting cold

wind currents that filter through it the temperature quickly goes from an almost balmy warmth

on your face to a face-chilling freezing cold that bites at your face as you trudge on in the snow.

Through all this, what becomes most apparent is that such a terrain at the mercy of the

elements, as the Tōno Valley here in the Iwate prefecture is, naturally acts as a conducive

environment and the perfect place for folklore to grow. Aside from the occasional automobile

put-putting slowly by me, Tōno was a ghost town. And this made me ask myself what specters

are conjured behind closed doors at night while the night winds of the valley whip up their
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wintry mischief. And if I may walk out on a limb here to make an observation, this place strikes

me as the perfect site for folklore to ferment in much the same way the hops and rice do. For in

all cases, throughout the centuries these peasant folk have carefully cultivated all these crops,

both agricultural and folkloric, to grow into the national nourishment which feeds the Japanese

homeland to this very day.

After a few wrong turns in snow drift after snow drift, I finally made it to Jokenji

Temple, “dedicated to the deity image of Obinzurusama” (Rowthorn 536). Guarding the inner

path to Jokenji are twin lions, posed both majestic and ready. According to my equally frozen

Lonely Planet guidebook: “Legend has it that kappa, belying their impish nature, once put out a

fire in the temple; the lion statue(s were) erected as a gesture of thanks to honor this good deed”

(Rowthorn 536).
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Jokenji Temple

Lying behind the temple, shadowed by an umbrella of evergreens, lies the Kappa-buchi

pool. First, in wintertime one must traverse an icy path which soon transforms into a wall of two

foot snow – and especially after getting back to my bus stop to find another wouldn’t be arriving

for another two hours, I walked 6 kilometers in freezing temperatures hovering near zero degrees

Fahrenheit, I regretted that I hadn’t packed any boots for snow while lightening up my luggage

back at home in Boston. Oh, well, he thought sighing, and drudged on.
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Shortly thereafter, I reached a wooden bridge crossing over the Haseki River and, much

to my relief, it had been recently trodden upon by footprints – and let me tell you honestly that

whether they were human or kappa, at this point I cared not!

The Bridge over the Haseki River leading to the Kappa-buchi

One vital note to my readers: Try as I may, I could not find any brochures or pamphlets at this

site, nor any monks or temple staff with whom to consult, in order to glean more data pertinent to

this research paper as regards the Kappa-buchi. As a matter of fact, at present I am still seeking

out more facts on Kappa-buchi and Jokenji other than what my fabulous guidebook provided me

with. That being said, I found this to be of some interest:


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“It is said that if pregnant women worship at the shrine on the riverbank they’ll produce

plenty of milk, but only if they first produce a breast-shaped offering. The tiny temple is

filled with small cloth bags, either red or white, most replete with nipple”(Rowthorn 536)

Mama Kappa breastfeeding her young, while cucumber gifts lean against her
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Peeping inside the “tiny temple” I was not disappointed to find all the sacred temple offerings

given up to the Kappa of Haseki River all laid out in a colourful display, a rainbow of colours, in

order to promote the free flowing of liquid life for all of Tōno’s children.

Kappa Shrine on Heseki River bank at Kappa-buchi

(Note the onion offerings dressed in red and white – and resembling breasts with nipples – inside

on lower left hand corner)


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Part Four: Vampire or Vampurr –


The Japanese Vampire Cat

Image courtesy of http:// http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13015/13015-h/13015-h.htm#image201

“The Vampire Cat of Nabeshima”

The cat has a hairy reputation in Japan. Like their European counterparts, they are associated

with all sorts of supernatural powers. In my travels throughout Japan, I only found a handful of

Japanese people who kept them as pets; though this could be perceived as simply being a case of

necessity – the shortage of living space on the Japanese islands may be predicated on the fact

many Japanese live in apartments where perhaps house pets are not allowed. However, in

U.A. Casal’s 1959 essay “The Goblin Fox and Badger and Other Witch Animals of Japan” he

states that “cats are but rarely made pets of, and until recently were hardly ever seen in homes”

(59).
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While interviewing a Japanese World War Two Veteran and former Soviet prisoner of

war, Mr. Inokuma Tokuro, for another project of mine, he had two lovely cats residing with him

in his house. I noticed that one had a stubby tail and when I got back stateside I did a little

research. This is what I found:

“The Japanese cat, with or without a tail, is very far from being popular, for this animal

and the venomous serpent were the only two creatures that did not weep when the Lord

Buddha died.” (onmarkproductions Davis 264)

“De Japansche kat, met of zonder staart, is lang niet populair, want dit dier en de

venijnige slang waren de eenige twee schepsels, die niet weenden bij den dood van

Buddha.” (Mythen 253)

I am still seeking out data on how the stubby tail figures into the cat’s hairy reputation in

Japan. The Ainu people of northern Japan – the indigenous native tribes of that country – bestow

magical abilities on cats: “The cat, like the fox, is clever and can look into the future, and

therefore the Ainu employ also his skull for divination” (Casal 59). In a legend found in both

China and Japan, a cat must never be left unattended in a room with where a corpse lays, lest the

feline jump over the mouth of the body causing to return as a vampire (Casal 60-61)!

