Utsuro-bune

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Utsuro-bune; Illustration from the early 19th century

Utsuro-bune , Utsuro-fune or more rarely Utsubo-fune ( Japanese 虚 舟 , う つ ろ 舟 ( utsuro- ~ ), う つ ぼ 舟 ( utsubo- ~ ), in German "Hohles Schiff") is the name for a boat or ship that According to a legend , stranded on the Japanese coast at the beginning of 1803 .

According to the legend, local fishermen watched an alien boat drifting at sea. Upon closer inspection, they discovered a beautiful young woman of strange appearance inside the Utsuro-bune . Because of their fear of strangers and because of communication problems, the fishermen decided to let the woman and her boat drift out to sea again. The history of the Utsuro-bune was first examined in 1925 by the Japanese ethnologist Yanagita Kunio ( 柳 田 國 男 ), a second time in 1962. A third time, the history was reviewed in 1997 by Professor Tanaka Kazuo ( 田中 嘉津夫 ). Both scholars rate the Utsuro-bune story as folklore . They also indicate that Utsuro-bune appear in numerous other sagas.

The legend is also widespread among supporters of hypotheses about the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs and is viewed by them as historical evidence of encounters of the third kind in earlier times.

Historical sources

The most famous legends of Utsuro-bune can be found in:

  • Hyōryū-ki-shū ( 漂流 紀 集 , "Collected records of stranded people"), which was written after 1835 by an unknown author and is now in the private library Iwase-Bunko-Toshokan ( 岩 瀬 文庫 図 書館 ) in the city of Nishio .

In Kyokutei Bakin's Toen shosetsu there is the most detailed account of the story, in Ume-no-chiri a somewhat shortened and slightly modified version of the same incident.

Lore

Toen shosetsu

“The incident happened on February 22nd, in the spring of 1803. At sea in front of a beach called Hara-yadori ( は ら や ど り ) in the territory of Provincial Governor Ogasawara Nagashige ( 小 笠原 長 重 ), a Yoriai-seki of Tokugawa - Shogunats with 4000 koku incomes, a boat was sighted from the shore. The fishermen brought the boat to the beach. It was round and resembled a kind of kōhako , an incense burner . Its diameter was more than 3 ken (about 5.4 m). On the upper part of the boat there were barred windows that were sealed with some kind of rubber. The bottom of the ship was reinforced with iron plates to protect it from being destroyed by rocks. Since the windows were translucent, people could see inside, where they saw a woman of strange appearance. Her hair and eyebrows were red, and her face was pink. It appeared as if long white hair had been added to her natural hair. Your long hair could be fur or braided strands. The type of hairstyle cannot be found in any literature. Furthermore, since no one understood their language, no one could ask them about their origin. The strange woman held a square box in her hand, the size of which was about 2 shaku (approx. 60 cm). It seemed like this box was very important to her as the woman was constantly holding it and not allowing anyone to approach it. The things inside the boat were examined by the people. There was 2 Shō water (approx. 3.6 l) in a small bottle. There were two sleeping mats, some kind of cake and some kind of kneaded food. While the people discussed what to do with the boat, the woman watched them peacefully. An old local man said: 'This woman could be the daughter of a king in a distant realm who got married in her homeland. But after their wedding, she loved another man, and that lover was killed as punishment. However, since she was a princess and enjoyed great sympathy , she was spared the death penalty . Instead, she was locked in the utsuro-bune and left in the sea to be left to her fate. If this conclusion is correct, then in the square box is the severed head of your lover. In the past, a similar boat with a woman in it had washed ashore on a nearby beach. In that incident, a severed head was discovered inside the boat and it was attached to some kind of board. Based on this second hand information, the contents of the box could be very similar. That would of course explain why the box is so important for the woman and why she always holds it in her hands. It would take a lot of money to research this woman and her boat. Since it is evidently customary to launch such boats on the high seas, we should bring the woman back into the boat and send her away. From a human point of view it may seem cruel, but it still seems to be destined '. And so the fishermen came to their decision and put the woman back in her boat in the sea, where it drifted away. "

