CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 28, Number 4, August-October I987

? I987 by The Wenner-GrenFoundationfor AnthropologicalResearch.All rights reserved OOII-3204/87/2804-OOi8$i.oo

The sacred child (d6 i) of Japanese traditional culture

takes a variety of forms and appears as an important
The Dragon Palace symbol in various kinds of cultural texts.2 I shall here
mainly be concerned with the Dragon Palace child
(Ryf1gii-d6i), particularly its structural and historical re-
Child lations to the fortune child (fuku-go) of oral tradition and
to the riverbank dwellers known as kawaramono, who
actually existed. In doing so, I will present a new inter-
An Anthropological and pretation of the Dragon Palace child.
My past concems have been the little-studied themes
Sociohistorical Approach' of possessing spirits (tsukimono), monster spirits
(y6kai), outsiders (ijin), and abnormalchildren (ij6ii). I
consider it urgently necessary to reinvestigate these
comparatively neglected themes from the structural per-
by Kazuhiko Komatsu spective if we are ever to grasp the totality of Japanese
folk culture. Furthermore, it is on exactly these aspects
that the rapidly developing social history of Japan ex-
pects contributions from folklore studies.
KAZUHIKO KOMATSU is Associate Professorof Anthropologyand Studies of Japanese folk society so far have focussed
JapaneseFolklore at Osaka University (Machikaneyamai-i, To- mainly upon its idealised formal aspects and shown lit-
yonaka-shi, Osaka 56o). Bom in 1947, he was educated at Saitama tle concem for the reality beneath the surface, recog-
University (B.A., 197o) and at Tokyo MetropolitanUniversity nised by the people but kept secret from outsiders. As a
(M.A., 1972). Beforecoming to Osaka in I983, he taught at Sinshu
University. He has done anthropologicalfieldwork in Japanesevil- result, the Japanese folk society that most folklorists
lages and on Pulap Atoll, Central Carolines, Micronesia.His re- depict is a more or less flawless utopia in which there
search interests are oral tradition and folk religion, especially were only good people living together happily. Certainly,
legends of the stranger.He is the author of Hydrei shinko ron (On folk society had some aspects that we modem urban
spirit possession) (Tokyo: Arina Shobo, I984), Kamigamino
seishinshi (Historyof Japanesedeities) (Tokyo:Hokuto Shuppan, people yearn for, but it also had aspects that we frown
I985), and on Ijin ron (On strangers)(Tokyo: Seidosha, i985). on. More important, these latter aspects were taken for
granted by the people of the folk society of the past. As
anthropology wams us, in approaching the folk culture
we need to set aside value judgements as much as possi-
ble. I call the study of these various cultural items over-
looked by folklorists the folklore of "externality" or "ab-
normality," because most of these items tended to be
evaluated as (positively or negatively) abnormal in folk
society and, furthermore, linked with the cosmological
or social "outside" of the village community. I believe
that, by illuminating these cultural aspects, we will be
able to throw more light upon the "normal" aspects and
to see more clearly the light and shade of the totality of
the culture. Under the influence of structural anthropol-
ogy, I would like to make it clear that there is a struc-
tural similarity between the concepts of Dragon Palace
child, fortune child, demon child (oni-go), and riverbank
people and thus to interpret them as interrelated.

The Ambivalence of Deities and Spirits

As Higo (I938) and Matsudaira II943, I946) have empha-
sised, Japanese deities (kami) are ambivalent towards
human beings. However good a deity is thought to be, he
may bring misfortune upon men if their treatment of
him calls for it, and, conversely, the most violent deity
may do men a favour in some situations. In short, a deity

2. Another dominant symbol in Japanesetraditional culture is the

okina (old man), often depicted with white hair and beard. This
stands in opposition to the child, but I shall not discuss it in this
I. Translatedby Yoshie Sugino. article.

S3I

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S32 1 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 28, Number 4, August-October 1987

