Kitsune Matsuri: The Open Gateway

by William H Johnston

  I saw the view of the temple as a whole just like I recalled from the pictures in my mind. The long slanting roof extended over the balcony with the flowering trees below and the city behind. It was beautiful and would have been even more so if not for the people.

  “I can’t believe I’m here,” I admitted aloud.

  “It is a beautiful sight. Kiyomizu Temple has been around since the earliest days of Kyoto.” Michiko pointed to the complicated latticework supporting it all. “They say that there’s not a single nail used in the whole structure of the temple. Down below us is the Otowa Waterfall, and that’s where we’re going next.”

  The line of people stretched out along the path and up into the trees. The kids were getting antsy and most of them were hungry.

  “Nintai, kodomo-tachi,” Michiko told them. “Watashitachiha,-ji no yotei sa rete iru. Tobias-Sensai to watashi wa anata ni shitagau.”[25]

  We eventually approached a space where three channels of water dropped down from a concrete slab and into a pool below. People were extending bottles and ladles out to catch it while others simply reached out with their hands.

  When our turn came, the kids stopped fidgeting and filed through one at a time. They took the ritual seriously. I looked at Michiko. “You said this spring brings good luck for students in their studies?”

  “The spring is said to grant wishes,” she explained. “The students all pray that they will be successful in school. You can wish for what you want.”

  I could think of a few ideas, but none was quite as important as the thought of being together with her. When it was my turn, I approached the streams of water and watched what Michiko did.

  “Do I just take some?”

  “Yes. Just do what I taught you at the wash basin at Fushimi Shrine. It’s basically the same principle.” She reached out with the long pole, washed both her hands and then drank the liquid. I noticed she paused, probably making her wish.

  When it was my turn, I did the same. The water was cold and refreshing as I paused to gaze down at my reflection in the pool below.

  Help me to guide my students and give me the courage to find my way here in Japan.

  After we were done with blessings, we gathered together and settled down for lunch. Michiko found a place in the shadow of the ravine, and the kids worked on their assignment while they ate. She and I found our own spot on a ledge looking over them all. I was about to take out my own lunch when Chikako approached us with two of her friends.

  “Suru koto ga deki masu watashi-tachi wa anata to, Tobias-Sensei wa chūshoku o taberu?”[26]

  I smiled as the translation came. “I suppose if Michiko-Sensei is happy with that?”

  She nodded and the kids joined us on the ledge. They sat talking and giggling among themselves while they worked. It was nice to sit listening to them talk even if I didn’t understand a word.

  I reached into my own bag, fumbling with the assorted things inside: sandwich in plastic wrap, thermos, and an apple. I stopped as my hand brushed against something unexpected.

  What’s that?

  It was Jomei’s kitsune statue.

  How did this get here? I swore I had left it at home.

  Michiko glanced up mid-bite from her noodles, and her eyes transfixed on the small statue. “Where did you get that, Tobias-san?”

  “My host father, Jomei, gave it to me. Would you like to see?”

  “Hai,” she said with hand outstretched. I placed it gently in her palm, and she ran her fingers over it. “How exquisite!” Michiko shook it lightly with a curious rattle of the charm within. “Sounds like there’s something inside.”

  “Yes, Jomei said that he put some kind of protective charm in the statue because he and his wife, Aoki, think these kitsune are real.”

  She stared at me a moment before offering the statue back. “They are not alone in that thinking, Tobias-san. Many others share that faith.”

  I took my apple from the lunch bag and placed it beside the statue on the concrete ledge. “I guess I understand. The Native Americans have a similar creature called ‘Coyote’, a trickster but also a guardian. To them, the animal is as real as the spiritual myth that surrounds it.”

  “Well, you could say the same about here, Tobias-san,” she said. I followed her eyes over the children on the grass, heard the trickling of the water and the murmuring of the crowds on the veranda above us.

  “I suppose you’re right Michiko. I just—” I stopped as I grabbed for my apple. An orange sat in its spot. I stood and glanced around.

  Where’d my apple go? I’d swear I’d had it just now.

  My eyes fell to the tiny statue. In that fleeting instant, all those images from my dream came flooding back. “No way …”

  Michiko started to laugh, her hand covering mouth. I spun around to face her. “What’s so funny, Michiko?”

  She shook her head and opened her hand revealing the apple in her fingers. “Here, Tobias-san. I hope you will forgive a bit of mischief on my part.”

  I stared at the fruit in her hand. I hadn’t even seen her replace it. “Why, Michiko?

  She handed the apple back to me, “You believed for a moment, didn’t you?”

  I flashed back to Aoki’s words at the dinner table the previous night. “Faith is what gives spirits life, Tobias-san. Even though what they do is not always tangible, we must always have faith.”

  “I guess I did,” I admitted, smiling as I bit into the apple. “Of course, that was some pretty fast work with your hands too. I’ll get you back for the prank later, Michiko-san.”