Ume-no-chiri

“On March 24, 1803, a strange boat was driven ashore on Haratono Beach ( 原 舎 浜, は ら と の は ま , Haratono-hama ) in Hitachi Province . The shape of the boat was reminiscent of a rice cooker, it had a reinforced ring around the middle part, above the ring the boat was painted black and had four small windows on four sides. The windows were barred and sealed with some kind of pine resin. The lower part of the boat was reinforced with steel planks that looked like western iron of the highest quality. The height of the boat was 1 Shō and 2 Shaku (approx. 3.64 m) and the diameter 1 Shō and 8 Shaku (approx. 5.45 m). A woman (or girl) was found inside the boat who was around 20 years old. She was about 5 shaku (1.5 m) tall and her skin was white as snow. Her long hair hung close to her back. Her face was incomparably beautiful. Her clothing was strange and unidentifiable, and her language could not be understood by anyone. She had a small box in her hands that no one was allowed to touch. There were two carpets in the boat , very soft and of an unknown type. There was also some kind of cake, kneaded food, and some kind of meat. A cup with a wonderful design was found there, but nobody recognized it. "

Below the text the information is added: " Haratono-hama is an area of ​​the Lord Ogasawara Izumi ( 小 笠原 泉 )."

Other, similar documents

There are other documents, such as Hirokata Zuihitsu ( 弘 賢 随筆 ) and Ōshu Kuzakki ( 鶯 宿 雑 記 ). In 2010 and 2012, additional documents from the Edo period were discovered and examined by Professor Tanaka. Both reports coincide with the content of the tradition from Toen shosetsu . However, they give as the place name of the scene of the event Minato Bōshū ( 港 房 州 ; "Port of Bōshū ").

Utsuro-bune in other legends

A legend very well known in Japan is that of the origin of the Kawano family in the Iyo province . In this story, a fisherman named Wakegorō ( 和 気 五郎 ) from Gogo Island ( 興 居 島 ) found a girl between the ages of twelve and thirteen in an utsuro-bune on the high seas and brought it ashore. The girl stated that she was a Chinese princess who had fled her stepmother's irascibility and vindictiveness. The fisherman called the girl "Princess Wake " ( 和 気 姫 , Wake-hime ) and raised her. Wake married an imperial prince in the province of Iyo and gave birth to Ochimiko ( 小 千 御 子 ), the progenitor of the Kawano family. This princess is still venerated in the Wakehime Shrine ( 和 気 比 売 神社 , Wakehime-jinja ) in the Funakoshi ( 船 越 ) settlement on this island. It is still said today that she brought the first silk cocoons to Japan.

backgrounds

Further representation of the Utsuro-bune (around 1825)

Ufology

In the modern, especially western subculture , especially in ufology , the mysterious Utsuro-bune is often used as an object and evidence of early encounters of the third kind in Japan. First and foremost, the theories are based on the partly colored , partly black-and-white images, which are said to have great similarities with modern UFO descriptions of “flying saucers”. Ufo-believer suspect that it "(Uso If the Utsuro-Bune a so-called U nbekanntes S ubmarines O bjekt )" negotiated. Furthermore, reference is made to the unknown characters that are said to be amazingly similar to those from modern UFO encounters, especially those from the so-called "Rendlesham Incident" in Great Britain . The mysterious box that the strange woman kept so carefully is also in the interests of ufology. Proponents of the thesis about encounters of the third kind want to have recognized a technical device in the box. The strange appearance and unknown language of women are also repeatedly pointed out. The explanations given by historians and ethnologists are mostly deliberately ignored.

Historical research

The writer Kyokutei Bakin (1767–1848) made various comments on the text. Regarding hair color, he remarked: “In a book with the title Roshia bunkenroku ( 魯西 亜 聞zeichnungen zeichnungen ;“ Notes of what is heard and seen from Russia ”, author: Kanamori Kinken ) we find the following sentence: 'The cut of female clothes is cylindrical and the diameter gradually decreases above the hip. The color of her hairstyle is dyed with white powder. ' Judging by this phrase, the woman's white hair could be powder-dyed and she could be a woman who lives in a Russian colony . Further, detailed studies are required. ”Regarding the water that was found inside the boat, he writes:“ Another word was used in another book, 2 Tō (36 L) instead of 2 Shō and instead of 'small bottle' das Kanji for 'big bottle'. ”He commented on the unknown symbols inside the Utsuro-bune as follows:“ Many foreign characters were found inside the boat. I found similar characters on a British ship that had recently appeared on the Japanese coast off Uraga . According to this observation, the woman could be a British, Bengali, or American princess . Nobody really knows. The woman and boat were drawn by people who were interested in the incident and (these drawings) are reproduced in Figure 2. I'm a little disappointed as the illustrations and text do not match. If anyone knows anything about the incident, they want to let me know. "