Additionally, the funerary party must beware lest the cat walks under the coffin while it is

mounted on for mourners to pay their respects or their loved one will later be resurrected and

return from the dead to “attack the members of the household.” (Casal 61). This I find

illuminating in a cross-cultural sense since in the European vampire folklore tradition, the
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Undead always returns to attack the members of its immediate family first, most notably at night

when one is sleeping and dreaming of them (Barber 183-185).

Probably the most famous of all the Japanese vampiric depictions of the feline species is

to be found in the classic story, “The Vampire Cat of Nabeshima”. The first translated version I

read was online and is taken from Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford’s Tales of Old Japan,

dated 1910; while the second version I found in F. Hadland Davis’ Myths and Legends of Japan.

The basic synopsis of this tale from the Sengoku Era (1568-1615) is that a Prince has a beautiful

mistress named O Toyo amongst his house ladies. After spending a wonderful day out in his

garden “enjoying the fragrance of the flowers until sunset… they returned to the palace, never

noticing that they were being followed by a large cat”. After she and the Prince part and retire to

their separate rooms, the vampire cat corners the lady in her own bedroom; lunging to sink its

sharp, deadly teeth into her neck. Having shape-shifting as one of its magical abilities, the

vampire cat “assumed her shape in order to drain out his life’s blood”(sarudama).
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Image courtesy of robojapan.blogspot.com/201007/scare-cra...with.html

The prince suddenly comes down with a mysterious illness which leaves him weak and

whitened; and his condition was worsened by nightmares while he slept. Come ten o’ clock in

the evening, no matter who watched him, they all fell under the strange trance of sleep

themselves (Davis 265). The Prince’s councilors gather for a meeting wherein they decide to call

upon the chief priest of the local Buddhist temple, who enlists the help of a simple soldier found

praying for his Master’s recovery before the statue of Buddha in the moonlit garden. This soldier

is recruited to stand sentry by the Prince’s bedside (Davis 266). That night, as all the other

guards fall under the spell of sorcery, Itô Sôda stays awake by jamming a knife into his thigh

(Davis 266-267). It is then that he spies O Toyo creeping furtively into the bed chamber towards
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the Prince. She is confronted by Itô Sôda and is unable to suck the life from her Master any

further. After repeated attempts to attack the Prince fail, it becomes apparent to Itô Sôda that O

Toyo is responsible for all his Master’s woes and reports as much to the council. Feigning the

need to deliver a message to her from the Prince, Itô Sôda goes to O Toyo’s room to slay her

(Davis 267-268). As he draws near to do the deed, she shapeshifts (sic) into a giant cat! which

then springs onto the roof and runs off into the mountains where it is eventually hunted down

and killed. “But the Prince recovered from his sickness; and Itô Sôda was richly rewarded.”

(Gutenberg).

It should be briefly noted here that, like European vampire hunters, their Asian

contemporaries too use religion and religious trappings to trap their quarry, in this case the power

or meditation and prayer.


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Part Five: Spiders Are Scary in


Japan too – the Spider as Vampire

Image courtesy of http://visipix.dynalias.com

The great warrior Minamoto Yorimitsu (a.k.a. Raiko) fights the Tsuchigumo, a giant spider.

From what we have uncovered so far, like in our own western traditions, the Japanese have

imparted magic powers and look upon certain animals and folkloric creatures with a mixture of

awe and fear, and also with

In the last section, we mentioned the Ainu people of northern Japan, and so it is an easy

transition to begin our next section talking about the mysterious theories of the “Pit-Dwellers of

Northern Japan”, the so-called “Spider People”. U.A. Casal elabourates:


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“Quite possibly the ancient Japanese believed in ‘human spiders’ dwelling in the ground.

This, at any rate, was the name – tsuchi-gumo, earth-spiders – which they gave to an

aboriginal tribe, whose identity has been the subject of much controversy. They appear

only in the oldest ‘history’, and according to one record had ‘short bodies and long legs

and arms.’ An Ainu myth makes them so tiny that ten of them could easily take shelter

under one burdock leaf, and it needed the strength of all the men of five boats-made of

leaves-do drag ashore a single herring.... More probably they were simply pit-dwellers of

small stature, and perhaps of such ugly aspect, for crude features and garb, to be

considered ‘as repulsive as a spider.’ Japanese history, at any rate, would make them a

rather defiant, savage folk which had to be tackled with circumspection.” (Casal 89)

As Casal notes, the spider, known to the Japanese as Kumo, are source of malevolent

omens who, “like vampires, they suck people’s blood at night, a little at a time, hardly

noticeable, until the victim perishes from anaemia (sic)”(89), are nocturnal, fire will certainly

destroy them – and yet while Dracula may run off to his coffin at daybreak, “in the morning they

may be left to live; they could, in fact, be messengers of good fortune to follow during the day”

(89). The Tsuchigumo possess all the abilities of a normal spider including web-spinning with

rope-like strands to ensnare potential human prey (89), and yet they appear to swallow their

victims whole –besides taking to straining their vital fluids from their bodies – for “(w)hen in the

end the monster is killed by some stratagem, and its belly cut open, it may disgorge the skulls of

numerous former victims” (89)!