  She took the orange, tossing it up and effortlessly catching it. “I’ll look forward to it, Tobias-san.”

  John came home from his trip later that evening. I joined him in the kitchen as Aoki set out dinner on the table. I was talking about the field trip when I asked him why he thought Michiko was working at the school.

  “You’d think she’d be in a business or something, John. She’s very bright.”

  He looked up at me from across the dinner table. Something in his eyes spoke of quiet amusement. He put his chopsticks down and leaned over the table toward me.

  “She’s smart as a whip, Tobi, but Michiko has Chikako to take care of. Being close to her is probably more important than a career in business.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I kind of thought that as well.”

  Aoki peered over at me from where she was cleaning an old, well used pan. “You have a friend at work, Tobias-san?”

  “Oh, yes. I forgot to tell you about her. Her name is Michiko Yamasaki, and she lives somewhere near Fushimi.”

  “Ah, I see. It is excellent that you are making new friends so quickly.”

  I nodded before remembering a question I’d meant to ask. I leaned over and whispered to John, not wanting to be rude in asking. “Hey, John, I noticed that when Michiko smiles, she hides it. Why is that?”

  He blinked at me. “I dunno really. Something to do with a very old belief that one shouldn’t show emotion. The Japanese tend to hide their emotions. I figured you know about that.”

  I frowned, recalling something to that effect from my Japanese culture courses. “I guess I still have a lot to learn about a people who believe in kitsune and play pachinko endlessly in the same day.”

  “Only the Japanese could invent a gambling pinball machine without actually gambling because it’s illegal.” He laughed. “They’re a complex contradiction sometimes.”

  “Yeah, it’s stranger than I expected.”

  “Well that’s what made you have an interest in them to begin with, Tobi! Part of what draws people like you and me to Japan is how weird it can be to us.” He stood and clapped me on the shoulder. “I’d best get some rest. I had a long day. See you tomorrow mornin’, Tobi.”

  “Good night, John.”

  When he was gone, Aoki smiled over at me. “Do you want dessert, Tobias-san?”

  “No! No, thank you! I couldn’t eat another bite!”

  She
nodded. “Well, why don’t you go out and visit Jomei in his workshop? I think he was making something for you out there.”

  “Jomei is making me something? Sure, I’ll go out and see.”

  Outside, the air was still warm, and little bugs fluttered around a tiny lantern that hung just outside the door. The Yoshidas actually had a very nice backyard, a rarity in Japan. There was just enough room for a flower and vegetable garden along with a tiny shack in the back corner.

  The door to the ramshackle building was open, and I could see Jomei half slumped over a workbench inside. He was sitting on an old wooden carpenter’s stool that looked like it had seen better days.

  “Tobias-san!” He grunted. “Don’t just stand out there now! I have some work for you.”

  “Hai, of course, Jomei-san.” Inside was cozy, to put it mildly. Piles of wood sat on long benches to either side of me, each in a different state of work from bare planks to half-finished columns. There were also more intricately detailed projects that appeared to be near completion.

  There were no machines here except a very old lathe that loomed in the back of the structure like an immense sleeping metal dragon. A ceiling light cast shadows on walls plastered with plans of buildings, Japanese gates, little shrines and even a sketch or two of my little kitsune statue with various notes scribbled in hastily drawn Japanese kanji.

  “What is all this?”

  “This is my project room. I’ve maintained half the shrines from here to Osaka with my own tools and two hands. Now tell me, what kind of experience do you have with wood working, Tobias-san?”

  “Only a little,” I admitted. “My grandfather helped me build a planter for my Eagle Scout project.”

  “Ah, Boy Scouts! An Eagle Scout, good for you! Well, come over here. I want you to assist me with this little project. Take up that chisel over there and have a seat wherever there’s space.”

  I picked up the chisel that lay on a bench beside me before elbowing a little space to peer down at what he was doing. His hand was wrapped around a piece of wood not much larger than his palm.

  As he turned it around, I saw the statue of a kitsune with a single tail standing straight behind it. The fox’s coat was half-finished, and the face was only carved into a haphazard square beneath triangular ears.

  “What exactly is it you want me to do, Jomei-san?”

  He held out the statue. “I want you to help me finish by carving the face.”

  Finish it?

  I blinked. “I wouldn’t want to ruin it, Jomei.”

  “There are no mistakes, Tobias-san, not in art that flows from the soul. There are lessons in everything we do. You wish to know about our culture so you must understand what it is to speak to the spirits, to see the spirit within the wood, draw it out and give it shape.”

  “I can’t do that!”

  He sighed and put a hand on my shoulder. “If you say you cannot, then you cannot, Tobias-san.”

  Crud.

  Biting my lip, I clutched the tiny statuette in my left hand, the chisel shaking in my right. I had no idea what I was doing. Slowly, I maneuvered the bladed edge along the tip of the snout and … “crack!” off popped the very tip.