Modern exploration

In 1997, the Japanese professor of electronics and computer development , Tanaka Kazuo, of Gifu University examined the documents. Tanaka considers the comparisons of the Utsuro-bune with ufos of modern sightings, often cited by supporters of the UFO theory, to be unfounded, since the Utsuro-bune of the legend does not fly and has no drive of its own, let alone technical equipment. Instead, he concludes that the story of the Utsuro-bune is a mixture of folk tradition and imagination. He relies on the statements of the ethnologist Yanagita Kunio, who had already investigated the history of the Utsuro-bune in 1925 and 1962.

Yanagita had proven that legends similar to that of the Utsuro-bune were also spread in other parts of the country and even in earlier times (i.e. before 1800). Yanagita also referred to the legend of the Princess Wake.

From the work of Yanagita, Kazuo quotes another song handed down in Kyūshū , whose stanzas contain many sentences that are very similar to those in Kyokutei's report. In most of the variants of the story found by Yanagita, the woman or girl found is put back in the sea, so that a third party check was no longer possible. Yanagita also considered the fact that the appearance of the woman in the Utsuro-bune strongly suggests a white, western woman and that the Japanese of the Edo period were afraid of western countries such as Russia, England and the USA. He also refers to the unknown characters that were supposedly discovered inside and outside the Utsuro-bune and can be found in various representations. Since Yanagita could not find these characters in any known culture despite intensive research, he concluded that they had to be fictitious. According to Yanagita's final report from 1962, the ship in question, in the oldest variants of the legend, was a simple round basket boat , as it is still used today in southern Asia . He also stated that round boats in themselves were nothing unusual in Japan, only the western details such as windows made of glass and metal protective plates made the round boat appear exotic . These fantastic looking details were added because skeptics would doubt the stability and seaworthiness of a modest basket boat. A steel-reinforced Utsuro-bune with glass windows, on the other hand, would be stable enough to float over long distances on the high seas.

Another, very different representation

Professor Tanaka examined further details of the story beyond the folklore traditions. The place names, "Haratono-hama" and "Harayadori", therefore refer to a location by the sea. Hama ( 浜 ) means “beach” and Yadori ( 宿 り ) can be read as meaning “port”. The eastern border of Hitachi Province , today's Ibaraki Prefecture , borders directly on the Pacific Ocean . So, according to Tanaka, evidence should be found that a place called "Haratono-hama" or "Harayadori" existed on the Hitachi coast in Japan in 1803. However, there are no real places with these names in all of Japan. The first complete mapping While Japan took place only in 1907, but even during the rule of the Tokugawa - Dynasty (1603-1868) there had been extensive records of Geographical Names. If the name of a place should have changed, the older names could easily be found in the largely preserved documents. Tanaka notes that it is astonishing that a place where such a remarkable incident as that of the Utsuro-bune is said to have occurred should have simply been forgotten. Tanaka also notes that the name Osagawara was the name of a clan of Hatamoto - samurai in the service of the Tokugawa Shogun . The biographical data of the Hatamoto samurai have been extensively handed down and the relevant documents have been published. It lists an Ogasawara Izumi , but its lands were not in Hitachi Province. The name Ogasawara Etchū no Kami can also be found in the lists. In 1799 he is described as "Yoriai" in the service of Bakufu with an income of 4,500 koku . His lands were actually in Hitachi Province, but they were all inland and had no connection to the sea. In addition, no place can be identified on his lands whose name would be reminiscent of "Haratono-hama" or "Harayadori".

A weighty argument for Tanaka's conclusion that the story is a mere invention lies in the special importance of Hitachi Province. This was not far from Edo on the Pacific Ocean. Hitachi Province and the coast played an important strategic role in the security of Bakufu. Therefore, most of the eastern Hitachi was given as a fief to the Mito branch of the Tokugawa . In his opinion it would be completely absurd to assume that such a significant incident, namely shore leave by a stranger, could have gone unnoticed by the authorities and was not recorded. But it is not mentioned in any document, unlike, for example, the arrival of two British whaling ships in Ōtsu-hama in Hitachi province in 1824.