And this facet of their dietary habits ties in with their inhuman anatomy as well:
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“An entirely different legend treats of a woman of Oki Province, who was found to have a

mouth on the top of her head, which would eat enormous quantities of food. Having of

course immediately been divorced, the woman returned shortly afterwards in her true

form of a gigantic spider, and sought revenge by attacking her husband. Evidently

spiders can, thus, assume ‘permanent’ human shape, probably with the evil intent of

sucking blood. But they also assume fantastic spook-shapes, like the one who showed

himself as an old bonze, of whom one half only could be seen as if the body had been cut

in two from top to bottom. Such spooks often have three or four eyes, enormous and

balefully glaring.” (Casal 88-89)

Talk about a nasty marital split, eh?


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Image courtesy of robojapan.blogspot.com/201007/scare-cra...with.html

According to Casal, the first appearance of such a goblin spider “is already noted in the time of

Jimmu Tenno, legendary founder of the Japanese empire in the 7th century B.C.” (88):

“It had six arms and two legs, horns on its head, large eyes shining like mirrors, teeth

like saws, and long red hair. It was strong enough to split rocks and up-root trees, and

used its heavy white threads to bind men and horses. An army sent against it was

powerless to kill it; on the contrary it lost so many men that it was put to flight. The

spider was in the end overcome by a stratagem (sic): when it had retired into its cave, the

cave's mouth was closed with a heavy iron-net, and a brisk fire lit in front of it suffocated

the monster!” (Casal 88)

In Myths and Legends of Japan, F. Hadland Davis chronicles the brave warrior Raiko

slaying the Goblin Spider. Raiko came down with a terrible malady; during his convalescence a

small boy would continually bring him his medicine – until finally he realizes his condition

worsens after he takes it (48). Inquiring as to identity of the boy, none of his servants seem to

know. So, on the next midnight visit of the child, Raiko confronts him with his sword; and the

boy shoots spider webs at him to try and capture the great warrior (48-49). Raiko yells for help

and one of his retainers challenges the spider-boy with sword drawn in the corridor, but during

the mêlée he too is ensnared by its sticky webs while the goblin spider makes his escape – but

apparently Raiko’s chief retainer had inflicted severe damage on the arachnid beast because it is

later unearthed in a cave bleeding profusely from the head (49). The creature slain, Raiko

recovers from his mysterious malady and the people celebrate with a great banquet feast (49).
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In another variant on this heroic folk tale by Kenko Hoshi, Raiko leave Kyoto

accompanied by his retainer, Tsuna, and they witness a skull fly by them which then leads them

to a ruined palace (49). Venturing inside, the hero finds a two hundred and ninety year old hag

and a small army of monsters appear (49-50). The dawn’s cockcrow should bring peace but

instead a hypnotizing and attractive woman enters who puts him under her spell. He awakens

captured “in countless cobwebs” and so with his weapon he thrusts at her, only to strike the

wooden floor as she disappears (50). He and Tsuna find his sword blade shattered and “covered

with white blood” (50-51). They scour the rooms of the mansion until they find the giant spider

wounded and weak; so they decapitate and dissect it – and from the Mountain Spider’s sliced

belly pour “nineteen hundred and ninety skulls” as well as child-size baby spiders; not to

mention “many human corpses” from out of its intestines (51).

In “The Goblin Spider” as rendered into English by Lafcadio Hearn and found in his

wonderful 1922 English edition of Japanese Fairy Tales, 2nd Series, No. 1, we read a similar

yarn of web-casting creatures along these lines. To sum it up: The narrator tells us that once upon

a time Japan was inundated and infested with goblin spiders, and even today they pose as your

average spider during the daylight, but come nighttime they take on their true giant goblin spider

shape. Here again we have a haunted ruin, in this case a temple, which no one may reside in

since it is the dwelling place of many monster spiders. In stereotypical fairy tale fashion, through

the narration we learn that many a brave and noble samurai have ventured forth into the keep,

never to be heard from again. Until at last the bravest of the brave arrives on the scene ready to

conquer all evil which may lie inside the terrible temple. He finds refuge by the temple’s altar

under a statue of Buddha and nothing happens (Hearn).


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Until midnight. A goblin cut in half and with only “one eye” approached him (Casal it

will be remembered also points this fantastical facet out); the samurai did not budge and so the

thing disappeared. After this comes a priest playing a samisen (a Japanese stringed instrument)

so adeptly the warrior was certain that this was no mortal man. So he draws his sword and stands

to face his foe. The priest laughs, telling him he must play the samisen to hold the goblins at bay

and hands it to the samurai for him to play it. When he takes it from the priest, the instrument

turns into “a monstrous spider-web, and the priest into a goblin-spider”. In spite of the fact he

was caught in the web, the gallant hero manages to strike at and stab the spider with his sword;

and the spider limps away wounded. At dawn, his retainers come and free him from the sticky

webbing, and they track the goblin-spider down by following its bloody tracks “to a hole in the

deserted garden” of the temple where they then slay the spider beast (Hearn ).
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Image source: http://www.baxleystamps.com/litho/hasegawa/spider.shtml

It must be notated that in the last two stories, midnight plays an important role in the

activity of these vampire spiders. So, therefore, let us review the foregoing to come up with a list

of the weaknesses and strengths of the Japanese vampire spider of legend:

1. During the daylight hours, it may pose as your common variety of spider.

2. Its powers seem to be at their apex come midnight.

3. They have the power to assume human likeness and/or transform into a spook shape

in order to fool their potential prey by bringing down their defenses.