may be both good and bad. This duality was expressed by Origuchi (i965) says that the essential nature of Japa-
the ancient Japanese in terms of peaceful and violent nese deities is that they visit human society to confer
spirits. When the peaceful spirit (nigi-mitama) of a deity blessings. He formalises this concept by coining the
is more active than his violent spirit (ara-mitama), he term marebito (rarepersons) in reference to deities. As a
brings benefit to men. When his violent spirit is more folklorist influenced by igth-century evolutionist an-
active, he brings misfortune, and therefore it is neces- thropology, he concludes that this concept of marebito
sary to appease the violent spirit or even to expel the applies to the early period of Japanese culture but is
deity himself (Ouwehand I958-59, Ohnuki-Tiemey gradually superseded by the notion of monster spirits or
I984). an emphasis on the evil side of deities. He applied the
From ancient times, Japanese have coped with the ac- same explanation to strangers who visited the village;
tive violent spirit in two ways. One is appeasement they became more often identified with monster spirits
through enshrinement (matsuriage): building a shrine, than with benevolent gods. To sum up, for him a histor-
large or small, to receive the god in, chanting Shinto ical transition was discernible in the concept of both
incantations or Buddhist scripture, and offering food, deity and stranger. They were originally beings that were
dance, and music. Japanese traditional theatre, No and benevolent and welcomed but in the course of time
Kabuki, for example, is derived from such performances came to be thought of as malignant and to be avoided.
(cf. Komatsu i983). In many places in Japan there are However, even assuming that such a tendency is dis-
legends in which a religious traveller-itinerant priest cernible in the history of Japanese folk religion, it does
(rokubu), mountain monk (yamabushi), or pilgrim (jun- not exhaustively explain all spirits and strangers in vari-
rei)-has been secretly killed by a villager and his venge- ous written and orally transmitted texts, because, in all
ful ghost haunts not only the murderer but other vil- ages, the initial attitude of villagers towards visits of
lagers as well (for example, by causing an epidemic). In unknown deities and strangers is ambivalent. Similarly,
these villages, there is always a small shrine to appease these deities and strangers are likely to show an ambiva-
the ghost (Komatsu I985b, i986a). The other way of lent attitude towards the villagers (Yoshida i98i). What
dealing with the violent spirit was expulsion or extermi- matters is what sort of relation there is between people
nation with the help of the stronger power of another and deities as strangers in a particular text, what sort of
active violent spirit, the magical power of a magician, or relation the particular text has to other texts of the same
the physical or magical power of a hero. An example of category, and what sort of relation the text has to other
this is found in the myth of the Yamata-no-orochi (a texts of different categories.
huge serpent with eight heads and eight tails), a monster
demanding sacrifices, killed by the god Susanoo. An-
other example is the exorcism by mountain monks of The Dragon Palace Child
the spirit of a fox or snake that has possessed a person
and thus caused him illness (Ishizuka I959, Komatsu The general plot of the tale of the Dragon Palace child is
I984, Yoshida I97 2). as follows (Seki I978: 8-22):
"Monster spirits" (y6kai) applies to deities usually in a Once upon a time, there was an old man in Higo (mod-
state of active violent spirit, other deities that have been ern Kumamoto Prefecture in Kyushu). He used to go to a
enshrined but whose violent spirit is active for some nearby town to sell firewood, which he cut on the moun-
reason, and still others too weak to be worth enshrining tain, for a living. One day, the firewood did not sell at all,
(Komatsu i983). The ultimate form of the unenshrined and he became so tired that he threw it into a river from
violent spirit is the demon (oni), evolved under the in- a bridge and prayed to Ryfijin (the dragon god, the god of
fluence of Buddhism and the Chinese concept of god water). Suddenly, as he was about to leave, from the
expressed in the philosophy of yin and yang. water appeared a beautiful woman with a child in her
In accordance with the ambivalence of Japanese dei- arms. She said, "Ryuijin of the Dragon Palace wants to
ties, the Dragon Palace child, depending on the situa- give you this child in return for your firewood. It is
tion, may manifest either of the two opposite characters. called Hanatare Kozo sama (Snotty-nosed Brat), and it
will grant you any request, but, in return, you must offer
it a shrimp a day." Then she went back into the water.
Outsiders The old man returned home with the child in his
arms, put it beside his Shinto altar, and reared it care-
Beings from outside that visit the village can be divided fully. Since the child, with a snort, would produce any-
into two categories: mythical outsiders, spirits from the thing he asked for, the old man soon became incredibly
Other World that appear in myths and folktales and are rich. However, he gradually grew tired of having to go to
impersonated in rituals, and social outsiders such as reli- town every day to buy a shrimp to offer it, and one day,
gious travellers, pedlars, and tramps. I would include at last, he said to Snotty-nosed Brat, "I have nothing to
babies in the latter category. As Pitt-Rivers (i963) points ask of you any more, so please go back to the Dragon
out, taking the strangers of ancient Greece as an ex- Palace." The child went out silently, and just outside the
ample, from ancient times these two analytical catego- house, it began to snort, and thereupon the old man's
ries of "outsiders" have often merged in people's minds. house and storehouses disappeared one by one until all
For example, there have been occasions on which a beg- but the original squalid house were gone. The old man,
gar monk was suspected of being a god in disguise. realising the seriousness of thesiuto, rushed out of