In addition, Tanaka asserts that the people of the Edo period harbored an extensive and intense interest in paranormal things such as ghosts , ball lightning and monsters , so that fantasy novels were correspondingly popular and common. Therefore, a mythical story like that of the Utsuro-bune does not seem surprising or surprising to Tanaka.

Tanaka Kazuo concludes by pointing out difficulties with the correct reading of place and person names. In modern transcription , the Kanji ( 原 舎 ) are read as Harasha . Kazuo explains in note 2 of his text that in Toen Shōsetsu the place name is written in Kana and means Hara-yadori . In Ume no Chiri Kanji are given with Furigana and there the place is called Haratono-hama . However, the two Kanji for Haratono could also be read as Hara-yadori . Tanaka therefore assumes that the different names refer to the same place. The transcription of 原 舎 ヶ 浜 on the scroll of Hyōryū Kishū as Harasha-ga-hama is based, according to his research, on the ignorance of the original reading and should be called Haratono-ga-hama . Tanaka also points out that the term Utsuro ( う つ ろ ) translated means “empty” or “abandoned”, the term Utsubo ( う つ ぼ ) was originally used for the braided arrow quiver of the samurai . Both words were also used for cavities in old, sacred trees. The word fune ( 舟 ) simply means “ship” or “boat”. Put together, Utsuro-bune / -fune or Utsubo-fune means “hollow ship”.

Utsuro-bune in manga and anime

Utsuro-bune are a popular motif in various manga and anime series and films. For example in Mononoke , a multi-part anime that is about a traveler everyone only knows as a “medicine seller”. In episodes 3–5, which tell the story of Umibōzu , a Utsuro-bune in the shape of an ornate and sealed, hollowed-out tree trunk is the main subject. Also in “Mononoke” a young woman is locked in the Utsuro-bune, but she is already dead. She was sacrificed to certain sea demons.

literature

  • Kazuo Tanaka: Did a close encounter of the Third Kind occur on a Japanese beach in 1803? In: Skeptical Inquirer. Vol. 24, No. 4, July / August 2000, ISSN  0194-6730 , pp. 37-44.
  • Masaru Mori: The female alien in a hollow vessel. In: Fortean Times. Vol. 48, Dennis Publishing Ltd., London 1987, ISSN  0308-5899 , pp. 48-50.
  • Kunio Yanagita , Fanny Hagin Mayer, Nihon Hōsō Kyōkai : The Yanagita Kunio guide to the Japanese folk tale. Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN 1986, ISBN 0-253-36812-X , pp. 176-178.
  • Dani Cavallaro: Magic As Metaphor in Anime: A Critical Study . McFarland, Jefferson (NC) 2010, ISBN 0-7864-4744-3 .
  • Ryūtarō Minakami, Kazuo Shimizu, Shōichi Kamon: 新 ・ ト ン デ モ 超常 現象 60 の 真相 (= Skeptic Library , Volume 6). Otashuppan, Tokyo 2007, ISBN 4-903063-07-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Kazuo Tanaka: Did a close encounter of the Third Kind occur on a Japanese beach in 1803? Pp. 37-44.
  2. ↑ a b c d Masaru Mori: The female alien in a hollow vessel. Pp. 48-50.
  3. ↑ a b Website of the Iwase Bunko Toshokan
  4. ↑ Report on newly discovered Utsuro-bune stories from the Edo period in the Ibaraki Shimbun
  5. ↑ Detailed descriptions of legends and illustrations of the Utsuro-bune
  6. ↑ 興 居 島 ・ 俳 諧 物語 . In: 興 居 島 愛好 会 . Retrieved February 9, 2012 (Japanese).
  7. ^ Moku Jōya: Japan And Things Japanese . Japan Times, Tokyo 1958. pp. 227 & 228.
  8. ↑ Ryūtarō Minakami, Kazuo Shimizu, Shōichi Kamon: 新 ・ ト ン デ モ 超常 現象 60 の 真相 . P. 206.
  9. ↑ Dani Cavallaro: Magic As Metaphor in Anime. P. 89.
This article was added to the list of articles worth reading on February 19, 2012 in this version .