. densetsu 伝説 Legends from Japan .
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Tanuki and Sake Legends 狸とお酒
. Sake 酒 and local (monster) legends 妖怪伝説 .
- Introduction -
. Tanuki 狸 Badger, Racoon Dog .
- Introduction -
source : rakuten.co.jp/tyaka3kayo
滋賀県陶芸の森 Shiga Ken Togei no Mori Park
- Information from the yokai database
- source : www.nichibun.ac.jp
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- - - - - General - - - - -
In Kyoto and other areas there is a song about the Mameda 豆狸 （まめだ）, on his way to buy sake.
酒飼い豆狸の歌 The Song of Mameda
雨がしょぼしょぼ降る晩に、豆狸が徳利持って酒かいに、酒屋のぼんさん泣いていた。
なあんで泣くかと聞いたらば、豆狸のお金が木葉ゆえ。
ame no shobo shobo furu ban ni mameda ga tokkuri motte sake kai ni
sakaya no bon san naite ita
naande naku ka to kiitaraba mameda no okane ga mokuyoo yue
source : 信楽たぬきの日 - Shigaraki
On a rainy night Mameda went out with his tokkuri to buy sake -
So why is the sake shop owner crying?
When asked why he cries so much he explained
that the money he got from Mameda turned into leaves of trees.
豆狸 Mame Tanuki, small tanuki
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Aichi 愛知県
Once an old hag came by the tea shop of an old man and asked the way to the temple Zenko-Ji in Nagano. After a few days she was back, quite exhausted. When the old man gave her some sake to relax, she became very tired and fell asleep. In her sleep she revealed her true form - a tanuki. The old man wanted to catch her alive and went to get some help. But by the time they returned the tanuki (and the old woman) were nowhere to be seen any more.
. Zenkooji 善光寺 Zenko-Ji in Nagano .
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Akita 秋田県
Usagi and Tanuki 兎と狸 the rabbit and the tanuki
Once a rabbit and a tanuki met in the mountain forest, so they went together to cut some rushes. When they had finished, both went home to their wives and had some sake. But then the food was not enough, so they took a small boat made of rush leaves ササ舟 to go fishing in the sea.
While they were out, there came a huge storm and they could not find their way back to the beach. They struggled in vain and both died.
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- and for good measure -
A monster from 徳島県 三好郡 Miyoshi in Tokushima featuring the usagi-tanuki 兎狸 （うさぎたぬき / うさぎだぬき） Usagidanuki
source : ぼやき日記
He lives on a hill along the river Yoshinogawa 吉野川. He likes to run along very slowly so hunters think to have an easy pray. Some hunters have come here many times but in vain - no one ever caught the Rabbit-Tanuki.
source : しげおか秀満の妖怪大図鑑 Shigeoka
. . . CLICK here for more Photos !
source : www.nichibun.ac.jp/YoukaiGazouCard
. Kachi-Kachi Yama かちかち山 The Crackling Mountain Story .
Legend with a Tanuki and a Rabbit.
source : facebook
Usagi Yojimbo battles the Bunbuku Chagama
A Showa period kamishibai
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Ehime 愛媛県
On a clear moon night a tanuki went to buy sake at the shop at Ipponmatsu 一本松の酒屋. When it came to paying, he pretended to be bewitched and climbed a persimmon tree, swinging his bowl. The ower threw stones at him and the tanuki fell down, but when the owner wanted to catch him, it simply vanished.
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Once a tanuki wanted to catch some fish and took a lantern to the beach. He fixed the lantern and had some sake to relax while waiting. But then - alas - the lantern just disappeared.
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A charcoal maker came home from the Shrine festival, where he had too much sake. So the tanuki lured him away from his kiln and into the rice paddies, where he stumbled around, singing and mumbling and quite beside himself. When he came to his senses it was way into the morning.
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Hyogo 兵庫県
At the Sakurai Theater there was a tanuki named 三吉 Sankichi. Once he had a terrible cough and could not talk any more. After offering some ritual sake (o-miki 神酒) and ritual rice with red beans and fried tofu, he was cured and could do his duty on stage again.
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まめだ Mameda
Once a man spit on the side of a sake tank in the factory.
So Mameda came to bewitch him to spend three days and three nights in the empty tank. When the others finally found him he had many lumps on his body which spread all over his skin in no time.
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Kagawa 香川県
徳利狸 Tokkuri Tanuki
Sometimes a tanuki shape-shifts into a sake tokkuri and lies on the road. When someone bends down to pick up the flask, it turns back to its animal shape.
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Tanuki called Takahashi Iemon 狸のたかはしいえもん
Once a man who usually never drunk any sake begun drinking daily and did not work any more.
They called a faith healer to read the sutras and bring him back to normal. When he was all cured, the Tanuki Takahashi Iemon, who had possessed the good man, disappeared.
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One night a man on his way home was bewitched by a tanuki and wandered around the road not knowing where he was going. Then he came to a waterfall where many people were enjoying a theater performance and drunk sake. At that time his family at home begun to worry about his late coming and thought he might be bewitched by a tanuki. So they went to search him and came to the waterfall, where he was just about to fall into the water.
