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Hey hey. It’s me, Thersa Matsuura — author of Legends of Japanese Mythology, The Yōkai Oracle Deck, and the soon to be published Dark Tales from Japan. And you’re listening to Uncanny Japan. The place where I talk about all the more obscure parts of Japanese culture. Be it strange creatures, interesting superstitions, or creepy tales.
It’s T minus four days before I take off on my sudden cross country trip up Japan to the northernmost island Hokkaido, and back again. Unless I meet a disgruntled or ravenous bear. Then it was really wonderful knowing you all. I had a good run. In lieu of a bear stick, I did buy some bear spray. But if the bear just wants to hang out and chill, it would rude to use it. So I’ll play it be ear. I’m kidding. You can get the image of me driving along with the windows down a chonky black bear in the passenger’s seat, leaning its head out, wind blowing through its fur, tongue dangling out of your head right now. Not going to happen.
I’m excited. I’m nervous. I’m scared. But I think I’m making progress on getting ready. I’ve finagled a bed in the Cube. Remember I’m in my mother-in-law’s old house, the one where she hoarded *EVERYTHING*. Well, that’s coming in handy, actually.
You know zabuton — those thin square cushions you sit on around a low kotatsu table. Well, she has a million of them. So I used some of those to even out the bumpy seats, then I bought a cheap sleeping mat to put on top of that. Tadah~! bed or nest. I’ll let you be the judge. I did throw in a bunch of fluffy blankets.
Next, I went hunting for cloth. She was a seamstress, so if you think she had a lot of zabuton pillows, let me introduce you to the closets and rooms chock full of material. I found some bright red — has to be from the sixties — cloth with big flowers all over it. Ha! This is turning into my Hippie Mobile. Anyway, bought some stuff and going to rig up curtains for the windows.
Um…what else? Since the car doesn’t have a navigation system or even a place to put my phone, I did buy a holder. So now I can navigate a little. I bought an old fashioned road map of northern Japan as well, because I’ve been up in mountains, lost, with zero signal. That’s all fun and games when you’re in your own prefecture, but I’m heading into more mountainous country, so I’d rather not get out of my car to judge the lay of the land and … Hello, bear! Or face-eating monkey. Or wolf? I just naturally segued into the wolf Shrine I want to visit. Where the legendary Prince Yamato Takeru got hopelessly lost and was rescued by a white wolf. This trip could go one of two ways.
One more thing. Remember my bell crickets? I had like 26 of them or something at the beginning of summer. Well, tis the winter of their life journeys. They’re all getting old and creaky, and passing away. The guys have done their parts, the females have laid eggs. There are only like five left. It’s quite heartbreaking. At night a solitary love song with not near the energy it had a month ago. Grandpa cricket singing to grandma cricket. But the thing is I can’t leave them. So this journey might be renamed: North Before the Snow with Crickets. I’m not sure I can find anyone to watch them…so what a wonder. I bet they never in their wildest dreams thought they’d be going on a road trip.
So anyway, all that to say, I’m not exactly sure when I’m getting back. I definitely won’t be here for the next episode in two weeks. But, maa~ybe the week after that. I’m quite winging it *she says nervously* I know I’m forgetting something, something big. Did I leave the gas on? Water funning? Doors unlocked? I’ll be posting updates on insta, bluesky, patreon quips. And I’m also experimenting with little spoken-word journals or audio updates to do along the way complete with photos or little videos for kitsune and above patrons.
Okay, now, let’s learn more about the wonderful world of mountain superstitions in Japan. I’ve already covered the biggies in Japanese Superstitions Part One (Ep. 6), Japanese Superstitions Part 2: Spider Lilies and Ghostly Trees (Ep. 41) and then Food Superstitions (Ep. 56), Good Luck Superstitions (Ep. 91) and Crow Myths and Superstitions (Ep. 113).
So, let’s go a little more obscure, a little more local, and a little more Touhoku (the area I’ll be driving around in) today. If I were making this trek, let’s say two hundred years ago, what peculiar rules would I have been expected to follow?
Let’s start with Miyagi Prefecture. Back in the day, hunters were warned against saying the the word monkey. Saru. It was unlucky and if you uttered it, it might bring injury or an unsuccessful hunt. Remember the word “saru” sounds like the same word for “to leave” or “to depart”. And is also a euphemism for death. So waking up and talking about monkeys — as we all do, but especially hunters — is basically inviting departure, an accident, or someone’s demise.
Now here’s the fun part. Maybe you NEED to talk about a monkey. Maybe your friend is getting their pack ready and you see a face-eating monkey on a branch right over their shoulder. What do you do? Instead of: Look saru! You’d say: Look! etekō.
Suddenly the monkey has a new name. This is interesting. Ete means “forte” or “specialty” or “strength”. Since monkeys are “clever” and “good at things” it used to refer to them. Kō is a suffix used to personify something. It can be affectionate or a little mocking depending on the usage. But in this case, think of etekō as something like Mr. Monkey or Monkey Boy.
Even monkey trainers or sarumawashi would use etekō because again saru being a homophone meaning “to leave” might mysteriously encourage money leave their pocketbooks.
