Ōnamazu
The Ōnamazu ( Japanese 大 鯰 'giant catfish' ) is a fictional, giant catfish ( namazu ) that was supposedly the cause of earthquakes in Japan .
The belief first originated in the region around Lake Biwa, where two species of catfish endemic to Japan live with the Silurus lithophilus (Japanese Iwatoko namazu ) and especially the more than one meter long Silurus biwaensis (Japanese Biwako ōnamazu ). During the Edo period , the idea then spread along the Tōkaidō to the capital Edo and finally nationwide.
development
The Ōnamazu probably goes back to the Ao ( Chinese 鳌 , Pinyin Áo ) from Chinese mythology , a giant sea turtle, sometimes also described as a fish, on whose back the earth rests and has therefore also been associated with earthquakes. In addition to turtles, snakes and dragons have also been associated with earthquakes, the movement of which causes them to shake underground.
One of the earliest mentions of catfish with earthquakes is from Toyotomi Hideyoshi who, on the occasion of the construction of Fushimi Castle in 1592, ordered that it should withstand any “catfish-related event”. He was probably referring to the revised version of the Chronicle Chikubushima Engi in 1415 according to which the island of Chikubu-shima in Lake Biwa rests on the back of a catfish. However, the connection between catfish and earthquakes remained uncommon and only came at the end of 17th century fashion, where this takes place in poem-dictionaries and earthquake maps, although in the latter case the namazu designed in recourse to the earlier ideas dragon or caterpillar-shaped were . The replacement of older notions of other animals as the cause took place with the Ansei-Edo earthquake in 1855, as a result of which a large number of colored woodcuts came onto the market that showed catfish and are known as Namazu-e .
The term namazu became a synonym for earthquake (actually jishin ). A satirical magazine in 1923 showed Yamamoto Gonnohyōe by the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 is symbolized catapulted by a big catfish in the position of prime minister so that namazu also means "political earthquake" accepted, and during the Meiji and Taisho period also stood for "arrogant government officials".
Ōnamazu in art
One of the earliest poetic mentions of an earthquake-causing catfish is found in two haikai (haiku) by Matsuo Bashō in 1676 and 1678 . The latter is:
| Japanese | reading | English translation |
|---|---|---|
|
寂滅 の 貝 ふ き 立 る 初 嵐 |
Jakumetsu no kai fukitateru hatsu arashi |
The early storm, blaring its conch-shell horn of destruction, the |
One can recognize in this poem on the one hand the belief that earthquakes are like storms, only underground, on the other hand there is a connection from the older Buddhist-Chinese idea that a dragon is responsible for this to the more recent Japanese idea of a catfish in the closing verse of the former can be transformed into the second.
In Ōtsu on Lake Biwa, the Ōtsu-e - colored woodblock prints were created during the Edo period . One motif of this was that of the hyōtan namazu ( 瓢 箪 鯰 'bottle gourd catfish' ) in which a monkey or a person with his bottle gourd conquers a giant catfish as a metaphor for the fact that one can achieve apparently impossible tasks through personal effort. Travelers brought these representations with them to the capital, Edo, where after the Ansei-Edo earthquake in 1855, the Namazu-e woodblock prints that were burgeoning there. These show a variety of topics, on the one hand depicting the Ōnamazu negatively with people who hit it, but on the other hand also positively depicting him (often in human disguise) as a money-making "benefactor", since the extensive destruction of the capital requires reconstruction made for a redistribution of wealth from rich (nobility) to poor (especially craftsmen).
Kashima shrine
There is a special connection between the Kashima Shrine and the Ōnamazu. There is a Kaname-ishi ( 要 石 ' keystone ' ) on the grounds of the shrine . According to tradition, this was rammed deep into the ground by the deity Kashima Daimyōjin in order to fix the giant catfish. Such keystones are also found in other shrines, including the Katori Shrine as the sister shrine of the Kashima Shrine. Earthquakes happen when the deity is not present. A popular motif of the Namazu-e was the representation of how Kashima daimyōjin subjugated the giant catfish.
Reasons for this are probably that the Kashima / Katori shrine, due to its location in the north-east ( kimon ) Edos, which is associated with misfortune, has long served to protect it from misfortune, and the area around both shrines resembles the landscape of Chikubu-shima whose location and distance from the imperial city of Kyoto is similar to that of Kashima / Katori Shrine in relation to Edo.
A Haikai dictionary from 1645, which lists the terms Kashima and pheasant ( kiji ) under the entry earthquake ( jishin ) , shows that the relationship between the Kashima shrine and the Ōnamazu did not arise until the later Edo period The prevailing idea was that a giant pheasant under Kashima was responsible for earthquakes that would be suppressed or calmed down by the Kashima shrine.
Scientific background
The background to the connection between catfish and earthquakes is the catfish that usually live on the bottom of the lake react sensitively to an impending earthquake and can then be seen hectically on the surface of the water. Such sightings are found by fishermen from 1855 and experiments have shown that 80% of the catfish behaved differently 15 hours before an earthquake occurred.
A historical comparison of 29 earthquakes showed that, of all aquatic animals, catfish behavior during earthquakes was not only documented the most, but also reacted most sensitively.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Gregory Smits: Conduits of Power: What the Origins of Japan's Earthquake Catfish Reveal about Religious Geography . In: Japan Review . No. 24 , 2012, p. 41-65 , JSTOR : 41592687 .
- ↑ a b Namazu-e. In: Religion-in-Japan: A Web Handbook. University of Vienna. Bernhard Scheid, September 3, 2018, accessed on June 23, 2019 .
- ↑ Wolfram Eberhard: Dictionary of Chinese Symbols: Hidden Symbols in Chinese Life and Thought . Routledge, 2006, ISBN 0-203-03877-0 , Ao, pp. 15 ( limited preview in Google book search [accessed on June 22, 2019] German: Lexicon of Chinese symbols. The visual language of the Chinese .).
- ↑ a b c Gregory Smits, Ruth Ludwin: Evolution of the Catfish (namazu) as an earthquake symbol in Japan. Seismological Society of America, 2016, accessed June 22, 2019 .
- ↑ a b Cornelis Ouwehand: Namazu-e and Their Themes: An Interpretative Approach to Some Aspects of Japanese Folk Religion . Brill Archive, 1964, p. 55–56 ( limited preview in the Google book search [accessed on June 23, 2019] doctoral thesis at the University of Leiden ).