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Mie 三重県
狸，大入道 Tanuki and Onyudo from Yokkaichi 四日市市
During the main festival of the shrine 諏訪神社 Suwa Jinja there are various festival floats with からくり人形 mechanical dolls.
From the ward 桶之町 there comes O-Nyudo, from the ward 蔵町 Kuramachi there comes a tanuki.
Some say this O-Nyudo is a bewitched form of the Tanuki. He sometimes rolls sake barrels through the town.
source : happytown.orahoo.com
. Oonyuudoo 大入道 O-Nyudo Monster .
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Nara 奈良県
Once a man, drunk with sake, was on his way home late at night after 12, when a tanuki bewitched him. He just wandered around and did not really leave the spot at all, but he kept walking.
In the morning when he came to his senses he was very close to his home.
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oote kure Jizoo おうてくれ地蔵さん Carrying a Jizo piggyback
Once upon a time three young men had been drinking till late at night and were on their way home. They met an old woman who asked them carry her piggyback. So one took her on his back and they went home. When he let her down, it was a stone statue of Jizo Bosatsu. So he started to scold the Jizo for this practical joke with the heavy burden on his back, but Jizo excused himself and then taught them a lesson: the young men should never to walk home so late and drunk at night, because their parents would worry so much.
But maybe all of this was the deed of a Tanuki ?!
(Other sources quote a young man alone on the road.)
- source : www.pref.nara.jp
. Jizo Bosatsu 地蔵菩薩 Kshitigarbha .
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Niigata 新潟県
On Sado Island 佐渡 there is a similar song about a tanuki who went out to buy some sake:
「狸が徳利持って酒買いにいくよな
けにはゆかりょか 佐渡えーよ」
Sado is famous for its
. Danzaburō the Tanuki 団三郎狸 - Danzaburo-danuki .
河鍋暁斎画『狂斎百図』より「佐渡国同三狸」- by Kawanabe Kyosai
Danzaburo is one of the three great Tanuki of Japan.
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He is the head of all Tanuki on Sado Island 佐渡 and credited with ridding the island of all foxes. There are numerous tales.
In one, Danzaburo lent money to many people, but many failed to pay him back, so Danzaburo stopped lending.
He is also held responsible for mirages at Futatsu-iwa 二つ岩 in Aikawa 相川 (Sado Island).
- source : Mark Schumacher
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This story dates back to 1925.
The woodworkers had transported logs down to the river 津川 Tusgawa and were on their way back after a good drink of sake to celebrate the finished job. It was night when they walked back upstream. At a place where usually there lived no people, suddenly a woman dressed in a kasuri kimono came up.
She must be bewitched, the woodworkers thought at once and followed her down the slope. Then they threatened her with a long pole. The turned into a surprized tanuki and jumped into the field, but the woodworkers caught the animal.
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Tonchibo トンチボ, Tonchiboo トンチボウ Tanuki from Sado
Tonchibo is also a local name for the Deity of the Forest, Yama no Kami 山の神, and thus a taboo word for the local fisherman.
When farmers walk along a road while drunk with sake, the Tonchibo とんちぼ / 頓智坊 likes to surprize them and make them fall into water puddles.
He likes to play his tricks on people, so they take a radio and maches to make fire when entering the forest to work there.
Lately this animal does not find enough food in the forest and comes out to check the fields of farmers too. It is quite a nuisance.
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Osaka 大阪府
Once in winter
a man who had been working in the fields did not feel well and hurried home fast to go to bed. Then he asked his wife to bring him some sake and fried tofu. When she prepared the food and sake he emptied the plate and sake flask in no time.
"Now I will go home" he said suddenly and walked out.
The wife followed him and found him by the cedar tree near Hirakata station, quite a walk from her home. He had been bewitched by a hungry tanuki and was just coming to himself.
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Saitama 埼玉県
Once upon a time
a charcoal maker from 名栗村 Naguri village had a drink of sake in the evening to sleep better. There suddenly came a priest in black robes that looked like dyed with charcoal, and the two begun to drink together. This happened many nights in a row and the charcoal maker became suspicious.
One evening the said he could grill some rice dumplings, took the tongs to handle charcoal from the open hearth and picked out some hot stones from the fire. But one stone fell on the robe of the priest. So the priest cried out "Oooh, That's hot hot hot !!" and jumped outside.
On the next morning, they found an old tanuki with many burns dead on the road.
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Once upon a time
an old couple lived in a lone home and one evening a man came by asking them to let him sit by the open hearth to get some warmth. They let him in and well, the man kept coming back night after night. Eventually they became suspiciouss that their visitor was a tanuki.
So the next day they offered him some rice dumplings and gave him some sake. When he was quite drunk and warm by the fire the couple saw some leaves falling out of his robe. Now it was time ! So they threw some hot stoned from the fireplace between his legs. And indeed, a tanuki jumped out of the house in high speed!