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 KOMATSU The Dragon Palace Child IS33

the house to call the child back, but he could not find Princess Maiden (Oto-hime) of the Dragon Palace or to
any trace of it. Childbirth Woman (Ubume), the monster spirit that ap-
Similar stories have been recorded in many regions of pears with a baby in its arms.
Japan.The name of the child varies, and in some texts no 5. The reason so many variants attribute ugliness to
name is given and it is called just "the child." In folklore the child is that people generally had contempt for it.
studies, because of the common feature that this child 6. The child is related to the "room child" (zashiki-
comes from the Dragon Palace, this category of story is warashi) thought to live in houses in northeastern Japan
known as "The Dragon Palace Child." and also to the child guardian of Buddhist precepts goho-
The texts included in this category have many varia- dbji, a child-shaped familiar spirit of ascetics and high
tions. The above example involves only one human be- priests of the esoteric.
ing, the old man, but in some versions there is also his 7. It is also related to the "as-you-wish" children
old wife, who gets rid of the child while the old man is (Kokoroe-d6ji or Nyoi-d6ji) acquired by the hero of a
away. Still other versions employ the pattern often mediaeval legend in the Dragon Palace, where he had
found in Japanese folktales of "the other old man next been invited in return for helping a snake by killing a
door," a greedy old man living next door to a good one. In monstrous centipede.
these versions, as in other stories of this pattern, the old 8. These tales were always linked with the rise and fall
man next door borrows the child from the good old man of certain families.
and in the end kills it out of greed. Further, while in my 9. The ancient infant water spirit was demoted to be-
example the old man receives the child from the woman come the water imp (kappa), the monster spirit (y6kai)
who appears from the world beneath the water, there is a that lived in rivers, and the Dragon Palace child.
variant in which he is taken to the Dragon Palace and, Thus Yanagita (I969:58) pointed to the existence of
having been entertained, receives the child as a gift (Seki elements and motifs similar to the Dragon Palace child
I966, Komatsu I985a, Naito I985). in other tales told in folk society, legends, and literature
There are variations in other elements of the story as and claimed that "each of these stories has been thought
well, but my example has the simplest plot and struc- to have a different origin, but, when examined carefully,
ture while still fully expressing the main theme com- there is the same deep-rooted mentality underlying all of
mon to this category of story. However, it may be noted them." In short, he speculated that this old tale was one
that in a number of versions what the child produces is of the variants which derived from the ancient myth of
limited to gold or rice and in a few the old man receives, the infant water god. Since Yanagita, like Origuchi, was
instead of a child, a wooden hammer that produces influenced by evolutionist anthropologists such as
wealth with each blow and is thought to belong to a Frazer,the aim of his research was to discover the histor-
demon, an animal considered to link this world and the ical continuity between the infant water god of mythol-
Other World (pupp), or a figure or "doll" of Daikoku, ogy and Dragon Palace child of folktales and then to
who even today is worshipped as one of the gods of explain the latter as a degraded form of the former.
wealth. The reason I mention these versions is that the Stimulated by the work of Yanagita, the anthropolo-
child of this category of story is usually silent, as if it gist Ishida (I97ob) has examined the origin of the image
were the statue of a deity or a doll, and is always placed of this child from the standpoint of world culture his-
on the family altar or in some similar place in the house. tory. He takes special notice of the motif that Snotty-
nosed Brat was handed to the old man by a beautiful
woman who emerged from the water. Then he in-
Past Interpretations troduces many sorts of legends and folktales from all
ages and countries that he regards as relics of the ancient
The first folklorist to examine this tale was Yanagita sacred Mother and Child and Earth Mother goddess and
(I969), the founder of Japanese folklore studies. He explains that the beautiful woman who is a messenger
pointed out the ancient Japanese conceptualisation of from the Dragon Palace and the child she brings with her
the water spirit (or sea spirit) as a child and argued that are vestiges of the motif of the sacred Mother and Child
the Dragon Palace child is a form of the infant water (P. I75): "The hidden significance of the various stories
deity. Whether or not his argument is valid, I would like about infants can, I believe, be elucidated by recalling
to list the quite suggestive points that he thought one and connecting with them the theme of motherhood
should take into consideration in order to understand that underlies these stories." However, among the tales
this tale: of the Dragon Palace child, there is no description of the
i. This tale is older than those that follow the pattern woman from the Dragon Palace and the child as mother
of "the old man next door." and child. Therefore, Ishida's hypothesis remains un-
2. It is important that the old man offers valuable verifiable grand theory.
things to the dragon (the water god) without hesitation. Seki (i966:95-96) has criticised Ishida as follows:
3. In many variants Odoshi (New Year's Eve) is the day
on which the child is received. It is thought that the What he was concerned with was just the motif of
New Year deity makes its annual visit to each home on the infant, but we are dealing with the totality of the
this day, and good omens are most likely to occur at this folktale, of which the infant is one element. The rela-
time. tion between the folktale as a whole and each motif
4. The woman who appears with the child is related to that contributes to it may well be compared to the