4. They may be destroyed by regular weaponry such as swords (and dare I say guns as

well, if we are to take this fairy tale into the post-gunpowder world).

5. Fire is a redoubtable weapon to use against these vampire spiders.

6. Not only do they suck the blood of their victims, but they may also eat them whole,

depending perhaps on what physical form they have taken while dining. The

gluttonous woman of the Oki province with the mouth atop her head comes to mind.

7. They possess all the qualities of a normal spider – including web-spinning – albeit in

a giant goblin spider form, which makes them all the more a deadly and formidable

foe.

8. While you may swordfight with them, do not – I repeat – do not get into a duel with

them musically as they play a damned good samisen!


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Part Six: Conclusions

Or

“Folklore As Phoenix”

“Less than a decade after its devastation by American firebombing, Tokyo was

destroyed again: this time by the rampages of a gigantic fire-breathing lizard

known as Gojira, in the eponymous 1954 film. A deep-sea monster awakened

from its slumbers by atomic testing, Gojira (or Godzilla as the creature would be

called in its American incarnation two years later) provided a powerful metaphor

for the terrors unleashed by the nuclear age and the unforeseeable forces –

political, environmental, technological – that would influence everyday lives in the

decades after the war. In the darkness of the movie house, the gargantuan

creature is drawn to the lights of Tokyo and devastates the city with its massive

footsteps and fiery breath: the eternal conflict of nature and culture played out in

a landscape being rebuilt after a cataclysmic war.” (Foster Pandemonium 160)

I would like to conclude this research paper by tackling Research Questions #3, #4, #7 and #8.

As you recall, they are as follows:

Has the Euro-centric vampiric folklore influenced Japanese society, and children in

particular?

Has the Japanese vampiric folklore influenced our society, and children in particular?
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Can the traditional Japanese vampire and its accompanying folklore survive the mass-

media onslaught of modern-day Japan, which is rejecting some of its ages-old

traditions like the male dominant society, and may be moving away from its folklore

too? Or will it forever be relegated and demoted to a sad state of fakelore and

folklorism?

How will the national catastrophe of 11 March 2011 affect the folklore, folklorism,

culture and mass media of present day Japan?

In our little journey through the ancient stories and modern sites of the Kappa, the Vampire Cat

and Vampire Spider, we have realized that, like the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and their

ilk, these eldritch myths have surreptitiously crept up on the modern culture of present day Japan

like the Kappa itself, rising up from the depths of the pop culture consciousness of Japan and

sneaking up on us with all the eagerness of the fabulous creature trying to drag its next victim

down into the depths of the river.

We have found that the Japanese treat their legends of the Kappa in much the same way

that our culture treats its boogey-men and boogey-women: the Kappa may alternatively act as

agents of good will for humankind to reap the rewards of said alliances; or they may be used by

parents to teach their children not to misbehave, lest the kappa come and get you – in much the

same way the old wives’ tales of New England once admonished us to be good or Ben Franklin

will come and grab your toes. Kappa stories can entertain and enlighten, teach and taunt. These

old folk tales shine a much-needed light upon a creature of Japanese culture which to many –

from our Euro-centric/Western point-of-view – is still somewhat shrouded in mystery, despite

the recent attempts of our pop culture to embrace these fabulous monsters of fantasy.
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The Kappa has squirmed its way into Japanese phraseology with expressions like He no

Kappa (or Kappa no he, both meaning alternately “a piece of cake” or “a Kappa’s fart”); Kappa-

hage (for “a man going bald to top”); Kappa no kawanagare (“Even a kappa can drown” – i.e.,

“even the best make mistakes”); Riku ni agatta kappa (“like a kappa on land” – e.g., “a…

ahem… fish out of water”) all swimming in the etymological stream of Japan consciousness

(Yoda 28).

After the Third Reich fell in 1945 and the four Allied powers took to the task of

occupying Germany, their cultural influence was undeniable – and their mass campaign of

denazification not only worked to keep former high ranking Nazis out of power in the postwar

German bureaucratic machine (Snyder 62), but also to have what some may term a detrimental

effect on German culture – Wagnerian opera and other old forms of music having been embraced

by the Hitlerian regime being cast aside as the new German found his way out of the rubble

(Snyder 368-371).

And it was no different in the East either: the American occupation of Japan in the

aftermath of the Allies’ victory over the Axis powers in the Second World War ensured both that

the erasure of Imperialistic yearnings on the part of the Japanese zeitgeist would transpire, as

well as that many things American would swarm into the Japanese consciousness. Reviewing

Martha Ellen Hardesty’s “Language, Culture, and Romaji Reform: A Communications Policy

Failure of the Allied Occupation of Japan”, Frank Joseph Shulman states:

“The Supreme Command for the Allied Powers (SCAP), dominated by Americans,

occupied Japan from 1945 to 1952. SCAP declared that an undemocratic government

had caused the war, and devoted it-self to establishing a popular democracy to prevent
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any future war. The Civil Information and Education Division of SCAP directed the

reform of Japanese communication media and education toward more democratic lines.

