Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan, vol 2 | Page 9

a pious fisherman finds a tortoise, he writes upon his back characters
signifying 'Servant of the Deity Kompira,' and then gives it a drink of
sake and sets it free. It is supposed to be very fond of sake.
Some say that the land tortoise, or 'stone tortoise,' only, is the servant of
Kompira, and the sea tortoise, or turtle, the servant of the Dragon
Empire beneath the sea. The turtle is said to have the power to create,
with its breath, a cloud, a fog, or a magnificent palace. It figures in the
beautiful old folk-tale of Urashima. [25] All tortoises are supposed to
live for a thousand years, wherefore one of the most frequent symbols
of longevity in Japanese art is a tortoise. But the tortoise most
commonly represented by native painters and metal-workers has a
peculiar tail, or rather a multitude of small tails, extending behind it
like the fringes of a straw rain-coat, mino, whence it is called
minogame Now, some of the tortoises kept in the sacred tanks of
Buddhist temples attain a prodigious age, and certain water--plants
attach themselves to the creatures' shells and stream behind them when
they walk. The myth of the minogame is supposed to have had its
origin in old artistic efforts to represent the appearance of such tortoises
with confervae fastened upon their shells.
º10
Early in summer the frogs are surprisingly numerous, and, after dark,
are noisy beyond description; but week by week their nightly clamour
grows feebler, as their numbers diminish under the attacks of many
enemies. A large family of snakes, some fully three feet long, make
occasional inroads into the colony. The victims often utter piteous cries,
which are promptly responded to, whenever possible, by some inmate
of the house, and many a frog has been saved by my servant-girl, who,

by a gentle tap with a bamboo rod, compels the snake to let its prey go.
These snakes are beautiful swimmers. They make themselves quite free
about the garden; but they come out only on hot days. None of my
people would think of injuring or killing one of them. Indeed, in Izumo
it is said that to kill a snake is unlucky. 'If you kill a snake without
provocation,' a peasant assured me, 'you will afterwards find its head in
the komebitsu [the box in which cooked rice is kept] 'when you take off
the lid.'
But the snakes devour comparatively few frogs. Impudent kites and
crows are their most implacable destroyers; and there is a very pretty
weasel which lives under the kura (godown) and which does not
hesitate to take either fish or frogs out of the pond, even when the lord
of the manor is watching. There is also a cat which poaches in my
preserves, a gaunt outlaw, a master thief, which I have made sundry
vain attempts to reclaim from vagabondage. Partly because of the
immorality of this cat, and partly because it happens to have a long tail,
it has the evil reputation of being a nekomata, or goblin cat.
It is true that in Izumo some kittens are born with long tails; but it is
very seldom that they are suffered to grow up with long tails. For the
natural tendency of cats is to become goblins; and this tendency to
metamorphosis can be checked only by cutting off their tails in
kittenhood. Cats are magicians, tails or no tails, and have the power of
making corpses dance. Cats are ungrateful 'Feed a dog for three days,'
says a Japanese proverb, 'and he will remember your kindness for three
years; feed a cat for three years and she will forget your kindness in
three days.' Cats are mischievous: they tear the mattings, and make
holes in the shoji, and sharpen their claws upon the pillars of tokonoma.
Cats are under a curse: only the cat and the venomous serpent wept not
at the death of Buddha and these shall never enter into the bliss of the
Gokuraku For all these reasons, and others too numerous to relate, cats
are not much loved in Izumo, and are compelled to pass the greater part
of their lives out of doors.
º11
Not less than eleven varieties of butterflies have visited the
neighbourhood of the lotus pond within the past few days. The most
common variety is snowy white. It is supposed to be especially
attracted by the na, or rape-seed plant; and when little girls see it, they

sing:
Cho-cho cho-cho, na no ha ni tomare; Na no ha ga iyenara, te ni tomare.
[26]
But the most interesting insects are certainly the semi (cicadae). These
Japanese tree crickets are much more extraordinary singers than even
the wonderful cicadae of the tropics; and they are much less tiresome,
for there