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S34 1 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 28, Number 4, August-October 1987

relation between a cultural complex and each cul- and therefore the tale depicts the child as producing
tural element that contributes to it.... Ishida's hy- wealth. For him to produce it, certain rules are imposed
pothesis, advanced from the viewpoint of world his- upon the old man; he must place the child beside the
tory, may perhaps be well-grounded, but that a family altar, like a family guardian god, and offer it food
mother-like figure appears from the water with an in- every day. This is appeasement through enshrinement of
fant in her arms is only one motif and not the entire a mythical outsider, and through it the old man activates
text. Only when it is connected with other motifs the peaceful spirit (nigi-mitama) of the child and enjoys
and, together with them, constitutes a consistent its benefits. In expelling the child, he activates its vio-
construction does the story have meaning. The antiq- lent spirit (ara-mitama), and it takes away the wealth it
uity of a motif does not directly imply the antiquity has produced. Therefore, when we look at this story
of the tale. morphologically, the living conditions of this old man go
Seki is not entirely repudiating Ishida's hypothesis here. through a cyclic change, poor -> rich -> poor. Since the
coming and going of this wealth coincides entirely with
He is claiming that, even if the woman and the child are
the coming and going of the child, the child apparently
mother and child, it is impossible to understand the
symbolizes wealth.
main theme of this folktale solely from this relation be-
Most of the versions depict the Dragon Palace child
tween them (p. I03): "When we look at this category of
as ugly or as physically or mentally abnormal. In my
folktales as a whole, the main theme is not to explain
example, too, it is described as "snotty" and therefore
the miracle of birth but rather to try to convey an ethos.
is obviously "marked." In other variants it is called
Therefore, the motif of the infant is not essential to this
Shiragabuga-ko (white-all-over child) or Aho (fool). Fur-
folktale but secondarily borrowed." He identifies the
ther, as I have already pointed out, this child seldom
ethical theme as "He who tries to get everything loses
speaks and in one variant is, instead of a child, the sort of
everything."
idol called shotoku-daishi (for Crown Prince Shotoku, a
I support Seki's standpoint and consider his criticism
politician of the turn of the 6th and 7th centuries, who is
of Ishida's hypothesis valid, but I cannot agree with him
thought to have introduced Buddhism from China and
that the motif of the child is not essential to this tale.
accomplished major political reforms and was even-
Even if "He who tries to get everything loses every-
tually deified and worshipped in the Middle Ages). An-
thing" is the universal moral conveyed in this tale, it
other version tells us, as I have indicated, that the old
remains to be explained why Japanese folk society chose
man received a jet-black idol of Daikoku, a god of wealth
the motif of gain and loss of wealth through a child to
in Japan since the Middle Ages. These examples suggest
express it.
that a child and a doll or idol are on occasion inter-
My own interpretation of the tale of the Dragon Palace
changeable.
child is a modest one. I consider it neither as derived
from the myth of the infant water god nor as a remnant Why, then, is the child described as ugly? Yanagita
held that it was to show contempt for it and, further,
of the ancient cult of the sacred Mother and Child nor as
that the point of this story is that since wealth is pro-
the conveyor of a universal moral but strictly within the
duced by such a child, "a person cannot be judged by his
cultural context of the folk society in which it has been
appearance." But my interpretation goes farther than
transmitted. From this perspective, the Dragon Palace
this. The child in the tale is not just an ordinary child
child must be (i) considered as an instance of the
but necessarily an abnormal one. Because of its abnor-
"visitors from the Other World" discussed earlier, (2)
mality, it was given the role of mediator who brings
compared folkloristically or synchronically to the con-
wealth from the Other World. The attitude of people
cept of the fortune child (fuku-go), (3) compared
towards abnormality is always ambivalent. When it is
sociohistorically or diachronically to the riverbank peo-
judged to be of a desirable kind it is welcomed, and when
ple (kawaramono), and (4) explained in relation to these
it is judged to be of an undesirable kind it is avoided.
concepts. When we approach these tales from this stand-
This fact is expressed in this tale, in which, after wor-
point, we find that Yanagita's notes on this category of
shipping the child with the abnormal features as a god,
tales turn out to be important guidelines for this investi-
the old man expels it as a nuisance.
gation as well, though in a quite different way than he
Why should the child be depicted in some versions as
intended.
mentally or physically disabled? The following tale,
clearly a transformation of "The Dragon Palace Child"
although it has seldom received the attention of folklor-
An Anthropological Analysis ists, suggests the reason (Seki i966:IO2-3):
The wife of a carpenter called Heiroku has somehow
"The Dragon Palace Child" has two basic oppositions, borne a child with only one eye, one side of the body, and
Other World (the Dragon Palace) : human world (the one leg. One day, she wraps up the baby in cloths, for she
village) and dragon god: old man, with communication feels deeply ashamed of it, and goes to town with it on
between the two in the form of a direct exchange of her back. On the way she meets an old man bent with
firewood for the child. Accordingly, both the firewood age who tells her that the child is a treasure child (tak-
and the child represent wealth. But the child, unlike the ara-go) and that if she places it in front of the family
firewood, is not itself regarded as wealth in folk society, Buddhist altar and gives it a grain of polished rice a day it