Reformers, both American and Japanese, declared the traditional ideographic writing

system, kanamajiri, to be elitist and undemocratic. CIE Language Officers proposed that

the Japanese adopt romaji, the Roman alphabet used phonetically, to achieve national

literacy and thus democracy. Instead, the Japanese simplified and standardized the

nearly 2,000 characters in use today.” (Shulman 208)

An excellent example of this pertinent to this paper being that of the mass popularity of

comic books. One has but to look around him on a bullet train or subway or bus stop to see

Japanese of all ages with their faces buried in a Manga book; for although the art form existed

long before General MacArthur took over as Military Governor of Japan, the comic book put an

undeniable stamp on Manga forever when American GI Joes imported their comic books

(Kinsella Manga wiki). In Bram Stoker’s pivotal work, Count Dracula journeys to England

stowed away in a crate filled with his home soil from Transylvania on his way to feed on the

denizens of Victorian London. Perhaps Dracula managed to sneak aboard a cargo ship bound for

the Japanese islands in 1945, because the Japanese have embraced him with all the enthusiasm of

Mina Harker (one of Dracula’s victims).

Additionally, just as Western influence gave Japan Dracula and his kith and kin of Euro-

centric vampires as well as comic books, so too is the kappa slowly creeping into our pop culture

via video games, movies, et al. For example, the villain of the Super Mario Brothers video game,

King Koopa, may or may not have been so dubbed thanks to our little blue-green water-borne

friends – and truly some of the turtle-like creatures in these games do make you wonder. Kappa
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Mikey is a superhero cartoon of the American Nicktoons Network (kappamikey.com), and its

main character is truly Riku ni agatta kappa since he “is a ‘fish out of water’ in Japan (wiki

Kappa_Mikey).

And yet even as this mythical being slowly grows on us and becomes more prevalent in

Western society, I noticed many signs that it is slipping from that of the Japanese. Which begs

the question: Are the original Kappa and other eldritch Yokai legends like it becoming extinct in

Japan? The following is an observation on this author’s part but speaking with educators and

political advocates there, they informed me the history curriculum in Japanese schools only goes

up to the time before World War Two, as though to whitewash Japan’s role as aggressor in the

1930s and 40s (Ibuki interview). According to them, many Japanese schoolchildren do not even

know that Japan and America fought each other in the Second World War. I personally visited

the A-Bomb Dome at Peace Park in Hiroshima and nowhere on any of the exhibits I saw did it

mention anything of Japanese atrocities while highlighting and repeating over and over the fact

that Hiroshima was the target of the first use of nuclear weaponry. The reason I even bring this

up is it makes me wonder and ask this vital question: Are the old legends are going the way of

20th Century history?

In my travels across Japan on two separate research expeditions, the only places where I

saw a concentration of folklore associated with the Kappa and other Yokai legends were in the

Iwate Valley (and in Tōno specifically), the hot springs and riverbed at Jōzankei near Sapporo,

and in the Kappabashi neighborhood of Tokyo. This is not to say that there are not more folkloric

hotbeds lying somewhere else in the countryside or in some metropolitan neighborhood beyond

my grasp that I have overlooked – due to budgetary and time constraints, mind you. As a matter

of fact, Dr. Foster states that:


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“(T)he more traditional yokai continue to exert their powers as nostalgic icons of the

hometown, or furusato. They remain paradigmatic of local Japan: small communities

throughout the nation have adopted yokai (particularly the ubiquitous kappa) as mascots

for village revitalization (mura okoshi).” (Foster Pandemonium 207)

But if I may be so bold as to step out of my academic shoes for a moment and state that

one doesn’t feel the folklore permeating modern cosmopolitan Japanese society in any sort of

tangible and visible way. I mean, sure, you will certainly find the images of the kappa “mascots”

plastered all over the kitchen supply stores of the Kappabashi neighborhood, this folkloric

celebrity getting a sponsorship gig by advertising plastic sushi displays for restaurant windows.
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This being said, these kappa aren’t interested in your shirikodama; they’re too busy posing as

cute stuffed animals for children. In The Metamorphosis of the Kappa Transformation of

Folklore to Folklorism in Japan, Michael Dylan Foster speaks of the folklorism or folklorismus

of Hans Moser wherein folklore is twisted to suit the specific aims, and of the synthesized

fakelore of Richard Dorson (11) and Foster’s in-depth analysis is all too relevant here.

As a matter of fact, as I stood taking pictures of the statues outside the JR Rail station in

Tōno, at one moment I just stopped and took in the scene depicted by the artist: Here are these

three Kappas, of the old school Red Kappa folkloric species, and they looked nothing like their

counterparts in Kappabashi dori – they looked like goblins, imps or little vampires. Maybe it’s

the child in me but I suddenly thought up this scene of Kappas reminiscing about the good ole

days and I could almost hear one of them say: “Back in my day, we didn’t model for stuffed toys

and dolls! No! we dragged people into the river and then we sucked out their insides, dammit!”

all this while its mates nod their heads in nostalgic agreement.

And for those of you who wish to accuse me of mythmaking here, well, isn’t that what

folklore is all about? People taking in from their environment and converting it into something

pleasurable or entertaining or thought-provoking?


