Japanese Ghosts Week 7a Outline: Intro to Foxes
I. Review of yôkai
A. Modern Example: Amabie
1. Amabie as an example of an obscure yôkai that takes hold globally in response to current conditions (discussed this first class, just briefly review here)
a. Amabie first appears off the coast of Higo in Kumamoto prefecture in 1846
1) From the poster (kawaraban) of the original:
Every night something brightly lit would appear in the sea of Higo. When a local official went out to take a look, something like what is in the picture here appeared and said, "I live in the sea and am called Amabie. For the next six years, there will be abundant harvests throughout the provinces, but disease will spread, so make haste to copy [an image of] me and show it to the people." So saying, it returned back into the sea. The image on the right [actually on the left in the image] is what was copied by the official and brought to Edo.
b. "Apotropaeic": having the power to ward off evil influences or bad luck.
1. Images and texts reproduced for their apotropaic effects go back to the earliest period of Japanese religion. Eg. Blood pool hell sutra
c. Mizuki Shigeru's 1986 image
Mizuki Productions posted on Twitter 3/17/20:
This is an “Amabie.” We took a photo of Mizuki Shigeru’s original drawing. It’s a being…closer in nature to a divine entity than a Y?kai. In the Edo Period, it appeared in the sea off of Kumamoto and instructed, “If pestilence spreads, draw my image and quickly show it to everyone.” With that, its figure disappeared back into the sea. May it rid us of the current pandemic.
https://twitter.com/mizukipro/status/1239818518536704001
d. Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare Twitter image posted 4/8/20
1) Warning; STOP! shiranai uchi ni, hiromechau kara (Because it spreads before you know it)
e. Video: Amabie (a new Noh play, first performed 12/2020) ;
1) see also this video of a performance of Takasago at the Harada Shrine in Osaka, also part of ritual prayers against the Corona virus
f. What anxieties and issues do images of Amabie address? How does the noh play contribute? What does the noh need to add for the Amabie yokai to work as theater?
II. Foxes
A. Natural characteristics (image)
B. Supernatural characteristics:
1. character: smart/crafty brain, likes food and sex (because it is a beast), when it speaks often crude
2. Development:
a. 100 years can bewitch
b. 500 years can easily transform into a human or any shape
c. 1000 years, turns white (or gold), full power (can fly, control tama flames, create illusions), nine tails (Pokemon Vulpix)
3. Kitsunebi (fox fire): explanation for lights (flames) in marshes at night
C. Four interrelated forms (in basic chronological order of development)
1. Fox as messenger of Inari (Deity of Rice Harvest) and by extension Fukutenjin (Heavenly Deity of Good Fortune) or Daikokutenjin (Heavenly Deity of Harvest)
a. Why are foxes related to Inari harvest deity?
b. What do they love to eat?
2. Fox possession (often combines illness and hysterical) (10th c. onwards)
a. symptoms?
b. one possible goal of fox possession?
3. Foxes taking the shape of human beings and other things (12th c. onwards)
4. Fox ownership (12 c. but prejudice kicks in 17-19th c.)
a. Use of Dakini esoteric Buddhist ritual to control foxes develops late medieval into Edo period
A. What are the signs of fox possession in contemporary exorcisms? (p. 300)
1. altered personality: facial expression and hand gestures
2. mode of eating
3. lose memory, sense of cleanliness, sometimes power of speech
4. when speaks, uses dry cracked voice, and uncouth language
B. Why do foxes possess people?
1.Reason:
a. Appropriate response?
2. Reason:
a. Appropriate response?
C. If a fox is controlled, what two categories of people control them?3. Fox as neglected, amoral part of mind uttering shocking comments can be redeemed and made into power for good
4. Other reason: fox ownership
a. Appropriate response?
D. According to Carmen Blacker, why are people accused of fox ownership? (pp. 56-60)1. Solitary sorceror: in EDO PERIOD often a degenerate priest or exorcist, who uses foxes to get wealthy or to get revenge.
a. example: Blacker, pp. 53-54: woman possessed by fox sent by ascetic who is employed by wife of man she is having an affair with. Ascetic got control of fox because one of her cubs ate fried tofu. Manages to exorcise by promising to add fox to retinue of Inari deity.
(Kabuki image of fox ownership from play, Ogura no Shikishi, performed in Osaka in 1852, so very late)
2. Families (transmitted through the female line)a. often families who have suddenly become wealthy: wealth understood to come from control of foxes
b. families are stigmatized and ostracised from village life
3. What do fox owners use to control them?
a. Izuna or Dakini (Dagini) ritual (click here and scroll down)
1) Dakini-ten = derived from a demonic Tantric Hindu female deity Hariti, a child eater who was transformed by an encounter with the Buddha into guardian deity of Buddhism; in esoteric Buddhism she is a deity who protects women and children; also associated with Inari Deity
2) Dakini ritual was thought to give the performer magical control over foxes, worldly benefits
b. Tokugawa period version of how you get control of a fox
1) Ritual
1. untested slander: accusation made by exorcist, or possessed person themselves
2. Historical study (p. 60)
a. 17th-18th c. newly rich landowners
b. resentment
c. inflamed by religious specialists (Esoteric Buddhist priests, yamabushi, onmyoji)
1. similiar to witchcraft accusations
3. Who benefits?
4. Relationship to development of Burakumin (social outcastes)
5. Point that people really see the foxes
a. fox ownership not always seen as negative if you properly worship deity associated with foxes
E. Psychology of religion: trying to find someone or something to blame for your misfortune, to explain it
IV. Video: excerpt from Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (Yume) "Sunshine Through the Rain" (from 2:00 to 12:50)
A. What fox beliefs are visualized here? [image]
B. What does the way the foxes move indicate about their nature?