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 KOMATSU The Dragon Palace Child IS35

will produce rice worth one ry6 (a monetary unit of the to my theme to note that the child born of the sexual
Edo era) a day. She tells her husband about this, and they relation between a human female and a demon is a typi-
do what she has been told until they have four or five cal unilateral figure and that, although he works to save
ry6. Then, they become greedier and give many grains of his mother, he is, in the end, eliminated from both the
rice all at once, thinking that many grains will produce human world and the world of the demon. In short, an
as many ryo, and go out. When they return home, they abnormal child may be welcomed, but he may also be
find the child dead, and they become poor as before. rejected. Actually, there are many Japanese legends and
There is an obvious morphological parallel between folktales in which an abnormal child is judged to be a
this tale, called "Heiroku as Before," and "The Dragon demon child (oni-go) that brings misfortune to its family
Palace Child." The former is constructed by transform- and others and is killed, thrown into a river, or aban-
ing the child from a mythical outsider to a social out- doned on a mountain (Komatsu i985a).
sider, that is, to a human baby from its mother's womb. Was there, then, any relation between the actual view
The two children retain the common features of being of children in folk society and these abnormal children
physically abnormal and of having come to the human of folktales? Yes, there was. People dealt with actual
world in order to enrich a particular household, but abnormal children in the same manner. As I have
"Heiroku as Before" lacks the motif of the exchange of pointed out, most Japanese folklorists have studied "nor-
firewood for the child. No explanation is given for the mal" people. For this reason, little is known about the
birth of such an abnormal child to the carpenter's wife, way in which children considered abnormal in folk soci-
but Japanese legends and folktales often attribute such a ety, such as the mentally and physically handicapped,
birth to (i) a god's response to supplication for a baby, (2) were dealt with. Recently, however, a study by the folk-
marriage or sexual intercourse with a monster spirit or a lorists Ono and Shiba (i983) has shed some light on this
divine animal, or (3)the curse of a deity or a spirit of the problem. According to them, in the folk society of the
dead (Komatsu i985a). Therefore, an average Japanese past, a child with some mental or physical handicap was
audience on hearing that the couple has an abnormal called a fortune child (fuku-go, takara-go, or fuku-suke),
child will guess without being told of it some sort of and it was thought that, if it were raised with great care,
prior interaction with a spirit from the Other World. it would bring wealth to the household. My own data
In passing, it is noteworthy that the treasure child in from Osaka and Kochi Prefecture confirm that, until a
this tale is described not just as physically disabled but few decades ago, handicapped children were well cared
as having only one eye, one side of the body, and one for on the basis of the same sort of ideology, and I pre-
leg-a "half-man," in anthropological terms, or, in sume that this practice was fairly common in many
Needham's (i980) terminology, a "unilateral figure." parts of Japan.
This sort of image appears not only in this tale but in Ono and Shiba have, however, overlooked a very im-
other categories of folktale as well. The most typical one portant point. Since the focus of their study is the work-
is a tale called "Kozuna, the Demon's Child" (Seki ings of traditional social welfare in folk society, they do
I978:253-68; cf. Komatsu i986b): not even touch upon the other side of the reality, in
One day, a man is asked by a demon whether or not he which an abnormal child might be killed or abandoned
likes rice cake, and he answers that he likes it so much as an oni-go or kappa. In fact, abnormal children were
that he would exchange his wife for it. Then the demon sometimes judged favourable and brought up as fortune
gives him a rice cake and takes away his wife. The man children and sometimes judged unfavourable and elimi-
searches for his wife for ten years and at last goes over to nated. Furthermore, from my own data it can be inferred
the island where the demon lives. He meets a boy called that, rather than households' becoming wealthier be-
Kata-go (half-child) whose right half is demon and left cause they brought up fortune children, they could af-
half is human and is taken to the demon's house, where ford to bring up the handicapped because they were rich,
he finds his wife. The man races the demon in rice-cake while poor families, though well aware of the folklore,
eating, wood cutting, and sake drinking and wins all the were obliged to kill these children secretly as demon
games with the help of the half-child. The demon gets children because of their poverty.
drunk, and, taking advantage of this, the three escape in The tale of the Dragon Palace child is connected with
a boat. On discovering this, the demon tries to drink up the notion of an abnormal child as a gift from god that
the sea, but the half-child makes him laugh and disgorge may bring good fortune. We can understand why the
it and they return home safely. But then, at home, the Dragon Palace child is child-shaped, ugly, and able to
half-child is talked about by the people of the neighbour- bring wealth from the fact that it corresponds to the
hood as a demon's child and finds life so difficult that, fortune child in real life. On the other hand, there are
having told them how to defend themselves against de- some tales in which a child from the Other World is
mons, he commits suicide. depicted as the object of expulsion, as we have seen in
I will not go into this tale in detail,3 but it is important
human world and the world of demons, and accordinglythey some-
3. Needham (ig60) explains the unilateral figures in terms of the times become mediators between the two worlds and at other
Jungiannotion of the archetype,but I think that this interpretation times are expelled from both. In short, they can be understoodfrom
may be too hasty. The unilateral figures in Japanesefolktales are a structural point of view. Unilateral figures should be examined
located between this world and the Other World or between the within the cultural context of each society.

