Even more real than you
Among so many other things, I've been really into kappa lately.The kappa belief, therefore, may embody deeply rooted anal and scatological associations. Anal-erotic links indeed seem evident in the stories that describe the victim of a shirikodama attack smiling somewhat ecstatically at the instant of violation. The kappa's obsession with the shiri 尻 (buttocks, hips) is made apparent in legends that describe the kappa hiding in a toilet, waiting to stroke or fondle a female victim's shiri. Although this particular habit of the kappa is not considered a murderous one, it portrays the kappa as a mischievous and sexually threatening creature; Ône somewhat facetiously labels the kappa a "pioneer of sexual harassment". Orikuchi points out that, in the past, toilets were often situated above rivers; more important, however, is his suggestion that if we go back to an early legend of a kappa transforming itself into a red lacquered arrow and entering the "shy place" of a woman, we can see that the kappa's objective in hiding in the toilet is not necessarily to take the shirikodama. Indeed, stories of kappa raping women are common. Yanagita, for example, reports:In a household beside the river in Matsuzaki village women have become pregnant with kappa's children for up to two generations. When they are born, these children are hacked to pieces, put into small wine casts, and buried in the ground. They are grotesque.
This is from The Metamorphosis of the Kappa: Transformation of Folklore to Folklorism in Japan by Michael Dylan Foster (Asian Folklore Studies, vol 57, 1998; 1-24). A good read.
That kappa victim isn't smiling ecstatically... I've thought of the shirikodama as a jewel, but apparently it looks more like an onion.
I find the idea of kappas children terribly sad. Obviously they actually did hack newborn babies to pieces in Matsuzaki, but they certainly weren't really kappa-rape babies.
But the kappa in the picture are still being complete assholes...
The book club meeting yesterday went really nicely, and afterwards we had a little sushi. It was yummy. These past few days have been totally awesome.
I've been thinking about tags too. At times I find that I want to find a particular entry, and weeding through them is insanely hard because the entries are named after quotes or song lyrics or passages from books or just random nonsense. Some are apt, some are random. So I've been wondering if I should go back and tag everything.
The problem is that I feel I should first device a set of tags that would correspond with my limited interests, because if I just go in and start tagging, I'm afraid I'll tag everything as "crap" or "BS", and end up with a bunch of nondescriptive and inconsistent tags like "random crap" or "what the hell". Alas. Although "random" would be a good tag to have...
This is from The Metamorphosis of the Kappa: Transformation of Folklore to Folklorism in Japan by Michael Dylan Foster (Asian Folklore Studies, vol 57, 1998; 1-24). A good read.
That kappa victim isn't smiling ecstatically... I've thought of the shirikodama as a jewel, but apparently it looks more like an onion.
I find the idea of kappas children terribly sad. Obviously they actually did hack newborn babies to pieces in Matsuzaki, but they certainly weren't really kappa-rape babies.
But the kappa in the picture are still being complete assholes...
The book club meeting yesterday went really nicely, and afterwards we had a little sushi. It was yummy. These past few days have been totally awesome.
I've been thinking about tags too. At times I find that I want to find a particular entry, and weeding through them is insanely hard because the entries are named after quotes or song lyrics or passages from books or just random nonsense. Some are apt, some are random. So I've been wondering if I should go back and tag everything.
The problem is that I feel I should first device a set of tags that would correspond with my limited interests, because if I just go in and start tagging, I'm afraid I'll tag everything as "crap" or "BS", and end up with a bunch of nondescriptive and inconsistent tags like "random crap" or "what the hell". Alas. Although "random" would be a good tag to have...