Tanuki: Mythology Part 1

Summary: Tanuki are also animals that are wrapped in mythology. Join Kiersten as she talks about the complicated mythology involving raccoon dogs.

 

For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean

 

Show Notes:

https://mythick.com/tanuki

https://wildinjapan.wordpress.com

https://livejapan.com

https://www.curiuosordinary.com

https://sakura.co

Music written and performed by Katherine Camp

 

Transcript 

(Piano music plays)

Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.

(Piano music stops)

Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 

This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.

The seventh and eighth thing I like about the Tanuki is the mythology surrounding this interesting animal. Mythology involving the tanuki is odd but abundant, so it will get two episodes. 

When I began doing research on the raccoon dog the first thing that popped up was Japanese mythology involving the tanuki. It wasn’t was I was looking for so I just pushed it aside and kept digging for the natural history of the raccoon dog. As you know, I haven’t found as much information as I’d like on this lovely canine, but I thought, why not talk a little bit about the mythology built around this curious creature. It is inspired by the live animal, after all.

Mythology often originates through the need for humans to explain the unexplainable. In doing that, we have attributed some very interesting qualities to the tanuki.

The Tanuki of mythology are bit complicated. They are portrayed as trouble makers, but also as entities that help humans. Original stories depict tanuki as evil doers with bad luck that possess humans. But later stories describe them as harmless pranksters. The Japanese word translated into English can be either monster tanuki or trickster tanuki. 

The earliest mention of the tanuki, as the mythological entity, is  from the second oldest written book in Japanese history. Finished in 720 by the prince of the imperial court. It mentions tanuki as shapeshifting creatures that cause a lot of trouble. Mythological tanuki bear a striking resemblance to the real life creature with a few exaggerated attributes, but we will talk more about that in the next episode.

What can we look forward to if we run into a mythological tanuki? Let’s look at a few folk tales to see what we might be in for.

Before we jump in, I apologize for butchering any of the Japanese names I am about to mention.

Bunbuku Chagama is the tale of a tanuki that transforms into a tea-kettle. It does this to repay a poor man who helped free it from a trap. I guess he was so poor he could not afford a tea kettle so that could be very useful. Anyway, the tanuki couldn’t withstand the heat from the fire and then became stuck and was unable to completely transform into the tanuki again. So he stayed with the old man and performed tightrope walking to earn money for the old man. This doesn’t sound too bad. Strange, but not too bad.

Shoji Tanuki Bayashi is the tale of a group of tanuki that try to scare away priests from a temple by transforming into various yokai, which are ghosts or demons. It was working until a new priest arrived and was not afraid of the apparitions, so the tanuki try to drive him away with noise by holding nightly parties. The priest sneaks into the party and deciding that they look like they’re having fun begins to play his shamisen, a tree-stringed traditional Japanese instrument. The tanuki took this a a challenge and replied by beating their bellies even louder. Mythological tanuki have large pot-bellies that they use like drums. The musical battle persisted for four nights. The leader of the tanuki beats too hard on his belly, killing himself. Hey, it’s all fun and games until someone pops a belly, right?

This last tale is a bit more gruesome. Kachi-kachi Yama is the dark story of  devious tanuki. A childless old couple that lived in the mountains had a special friend that they treated like a child, a wild hare. The couple also had a enemy, a raccoon dog. The raccoon dog openly taunted them and stole from their garden. One day the old man caught the raccoon dog and gave it to his wife asking her to make tanuki stew. Th etanuki pleaded for his life and begged the old woman to let him go. Being kind hearted, she released the tanuki who repaid her by beating her to death with a hammer. Some stories continue to tell how the tanuki made a stew out of the old woman and disguised himself as her until the old man came home and sat down to a hot bowl of tanuki stew. The raccoon dog then reveals who he is and what the old man is eating.

The tanuki runs away after the murder and deceit. When the hare hears about what happens it promises revenge and sets a trap for the tanuki. Stories vary, but the most common trap is the hare tricking the raccoon dog into carrying a bundle of firewood on its back. When the tanuki is completely involved in its task, the hare lights the wood on fire, taking revenge on the killer raccoon dog. 

This story is pretty bad. The first two were mostly harmless fun, but feeding someone wife to them, that’s dark. Throughout Japanese history, the mythological tanuki has been evil and vengeful as well as charming and playful. I guess it all depends on the outcome.

That’s all for the first half of Tanuki Mythology I can’t wait to share part two with you because the mythology of the Japanese tanuki is my seventh and eight favorite thing about them.

 

If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 

 

Join me next week for another fascinating episode about Tanuki.    

 

(Piano Music plays) 

This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.