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S36 1 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 28, Number 4, August-October I987

the case of the half-child in "Kozuna, the Demon's historians such as Inoue (I974), Amino (I978, I984,
Child." They, too, had a parallel in real life, namely, the i986), Yokoi (I975), Kuroda (I986a, b) and Miura (i982),
notion of the demon child. Actually, the Dragon Palace I could not have arrived at this theory. Looking at the
child itself is depicted in the story as a being which is water imp and the Dragon Palace child within a socio-
both welcomed and rejected. In the same way as the historical context, it seems to me that they appear in the
fortune child and the demon child are opposed in real sphere in which the mythical outsider and the social
life, the Dragon Palace child or treasure child and the outsider overlap.
demon child or half-child are opposed in folktales. These Similar stories of the origin of the water imp have been
oppositions correspond to that between the peaceful collected from various parts of Japan (Yanagita I969,
spirit and the violent spirit. If people judged the abnor- Origuchi I966, Ishikawa I974, Kamino i983). It is said
mality of a newborn as a manifestation of a peaceful that a carpenter faced with a difficult task such as the
spirit, the child was defined as a fortune child, while if construction of channels, roads, temples, and shrines
they considered it a manifestation of a violent spirit it made dolls and by means of magic breathed life into
was defined as a demon child. them so that they were able to move like men. The dolls
worked at his command, and with their help he com-
pleted his task by the appointed time. Having finished,
A Sociohistorical Interpretation he was at a loss about what to do with the dolls and
discarded them in a river or in the sea. They turned into
To explain why the Other World in the tale of the water imps and began dragging cows, horses, and chil-
Dragon Palace child is described as underwater and why dren into the water. Thus, the water imp was originally a
the visitor from there is a child, we have to look at his- doll and the servant of a carpenter. Most of the carpen-
tory. As Yanagita (i969) and Nakamura (197I) have ters who appear in these legends were deified master
pointed out, a legend in which a warrior called Tawara carpenters such as Hida no Takumi (the master car-
no Tota was given two children who worked his will is penter of Hida), Takeda no Bansho (the master carpenter
recorded in a mid-i5th-century book and was well of Takeda), and Hidari Jingoro, and such masters used
known to people of later generations. These two chil- dolls as their helpers.
dren, called Kokoroe-doji or Nyoi-doji,4 apparently are of The water imp is a mythical being that appears for the
the same type as the Dragon Palace child, with the result first time in Edo-era literature, and the legend of its ori-
that many scholars infer that the tale involving the lat- gin may have been created at about the same time. In
ter was derived from this sort of mediaeval legend. Jinten aino-sho, a document of the i 5th century, there is
Yanagita (I969), further, agreed that the Dragon Palace a legend that has almost the same structure as these
child of folktales is of the same type as the water imp legends and is, I think, their source. This is the legend of
(kappa), considered real in folk society and found in the origin of the Kiko family, the court carpenters of the
legends and folktales. This assumption is supported by time. According to the legend, a long time ago, Hida no
the fact that the image of the water imp and that of the Takumi made a wooden doll and made it work on the
Dragon Palace child overlap when traced to their ori- construction of the royal palace. The doll had inter-
gins,5 which Yanagita sees in mythology and Ishida in course with a court lady, who bore a baby. This baby was
the Mother and Child of very ancient times. My own named Kiko (wooden child), and, they say, the Kiko fam-
theory is that the image began to develop at about the ily is descended from it. Here we see the motif of the
end of the Heian era and became established in the late abnormal marriage between a wooden doll and a human
Middle Ages.6 I suggest that the original model of both female and, as a consequence, the birth of an abnormal
the Dragon Palace child and the water imp is found in child. This motif is not found in the legends of the origin
the kawaramono, the people who lived along the river of the water imp. Rather, it is similar in its structural
and engaged in non-agricultural work. It is no exaggera- position to the half-child in "Kozuma, the Demon's
tion to say that, without the recent studies of social Child." In Sh6senshi, an early Edo-era record, however,
we find other legends which mediate between the
legends of origin of the water imp and of the Kiko family.
4. There is a category of tales about an "as-you-wish"jewel (nyoi- They are the legends told by popular entertainers (pup-
hdjui)held by the dragongod that, accordingto Abe (I986), is said to peteers) who lived on riverbanks and belonged to the
allow the person acquiringit to become a greatking or sorcererand
lead a rich and free life. The "as-you-wish"child may be regarded kawaramono about their own origin. One is as follows:
as a transformationof this "as-you-wish"jewel. The onmy6ji (yin-yang master) Abe no Seimei, who
5. As is suggested by Ouwehand (i964), the water imp has the was active in the Heian era and deified as supreme mas-
characteristicsof a trickster. My concem here is to examine from a ter of the system by masters of later generations, made a
sociohistorical point of view how it acquiredthese characteristics. doll and threw it
Ishida (I970) has also studied the water imp, but since he adopts away on a riverbank. It had sexual
Yanagita'spoint of view he is mainly concemed with ancient be- intercourse with a human being, and the child borm of
liefs rather than social history. this union became an outcast (hinin, lit. "non-person").
6. "Ryuigu,"the palace of the king of the underwaterworld, appears The other is the following:
in literature from the Middle Ages onward. This is usually ex- Hida no Takumi or Takeda no Bansh6 made a doll and
plained as a consequence of a belief in the dragon god found in
Buddhist scriptures. In ancient Japan,the underwater world was put it to work on the construction of the royal palace. A
called "the land of Watatsumi (the sea god)." court lady made love to the doll and bore a child. On the

