Kappa: different stories at the water’s edge

A water-filled dish on the head, a childlike body, a shell and webbed limbs occur in familiar accounts. Other descriptions suggest monkeys or turtles. These features appear in different combinations across local accounts and images.

Some tales describe a kappa pulling people or horses into water. In others it is caught after a failed attempt and obtains release through a promise, fish or knowledge of medicine. A record from Yatsushiro in Kumamoto includes bowing during a wrestling encounter to empty the head dish.

Tono City recounts episode 58 of Tono Monogatari: a kappa tries to pull a horse into a pool but is dragged back to the stable instead. Horse breeding, transport and farming are part of the surrounding local history. The horse story places the kappa in a farming community; Kyushu’s wrestling tales give it a different encounter with people. Published in 1910, Tono Monogatari grew from local accounts told by Kizen Sasaki and written down by Kunio Yanagita. Such publication gave oral stories a further life as texts that readers could compare and study.

Edo-period encyclopaedias and yokai books gave visible form to such beings. Toriyama Sekien’s 1776 Gazu Hyakki Yagyo is one example; later prints and modern comics developed other representations. The familiar modern green character is one later image among these varied representations. Koga Toan compiled Suiko Koryaku in 1820 from reported encounters and Japanese and Chinese writings; Kurimoto Tanshu added drawings associated with alleged sightings. The Iwase Bunko copy dates from 1836. Its varied figures include shell-less forms and an image labelled as a Mito encounter in 1801.

Kon Shimizu began Kappa Kawataro in 1951, followed in 1953 by Kappa Tengoku, depicting adult kappa in everyday life. Tokyo adopted his kappa design for Citizens’ Day badges in 1959. The 1964 Olympic commemorative badge shown here has a kappa holding a sign with a red sun, the Olympic rings and “TOKYO”. Newspaper characters and wearable souvenirs gave the water-associated being new settings.