So rule number one. Don’t talk about monkeys before or while going into the mountains. And if you absolutely have to, remember the line: There’s an etekō behind you.
Now how about Fukushima Prefecture? Here we get a little contradictory superstition.
On one hand there are quite a few sayings that whatever you do, do not sing in the mountains. My favorite one of these is the story of a sumi charcoal making man was walking through a mountain pass just singing a traditional song as he went along. When suddenly the mountain god appears and says, “you’re singing that wrong. Stop.” It turns out the mountain god loved traditional songs, but was not fond of humans getting them wrong.
Another reason not to sing, and this is also from Fukushima, is that if you do, the mountains god will think there’s a party going on and descend looking to join in. But it’s not what you think. It’s not like it gets angry that it’s just you out there singing to your hearts content. No. It’s that when a mountain god approaches all the animals flee. So if you’re a hunter, that’s bad news. Which makes me think then that if you’re a person who doesn’t want to be torn limb from limb by a bear…maybe you DO want to sing.
In Toyama Prefecture, it’s a little more comprehensive: don’t even whistle or hum in the mountains… or else. Another Toyama superstition is that if you start singing popular songs the mountain god will be so caught up in the music that it will forget to protect the mountain children and they might get injured. Think of the mountain children.
A word about mountain gods. Oftentimes when these old tales talk of mountain gods they are referring to tengu. Those tall, long-nosed, red-faced creatures. And that makes sense. Especially when you consider certain mountains are thought to have a single tengu residing on them and that it’s their mountain.
Okay, so there’s all this “don’t sing or whistle or even hum when you’re in the mountains lest something bad happen”. But then you get – also from Fukushima Prefecture — Make sure you cough or sing in order to get the mountain gods attention. If you are quiet and you surprise it, you might get spirited away or “hidden”. Which kind of makes me think that perhaps people back in the day someone surprised a bear and then ended up, um, disappearing. When the kids ask where’s dad, a mountain god whisked him away, would be a kinder story than the alternative.
Here’s a superstition that is also a lovely image. In Akita and Yamagata Prefectures, autumn is the time when the rice-field god returns to the mountains and on this particular day no one should enter the forest.
An quick aside: when I went to the mountain god ceremony last spring in the secret location as the first ever foreigner to observe the over one-thousand-year old ritual, the Shinto priest also said the same thing. That on a certain day in autumn, the rice field god goes back into the mountain and then later — the spring day I went – the mountain god was returning to the fields to watch over them.
Anyway, let’s go back to Akita and Yamagata for the nice image. Because a record states that on this day the mountain god counts the trees and it is forbidden to cut any down. I like the visual of a tengu taking inventory of his forest.
Next: Bears! Since my animal mantra for this trip seems to be something like monkeys, wolves, and bears, oh my! Crickets in there somewhere. Anyway, bears again. In Yamagata prefecture, in place called ōbune, Kawanishi Town, it was local taboo to give anyone a name with the kuma (bear) character in it. This is interesting, because back in the Edo Period, having kuma/bear in your name wasn’t especially strange at all.
A woman could simply be named “Bear”. God I love that. You have a baby and you’re looking into that precious little face, thinking about all the kanji you could name her with. Light, love, dreams, and you and your spouse exchange a glance and nod and go: Bear. There’s also Okuma. A little more polite.
Random fact: There is a historical record in 1727 of a woman called Shirokoya Okuma who became involved in a notorious Edo murder conspiracy. She was the daughter of a timber merchant and had an affair with one of the shop employees and somehow there was a plot to murder her husband. Poor Okuma was sentenced to death, but her story lived on because it inspired a puppet theater play and kabuki production. I guess that’s what you get for named your child Bear?
Masculine versions would be Kumazō or Yurikuma. So if you entered this town you’d have to change your name. Kumazō might become Yoshizō. For example.
I’m going to pause on this village for a minute because while it doesn’t say why a name with the word bear in it was taboo, there were some other bear superstitions.
People were actually forbidden to hunt bears here. And if you witnessed a bear hunt you might get stomach pains. Also, don’t cultivate sesame here. Whut? Well, that’s because the god of the bear shrine once injured its eye on a sesame plant! I love that.
We got our bears and monkeys. I talked about wolves last episode. Let’s end with a snake taboo because they’re cool, too.
In Akita Prefecture, Higashi Naruse to be exact, there is an old saying that says if you point at a snake your finger will rot. But don’t worry there’s a remedy. If you accidentally point at a snake — let’s say you think you’re pointing at a stick and it’s actually really a snake — you can prevent your finger from rotting by biting it!
In Fukushima it’s not just a snake but also a lizard. Don’t point at a lizard either.
Now since I’ll be heading to Hokkaido, let’s do a superstition from there.
Never whistle underground. This comes from mining folklore, but it’s believed that whistling before entering a coal mine or while underground might call the mine deity’s guard dog away and he’ll be left unprotected. Yet another great image. A great god of the mine and his trusty dog. Also, his dog that just romps off if anyone whistles.
Okay. I will leave you for now. Wish me luck! Follow me on the socials if you’re interested in updates, where I am, what interesting thing might be happening. For more in depth reports, those will go up on patreon Kappa tiers and above. If you’d like to help support the show and my writing