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 KOMATSU The Dragon Palace Child IS37

completion of the construction, the doll was discarded night, the big snake, assuming the form of a beautiful
on a riverbank, where it began the work of flaying cows young woman, visited the inn where he was staying and
and horses. This is the origin of the hinin. asked him to kill a monstrous centipede that was caus-
Hinin is the generic name for people outside the ordi- ing her a great deal of trouble. After a hard battle, Tota
nary Japanese status hierarchy in the Middle Ages. killed the monster. Next moming, the woman appeared
These people engaged in the sort of work other people and took Tota, in return for his effort, to the Dragon
abhorred and had their communities on riverbanks and Palace under the water beneath the Seta bridge, where he
hillsides or in valleys. They were called eta (the much was received warmly by the dragon god and given vari-
polluted) as well as hinin and were discriminated ous gifts, with which he retumed to this world.
against, despised, and, in many cases, identified with The gifts that Tawara no Tota brought back from the
demons. Moreover, interestingly, these people were also Dragon Palace are customarily called the "Ten Trea-
called d6ji (child)7 because men and women alike wore sures." According to Nakamura (I 97 I), not every variant
their hair the way ordinary people wore it only as chil- enumerates all ten, nor are the ten kinds always identi-
dren. Among these hinin who wore their hair like chil- cal. However, some kinds of treasure are common to
dren, the kawaramono lived along the riverbanks and many variants. Among them are a straw bag (tawara)
engaged in non-agricultural work related to rivers. Abe that produces rice inexhaustibly (it is because of this
no Seimei is depicted in legends as telling fortunes and that the hero is given the name Tawara) and two "chil-
practising magic with the help of a familiar spirit, a de- dren" called Nyoi-doji or Kokoroe-doji (both names
mon called Shikishin in the shape of a child. This helper meaning a child who grants whatever one wishes). Later
demon was left under a bridge near his house when it records tell us that the descendants of these two served
was not in use. In one Edo-era record, Shutsuraisai- the family of Tawara no Tota for a long time, displaying
Ky6miyage, it is said that its descendants are riverbank great skill in the construction of roads and channels;
people. Lower-class yin-yang teachers were actually thus the image of riverbank people was also attached to
included in the category of hinin and kawaramono at them.
that time. It may be noted that one of the characteristics Thus we have explained why the Dragon Palace child
of their magic was the use of dolls made of paper or other comes from the underwater world and why it is a child.
materials representing gods. My examination so far has also to some extent answered
To put the evidence together, the riverbank people the question why the Dragon Palace child may be re-
were "children" living on the riverbank and were viewed placed by a "doll." In the Middle Ages, the Dragon Pal-
by ordinary people as both social and mythical outsiders. ace child as a mythical outsider corresponded to and
The water imp of folk legends can be said to have settled overlapped with the riverbank people as social outsiders,
in folk society as a transformed descendant of these and when the legend was brought into folk society it
riverbank people. underwent a process of transformation whereby its cor-
How is the Dragon Palace child related to these? As I responding social outsider became the abnormal child.
have already mentioned, the legend of children acquired
from the Dragon Palace is found in a I5th-century doc-
ument. Briefly, the legend is as follows (Matsumoto Conclusion
I980:87-I42):