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And, regarding the latter generations of a “kinder, gentler Kappa”, this all goes back to

what I said earlier about the Japanese people being “cutesy” – and which suddenly begs another

imperative question: Do the Japanese have an inborn trait of transforming malevolent forces

(such as a kappa creeping in the murky depths and swift currents of a deadly river, or the dangers

of a construction backhoe digging too deep and hitting a live electric power line) into cartoony

caricatures of themselves in order to sublimate and quell their fears?

Or do all cultures and countries – in a supreme exemplar of Jungian collective

unconsciousness – have their own inherent methods of transposing these terrifying concepts and

real-life situations into more melodious, palatable representations? For instance, have we

westerners not transformed Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula from an evil bloodthirsty vampire into

fakelore when he signed a Hollywood contract and became a bona fide TV and film star; doing

everything from appearing on commercials in between Bugs Bunny and Star Blazers (itself a
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Japanese creation) cartoons to plug his Count Chocula cereal to undergoing a truly show

business makeover as Sesame Street’s “The Count”, who has redeemed himself by teaching kids

how to count (McNally Florescu Search 182)? And let us not forget the romantic ideal of the

vampire either, which has gone from Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee and Frank Langella making

the ladies swoon to the current Twilight obsession seemingly aimed at a younger audience.

Let it be known that from my own observations visiting their land, and mind you I could

be wrong here, but many typical Japanese people love their toys – boys and girls, men and

women alike. Yet try as I may, outside the aforementioned hotbeds of Kappa sightings and

repositories of Yokai folklore and legends, amongst the vast selection of Transformers and

Godzilla action figures in the many toy stores I visited throughout Tokyo town, I could not find

the Kappa represented as toy monsters or models hardly anywhere – with the sole exception of

one store where I found a retro Kappa Halloween mask, clearly a collector’s item and yet another

sign of this creature disappearing from the forefront of the Japanese collective consciousness.

Yet perhaps all is not lost. Whereas oral storytelling may not be able to sustain the power

of this legendary bowl-capped creature, perhaps the mediums of film and television can – in

much the same way Walt Disney and company have converted all the old fairy tales to the big

screen; though I freely admit this may be a very bad exemplar for me to give considering the

Disneyification which followed the aforementioned fairy tale conversion was a pop folklorism

which decimated the original intent of the tales.

That being said call it Schadenfreude on my part if you so choose, but there still is hope

for the old-school Kappa in my book. I recently found an eyebrow-raising story on a Japanese

website of a famous Japanese actress who sets out to hunt a kappa:


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“The hidden camera show that carried out a sniper attack prank on comedians also

tricked model/idol Yukina Kinoshita into believing that she was going on a hunt for

kappa. When they encounter the mythical creatures, everyone will pretend that they

cannot see or hear the kappa, driving Kinoshita into a state of fear and panic”.

(japanprobe)

Who knows? Perhaps the blood-red skinned Kappa of Tōno and the Iwate prefecture have found

a new career as television producers, eh?

In his brilliant book on Japanese Yōkai entitled Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese

Monsters and the Culture of Yōkai, while addressing the birth of Godzilla and the monster movie

genre in Japan, Dr. Michael Dylan Foster demonstrates that “(O)ne reason for the fascination of

these films may have been a longing for the era before Gojira made his appearance, a desire to

return to the lost innocence of a world before the national cataclysm of war and occupation made

the destruction of entire cities a nightmarish possibility” (161); and furthermore that “the 1970s

and 1980s were also characterized by a renewal of interest in folklore and folkways, by a desire

to reconnect with the past and find (or construct) a lost hometown space – a mission that became

official in 1984 with the notion of furusato-zukuri (hometown-making) as ‘the affective

cornerstone of domestic cultural policy’ ” (163-164). Foster then goes on to say that “(A)n

essential part of both the sense of dislocation and the desire to reconnect was a resurgence of

interest in weird and mysterious phenomena of all sorts” (164) including the popularity of horror

Manga and Kokkuri (something akin to our Ouija board); the Japanese possessed “both an

anxiety about monsters and an insatiable longing for them” (164).


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In 2010 Japanese director, Tomoo Haraguchi, released Death Kappa, a monster movie

reminiscent of the old Godzilla flicks.

Image Source: http://www.subwaycinema.com/nyaff10/films/death-kappa.php

According to my translator in Sapporo, Yoko Otake, the Japanese director, Miyazaki

Hayao collects goblin legends and incorporates them into his films. This led me to do a little

research on him. What I found was that “He and his Studio Ghibli have become the Japanese

equivalent of Disney, though they still maintain the levels of artistry that built that US empire in

its heyday” (japan-zone.com). The literary works of Western authors like Lewis Carroll and

Ursula K. Le Guin have influenced Miyazaki, especially the latter’s Earthsea – to the point he

has had the series by his bedside (yomiuri.co.jp). His son, Gorō Miyazaki, it will be remembered

went on to direct the 2006 Japanese anime, Tales From Earthsea.


