The Day the Kappa Returns to the Mountains: A Tale of the Spirits of Hanshatsume, from the Early Modern Period to the First Half of the 20th Century

The Day the Kappa Returns to the Mountains: A Tale of the Spirits of Hanshatsume, from the Early Modern Period to the First Half of the 20th Century

The tale of a kappa going up to the mountains in summer and transforming into a mountain child, passed down in the mountainous regions of Kumamoto Prefecture, is not a mere ghost story, but was born against the backdrop of a world where the lives of people and the breath of nature overlap. The area around Tamana, in Yatsushiro County and the Aso region, where the story takes place, is surrounded by steep mountains and deep valleys, where water from the mountains moistens the fields and the rivers sustain the life of the villages. Mountains and rivers were inseparably linked, and people understood with their bodies that the boundaries between them were constantly shifting.

The most important milestone in this story is Han-natsu-sho. Han-natsuo is the eleventh day after the summer solstice and was considered a major milestone in the farming season. It is said that rice planting must be completed by this day or the harvest will be poor, and the phrase "Han-natsu-hansaku" (half a summer's day, half a crop) remains in many places. Even today, "Han-Natsu-Sei" is still associated with the end of rice planting, the arrival of the rainy season, and the season when people tend to get sick, and the tension in people's lives increases around this day. In many regions, special food events remain, and local delicacies such as octopus, mackerel, and udon (Japanese noodle) have supported people's hearts and minds.

According to Kumamoto folklore, kappa (water imps) ascend the mountains and take on the form of mountain children after this Han-natsu-sho (the first day of summer). The river, where people live, tends to swell in summer, making it a dangerous place for children. Therefore, the story that "kappa are no longer in the river" worked as an unspoken warning. In some areas, mountain peaches, the fruit of the mountains, were forbidden to be eaten from this day forward. This was a signal that the mountains would become the domain of spirits, and at the same time, it was wisdom to prevent children from going deep into the mountains.

This tale of the spirits of Hanxatsume was a narrative of seasonal changes and signs of danger, and functioned as a device to warn people in an easy-to-understand manner. The power of the tale, which resided at the moment when the boundary between the mountains and the river dissolved, protected daily life.