Once upon a time, a warrior called Tawara no Tota I have interpreted the Dragon Palace child from a view-
was about to cross the Seta bridge in the land of Omi point different from those of Yanagita, Ishida, and Seki,
(modem Shiga Prefecture) when he saw a huge snake namely, that of anthropology and social history. I have
lying on the bridge. Without fear, he strode over it. That shown that it is a mediator between the Other World
and the human world and that it corresponds socially to
the fortune child of folk society and historically to the
7. Kuroda(1986b) finds the explanation for the multiple meanings
of the word d6ji in the dual nature of the mediaeval status hierar- riverbank people. The Dragon Palace child brings wealth
chy. In the Middle Ages, there were parallel secular and religious to a household; the fortune child was thought to do so,
hierarchies.In the former, the emperor,consideredthe purest, was too. The riverbank people, through their technology,
situated at the top, and below him were strata of aristocrats(upper also brought wealth to people, though they were treated
and lower), warriors(upperand lower), etc. Outside the hierarchy, as outsiders and despised. At the same time, they were
or rather not yet incorporatedinto it, were "children"(d6ji, war-
rawa), intermediate between this world and the Other. Corre- feared by ordinary people as a potential cause of disaster.
sponding to this, in the religious hierarchy, the highest stratum Taking them as a living model, with an emphasis upon
consisted of the high priests, who were sons of emperorsand aris- this negative aspect, were the mediaeval legend of the
tocrats. At the bottom were the non-persons (hinin)-also called "as-you-wish" children and such folktales as "Kozuna,
riverbankpeople (kawaramono),hillside people (sakano mono), or
valley people (tani no mono)-who belonged to prominent Bud- the Demon's Child." The water imp of folktales was also
dhist temples and Shinto shrines but were not given a full place in based upon the riverbank people. Judging from the fact
the hierarchy. Because they performed "polluted" work such as that its social equivalent, the abnormal child, was often
street-cleaning,laying out and burying the dead, disposing of dead killed or abandoned in the same way as one who was
cows and horses, and manufacturingleather goods, they were re-
gardedas being between this world and the Other as well and, like regarded as a demon child, the water imp, too, was
those excluded from the secular hierarchy, were called "children" derived from the negative image of the latter as a cause
(d5ji). of disaster. However, there are some legends in which

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S38 1 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 28, Number 4, August-October I987

a water imp made a particular household wealthier, and folk culture: Stranger-killing legends and their trans-
in these legends it is structurally transformed into the formation. Paper prepared for Wenner-Gren Founda-
Dragon Palace child. tion for Anthropological Research Symposium ioo,
It is clear that, viewed in its social and sociohistorical "Symbolism through Time," Fez, Morocco.
context, the Dragon Palace child corresponds in com- . I986b. "Nihon mukashi-banashi ni miru irui-
plicated ways to other d6ji (children). I believe that I kon-in: 'Oni no Ko' o megutte" (Marriagewith non-
have at least to some extent succeeded in showing that humans in Japanese folktales, with special reference
the dbji is an important symbol in Japanese culture. to "The Demon's Child"), in Kotoba to bunka (Lan-
guage and culture). Edited by the Society for the
Study of Japanese Language and Culture of Osaka
University, pp. I63-88. Tokyo: Bonjinsha.
KURODA, HIDEO. I986a. Sugata to shigusano chusei-
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