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Japanese Movie Poster for “The Vampire Moth”

As far as Question #3 goes, the Japanese have sucked up Western vampiric archetypes

with all the enthusiasm of a kappa feasting on the riverbank. Films like Yokai Daisenso (1968)

and Kyuketsuki Ga or The Vampire Moth (1956) are good examples of this (Melton 383). It

should be noted the director of the latter, Nobuo Nakagawa, went on to direct Onna Kyuketsuki

or The Lady Vampire (1959) wherein an atomic scientist’s wife returns after having been

reported missing for some twenty years; meanwhile a mysterious stranger going by the name of

Nobutaka starts stalking the movie’s scenes (vampyres-online.com). And Nobutaka bears a

striking resemblance to Bela Lugosi what with the red satin-lined black opera cape, theatrical
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movements and menacing glare. He has even taken to wearing 1950s Buddy Holly hornrim

sunglasses! In Yoshiyuki Kuroda’s Yokai Daisenso, an old-school archetypal Western vampire

emigrates to feudal Japan and an army of Yokai join forces to fight it – and a friendly kappa even

pops out of the water to do battle with and repel this foreign invader (imdb.com).
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Image Source: http://www.vampyres-online.com/lady_vampire_stills.html

Three movie stills from “Onna Kyuketsuki”. Please note that each photograph contains a symbol
of archetypal Euro-centric vampire paradigms (e.g., the fangs, the bite marks on the neck, and
even a Christian cross!).

And while on the subject of foreign invaders, we may infer a few things from all this: In

one film the victim is the wife of an atomic scientist; in another a Kappa rises to save Japan from

foreign intrusion; and in yet another Western influence in the form of a Carpathian-like vampire

while images of Christian crosses stand as hulking visuals dominating the movie sets. Are these

Japanese auteur filmmakers subliminally rebelling against these alien occupiers? Are they

consciously doing so? Or are they simply embracing all these nouveau elements of Euro-

American cultural passions as they did with American-style comic books which were transmuted

into Manga?

Directly addressing Question #4: Preceded by the 1918 stage play The Vampire Cat and

the 1969 movie Hiroku Kaibyoden (Melton 337), Lensey Namioka’s Village of the Vampire Cat

is a recent example of historical fiction for young readers which has taken the venerable vampire

feline fable into the 20th Century. The basic premise is that a couple of Ronin are charged with
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solving a murderous whodunit in a small village (Matsuyama Jensen 319) and let us not forget

Vampire Hunter D, a Dracula cartoon movie (vampire-d.com). Furthermore, in both cases of this

cultural cross-pollination, it serves us well to ask how the new interpretations will be looked

upon by the “insiders” of the original countries; for it will truly be only those “outsiders”

receptive to the original intent who can truly do the material justice (Yenika-Agbaw 30).

So in search of Japanese vampires we find that our quest has not been for naught. Truly

the Kappa really are vampires in the strictest classical sense with biological traits and dietary

needs which qualify them for this categorization; and yet with the exception of how they extract

their nourishment, they are not strictly carbon copies of the form of the vampire we have been

drilled in the Euro-centric exemplar. In order for a “westerner” to view the Japanese Yokai such

as the Kappa, the Vampire Cat, the Tsuchigumo Spider, et al, as vampires per se it becomes

necessary for us – scholars and children alike – to discard our deep-rooted preconceived notions

of vampires first constructed (with all the strength of a great citadel) by centuries of Eastern and

Southern European vampiric folklore and superstitions, and subsequently fortified by British

theatre, German expressionist cinema and American films which exploited all the possibilities of

these mythical creatures.

And yet isn’t that what world cultural pluralism is about – even as the dominant western

position dominates? To view the seeming anomalies of a world cultural from a different angle

which may not fit in suitably with what we have formerly been programmed to regard as the

“right way” of interpreting something?

That said, children’s literature is replete with examples of traditional folklore being

twisted and mangled in some cases so that its original intent and/or storyline are clouded by the

interpreter’s vision – take the Brothers Grimm returning as Nazi volklore (sic) (Zipes xxiv) or
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Walt Disney’s whitewashing of the fairy tale. In their hard-biting commentary “Children’s Book

Publishing in Neo-Liberal Times” Hade and Edmondson put forward that “(i)n today’s economy

the corporations that control children’s book publishing understand that what they truly own are

ideas, and they can make lots of money by selling licenses of their ideas to other companies”

(138). Indeed, concerning the Undead, our entertainment industry over the past one hundred

years has ensnared our attention and spun a web of fakelore by weaving those old eastern and

southern European vampire folk tales into commercially acceptable – and more importantly

sellable – pre-packaged entities. Hollywood, California’s Universal Studios owns the rights to

Dracula – in essence Disneyification becomes Draculafication (allbusiness.com).

However, I have high hopes for the Japanese Yokai as much as I do for the ever

industrious, warm and welcoming people of Japan, a people who were able to rise phoenix-like

from out of the ashes of the postwar, post-nuclear age of the mid 20th Century and transform

their nation into an economic and cultural powerhouse to be reckoned with.

In conclusion, the three most dominant paradigms examined so far of what may safely be

classified as vampires in Japan are the Kappa, the Japanese Vampire Cat of Nabeshima, and the

various spider legends of the country. It should be noted that the next on my list is the Nure-

onna, the Japanese Snake Woman. But that’ll be another tale to be told now, won’t it?

