百物語怪談会 Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai

There was a tanuki who sat under the edge of a porch and drummed on his belly. Such an interesting sight was bound to become the topic of the neighborhood. The house in question was in Honishi, and belonged to a hairdresser.

It all began one day in February, in the Eighth year of Meiji (1875) when a tanuki came running up to the house towards the backdoor, probably being pursued by a dog or something. The kind hairdresser allowed the tanuki to escape to a safety under his porch. That night, sitting on the back porch, the son of the hairdresser was mindlessly tapping out a rhythm on the hibachi stove, when from under the porch came an answering beat. The tanuki was drumming along with the boy on his own belly. This was just too much to believe, and the hairdresser summoned his neighbors to see if they too could hear the belly-beating tanuki. The tanuki went right along pounding out his tune; it didn’t stop even as night fell and darkness surrounded the village.

The hairdresser could not sleep that night due to the incessant drumming of the tanuki, and finally shouted “Enough!” He went outside to the tanuki and in a pleading voice said “Honorable tanuki, we are all trying to sleep, so could you please be quiet?” With this said the tanuki immediately stopped his belly-beating. The following day, a great crowd gathered at noon to listen again to the belly-beating of the tanuki, and were shocked and saddened to find that no more drumming came from under the porch ever again.

In another case, in the 15th year of Meiji, on July 28th, the Choya Shinbun newspaper published an article about a similar musical tanuki. Out near a rice field in a remote village, a samisen master was giving a lesson to his student when they both heard the unmistakable sound of someone accompanying them on what sounded like a hand-drum. Soon the master, student, and mysterious accompanist were playing along late into the night in a fantastic improvised session. With the coming of dawn, the drumming stopped as mysteriously as it had started.

That morning, the body of an ancient tanuki was found in the rice field by the man who attended the water wheel. The tanuki’s body had blood streaming from its mouth, and its belly was said to have been beaten bare as if it had been shaved. This took place in Kyoto, in the town of Aiiwa.

In one final story, in the 17th year of Meiji on the 28th day of May, the Yubin-Hoichi Shinbun newspaper reported that the wife of a photographer named Kyomizu from the Tokoku area kept a baby tanuki as a pet. The wife said that in the middle of the night she could hear the baby tanuki practicing beating out rhythms on its belly. The wife wanted to see what her pet was up to, and snuck in one night to spy on it. She said the baby tanuki was spread out flat on the tatami mats, with all four legs splayed wide and its nose pressed firmly on the ground. She could hear sounds of something like a flute and a hand drum coming from the tanuki. This story as been passed down by the people of Tokoku as a true story of magical tanuki.

There are many more such stories about the belly-beating of tanuki. It is a legend that will not vanish any time soon.

Translated from Edo Tokyo Kaii Hyakumonogatari

In front of the gate of Yanaka Ten-O temple, there was a barber named Hokkoshi Junto who was very fond of birds.  Juno kept a great variety of birds, both large and small. But recently, when he went to feed them in the morning, he found that the birds were disappearing one-by-one.  Someone must be stealing his precious birds, Junto thought. So he hid himself in the dark one night to catch the culprit in the act.

But he saw nothing. Well, if there was no human thief, Junto thought, surely this must be the handiwork of some rouge dog or cat.  He resolved to shoot the beast if he ever caught it feeding on his birds.

With this occupying his thoughts, Junto returned home to his bed and lay down to sleep.  No sooner had his head touched his pillow than a beautiful and elegant lady of courtly bearing, no more than twenty years old, appeared before him.  She spoke to Junto.

“I am the White Snake who has lived in the five-storied pagoda in Yanaka Ten-O temple, and protected this district for more than a hundred years.  I have many grandchildren who also live in the temple and protect the people.  But recently a Great Tanuki has come down from Dokan Mountain and taken up residence in the temple.  He has been feasting on my family, on the small white snakes. Soon will come to eat me too.  We have lived here for over a hundred years in peace, and our fear of this Great Tanuki is such that it cannot be expressed.  When all the baby snakes have become his food, and when he has finished with me, there will be no more white snakes in Yanaka Ten-O. “

“Not only my family is in peril. This Great Tanuki has also been gorging himself on the birds that you keep.  He has escaped you unseen and unnoticed.  So I have come to you in your dreams that I may show you your true enemy.  We are helpless, and need the power of humans to rid us of this Great Tanuki.  If you find it difficult to believe what I say, go to the temple graveyard in the morning and you will find the aftermath of your bird-thief.  I beg of you, please hurry and destroy this evil tanuki.”

With that said, Junto opened his eyes and found himself in his own room, alone.

A strange dream indeed, thought Junto, and worth investigating.  The following morning he went with all possible speed to the graveyard of Yanaka Ten-O temple, and found ample evidence of the Great Tanuki’s deeds.  The feathers and bones of his beautiful birds were scattered carelessly about.

The dream was proved true beyond a shadow of a doubt, and Junko gathered the young men of the village to deliver the White Snake’s vengeance. The Great Tanuki was discovered lurking in the temple grounds and destroyed.