And their strange visitor never came back.
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- reference -
- source : www.nichibun.ac.jp - 狸
- source : ttp://www.nichibun.ac.jp - タヌキ
. Sake 酒 and local (monster) legends 妖怪伝説 .
- Introduction -
- - - #tanukilegends #tanukisake - - - - -
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fukuju tanuki 福寿たぬき for a long life
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What About Tanuki’s Sake Flask?
Tanuki artwork commonly portrays the creature holding a sake flask (tokkuri 徳利) in his right hand, but sometimes the flask appears in the left hand (no significance should be attributed to this difference). The sake flask depicted today on nearly all Tanuki ceramic statues is commonly traced back to a stanza from a popular old children's song in the Osaka and Kyoto sake-brewing areas. Although the exact date is unclear, the modern Association of Shigaraki Ceramic Companies as well as authorities at the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park (SCCP) believe it surfaced sometime in the late Muromachi era (late 16th century). Whatever its origins, the stanza was well known by the early 18th century and goes like this:
Ame no shobo shobo furu ban ni, mameda ga tokkuri motte sake kai ni
雨のしょぼしょぼ降る晩に 豆狸（まめだ）が徳利持って酒買いに.
Roughly translated, it means
"On nights of non-stop drizzling rain, a small tanuki (mameda 豆狸) comes with a sake flask (tokkuri) to procure sake."
There is actually a second part to the verse:
酒屋の前で ビンめんで. 帰って お母やんに怒られた or
酒屋の前で ビンめんで. 帰って お父さんに怒られた
Roughly translated, it means
“In front of the sake shop a small tanuki dips his flask; and then gets into hot water (trouble) when the shop-owner's wife returns [or the shop owner himself].
The Association of Shigaraki Ceramic Companies also adds: "From the late 16th century onward, the Nada brewing region [Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe area] was a center of sake production in Japan. The common folk came with tokkuri in hand to procure sake from the barrels of the brewers and then returned home. They often came with their children, who were allowed to perform the pouring. This popular practice was probably the origin of Tanuki okinomo 置物 (decorative carvings) known as Sake Kai Kozō no Tanuki 酒買い小僧の狸 [lit. = Tanuki as youthful Buddhist acolyte, or errand boy, procuring sake]. Additionally, the Nada brewers began to spread the story that delicious sake could only be made at breweries inhabited by a mameda 豆狸 (small tanuki)."
More about Rain and Tanuki.
The Chinese charageter Mái 霾 (Jp. = Bai), which means misty or foggy, is composed of two characters 雨 + 貍 -- the radical for rain 雨 and the old character for tanuki 貍. In the Japanese text Shinchomonshū Ryakki 新著聞集畧記 (circa 1700), we learn about an old spook monk who lived nearly 200 years at a certain monastery. But when he was killed by a dog, his true mujina form was revealed. Before his death, the mujina had written some unreadable characters and included a red seal containing the character 霾 (rain 雨 + tanuki 貍). The author of the Shinchomonshū adds:
"In Japan as well as in China there are a great number of legends in which tanuki and mujina transformed themselves into men and discussed all kinds of things........these animals live in holes, yet they know when it will rain. This is all due to the supernatural power of the tanuki and mujina. But it is a strange fact that the old rnujina of this legend, who had lived for such a long time among men and possessed such enormous magical power, could be killed by a mere dog."
Sources: Association of Shigaraki Ceramic Companies // Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park // Yakimono (Ceramics) Guide from Asahi.com.
What About Hachi ㊇ Symbol on Tanuki’s Sake Flask?
Known as the Maru Hachi まる八 or the Maru Hachi Tokkuri まる八徳利, it refers to the symbol for “Eight” (hachi 八) drawn inside a circle ㊇ on the sake flask carried by Tanuki. Note, however, that the circle is often omitted in modern artwork. The emblem originated in the Edo period and is the crest-of-armor (mon 紋) for the branch of the Tokugawa 徳川 family controlling the old province (kuni) of Owari 尾張 (present-day Nagoya City and Aichi Prefecture) -- the most powerful Tokugawa domain outside the shogunate itself. It stands for the eight Owari districts controlled by the clan in those bygone days. In 1907, it was adopted as the emblem of Nagoya City.
However, the Maru Hachi ㊇ wasn’t introduced to Tanuki artwork until the early 20th century. Since it was a trusted emblem of Edo-era Japan, artists likely incorporated the motif as a visual ploy to ease Tanuki’s procurement of sake. The Maru Hachi ㊇ should not be conflated with the modern-day commercial grouping known as Tanuki’s Eight Virtues. The latter is a contemporary contrivance of business firms, temples, and cities selling Tanuki merchandise. As one of the eight, the sake flask supposedly symbolizes gratitude for one's daily food and also the merits of eating and drinking in moderation.
Wow !! Tanuki has completely shed his evil ways and is now a champion of gratefulness and restraint.
That’s powerful shape-shifting !!
- - - - - More information about the tanuki by
- Mark Schumacher -
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