Lastly, in lieu of recent terribly tragic events surrounding the 11 March 2011 earthquake,

tsunami and nuclear nightmare, I wish to go on record by stating that as an amateur folklore

researcher, it is far too soon to start examining the next point I bring up, as time must pass before

we start examining the future of the folklore in post-Tsunami 2011 Japan. But there shall come a

time I hope when the Japanese people are able to use their folklore and folklorism in whatever
STETS, SCOTT
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amalgamations they may so choose at their disposal in order to better heal their national

infrastructure, their future and most importantly, themselves.

Thank you for reading. SS


STETS, SCOTT
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http://www.allbusiness.com/services/motion-pictures/4851938-1.html

http://www.batcon.org/pdfs/nmexico/MexicoCaveBatsENGLISHb.pdf

http://bunraku.org/bbpagemar2009repertoire.html

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kappa_Mikey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga

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http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13015/13015-h/13015-h.htm

http://hyakumonogatari.com/category/kappa-stories/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0164402/

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3020.html – additional information and resources if you plan on

visiting Kappabashi Street.

http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/miyazaki_hayao.shtml

http://www.japanprobe.com/2009/10/28/kappa-attack-in-japan/

http://www.kappamikey.com/characters.htm

http://www.nancygarden.com

http://www.nichibun.ac.jp/welcome_e.htm

http://vampire-d.com/home.php

http://www.vampyres-online.com/lady_vampire.html

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/entertainment/ghibli/cnt_interview_20051226_02.htm
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Image Sources

All images copyright 2011 Scott Richard Stets/Phoenix Rising Films unless otherwise indicated

as having an image source caption:

Stets, Scott Richard. “Sensō-ji Temple, Tokyo”. 2011. JPEG file.

Stets, Scott Richard. “Kappa-bashi sign”. 2011. JPEG file.

Stets, Scott Richard. “DO NOT DIG sign on telephone pole”. 2011. JPEG file.

Stets, Scott Richard. “Cute construction sign”. 2011. JPEG file.

Stets, Scott Richard. “Sogenji (Kappa Dera) Temple”. 2011. JPEG file.

Stets, Scott Richard. “Kappa Scroll at Sogenji (Kappa Dera) Temple”. 2011. JPEG file.

Stets, Scott Richard. “Kappa mummified hand”. 2011. JPEG file.

Stets, Scott Richard. “Kappa-bashi sign”. 2011. JPEG file.

Stets, Scott Richard. “Kappa with incense burning sara”. 2011. JPEG file.

Stets, Scott Richard. “Tōno wintry landscape”. 2011. JPEG file.

Stets, Scott Richard. “Tōno red Kappa”. 2011. JPEG file.

Stets, Scott Richard. “Tōno ‘Coppers’ Kappa-shaped police station”. 2011. JPEG file.

Stets, Scott Richard. “Tōno wintry landscape II”. 2011. JPEG file.

Stets, Scott Richard. “Jokenji Temple”. 2011. JPEG file.

Stets, Scott Richard. “The Bridge over the Haseki River leading to the Kappa-buchi”. 2011.

JPEG file.

Stets, Scott Richard. “Mama Kappa breastfeeding her young, while cucumber gifts lean against

her”. 2011. JPEG file.


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Stets, Scott Richard. “Kappa Shrine on Heseki River bank at Kappa-buchi”. 2011. JPEG file.

Stets, Scott Richard. “How much is that Kappa in the window?”. 2011. JPEG file.

Stets, Scott Richard. “Tōno’s old-school Kappa reminisce about the good ole days”. 2011. JPEG

file.

http://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/k/kappa.htm – Master’s paper cover image source

misswargo...paces.com/Dracula – Source for Bela Lugosi in Dracula (1931) image

http://www.solarnavigator.net/mythology/vampires.htm – Source for Christopher Lee Dracula

image

http://peggyfirestone.com/creativework/index.html – Source for Ernest Griset, from the 1893

illustrated edition of Vikram and the Vampire

http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/play/tokyo-map-terror-143802 – Source for “Tokyo: Town of

Terror” map

Image Source: www.tenchinohoukai.greatnow.com/backgroundinfo/weapons

Sosen, Mori. Monkey Performing the Sanbaso Dance.

http://www.pacificasiamuseum.org/japanesepaintings/html/popup/2_1a.stm

printsofjapan.com – Source for Kappa farting.

www.seasaltwithfood.com/2009_01_01_archive.html - Image source for Kappamaki dish

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13015/13015-h/13015-h.htm#image201 (The Vampire Cat of

Nabeshima I)

robojapan.blogspot.com/201007/scare-cra...with.html (The Vampire Cat of Nabeshima II)

http://visipix.dynalias.com (Vampire Spider Print I by Utagawa Kuniyoshi)

robojapan.blogspot.com/201007/scare-cra...with.html (Vampire Spider Print II – image source)


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http://www.baxleystamps.com/litho/hasegawa/spider.shtml (Vampire Spider Print III – image

source)

http://www.subwaycinema.com/nyaff10/films/death-kappa.php

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Kyuketsuki-ga_poster.jpg – Image source

for Japanese Movie Poster for “The Vampire Moth”

http://www.vampyres-online.com/lady_vampire_stills.html

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