  “Oh, no!”

  Jomei laughed. “It’s all right, Tobias-san. Look, see how the nose curves? You have a good beginning for the muzzle with that. All you need to do is smooth it out. Try to apply a little less pressure this time.”

  I nodded, pressing my index finger near the razor’s edge of the blade and slowly carved away smooth sections of wood. After that, he showed me how to make the fine lines of the animal’s coat. Jomei leaned down to fetch a small oily can of paint from one of his workbenches.

  “Very good. Finish the snout, Tobias-san.”

  I kept carving until I saw the beginnings of a long, thin muzzle finally taking shape in my nervous hands. Jomei looked over my work carefully, then he dipped his brush into the can of black paint. It didn’t take long to dry. He then reached for a very thin brush and a bottle of white ink.

  “I think we will need to fill in the nose and eyes if you’re ready. Just dab a bit on the tip of the brush there and where the eyes should be, but leave a slight area of white in the very center of the eye to give a sense of reflection.”

  “This is hard, Jomei-san!” I dabbed a small bead upon the very tip of the snout and two more round ones on either side of the muzzle just beneath the ears. I left a point open as Jomei suggested, and sure enough, there was now life in those eyes. I mused over the finished features of the statue, noticing the difference between it and the white one he had given me earlier.

  “Why does this one have so few tails and mine has so many, Jomei-san?”

  “To show the age, Tobias-san. A kitsune’s tails are very magical, you see. They gain a tail every hundred years until they are nine hundred.”

  “Nine hundred years is a long time.”

  “Not to a kitsune. They grow wiser with age. The nine-tailed foxes are the most powerful, actually becoming immortal and all knowing; they are called kyuubi-no-kitsune.”

  I ran my finger over the black coat of the statue’s back feeling the tiny indentations that created its spine. “Why is this one black and the other white?”

  “Inari’s Kitsune are always white but black foxes are also good luck. I choose to show the ying and yang.” He set the statue down. “Why the sudden interest in kitsune, Tobias-san?”

  “Well, I always wanted to learn more about Japanese legends. Maybe it will help me in the classroom.”

  Jomei rested his hands on his knees. “There are two kinds of kitsune, and their treatment of humans can be very complicated. The Inari foxes are known as myobu. They are both wise and mercurial in their attitudes and association with humans.

  They do not suffer the foolish, the vain or the greedy. They will use their mischief and magic to bring low even the mightiest of men for possessing these traits. They reward the worthy, though, with their wisdom, strength and sometimes their very lives.

  Then there are foxes known as nogitsune which literally means ‘outsider’ foxes. They do not pledge themselves to Inari. These are often cruel and malicious beings that reside in dark and sinister places. It is the duty of Inari’s foxes to ward off evil nogitsune.”

  I nodded thinking of the fox I had met. She was definitely an Inari Kitsune. “Has one of Inari’s messengers ever befriended a human, Jomei-san?”

  “Hai, of course! Our history is full of stories where foxes grow attached to mortals and offer protection and wisdom for as long as they are welcome. Having an Inari fox watch over you is considered a great blessing, but you have to be careful. Gifts from kitsune are not what they appear to be.

  The foxes take objects from nature and transform them into things we covet, but in the end those gifts will return to their natural form. For example, a man given gold from a fox will later discover his new found wealth to be nothing more than leaves or stones.”

  I nodded, remembering my first encounter in the woods when the coins turned to leaves within my hand. “Do the other foxes do that?”

  “Oh, yes, evil nogitsune prey upon the flaws of others. Where Inari’s foxes may punish the unrighteous with playful pranks, the nogitsune lead the unwary or foolish to ruin.

  They are little better than demons who seek to make man sin or steal souls. You will find many spirits are like them in Japan, Tobias. Demons are born from the sins of men and women. They take form to prey upon the weak or foolish. I used to love the scary stories that my grandfather told me when I was small. My favorite was of the fox witch Tamamo-no-Mae.”

  “Tamamo-no-mae?”

  He nodded quietly. “It’s a very long, very tragic tale. She appears in stories throughout the ancient eastern world leaving a path of death and destruction in her wake. In the Japanese story, Tamamo-no-Mae was an evil kyuubi, a nine-tailed fox. She desired power and transformed herself into an imperial courtesan.

  Tamamo was the most beautiful and intelli
gent woman that anyone had ever met. She gathered immense political power in the court and displayed magical abilities as well. Men came from far and wide to hear her speak or to catch a glimpse of her. Not surprisingly, her gifts were not lost on the emperor.

  He fell in love with Tamamo and lavished her with affections. He spent a great deal of time with her, so much so that he became more and more reclusive. Many people at the court noticed that he was behaving strangely. Eventually, the emperor became gravely ill. Priests and doctors were summoned but could not cure the strange infirmity. Then one day an astrologer named Abe No Yasu came to court.

  Yasu was the descendant of Inari Kitsune. He could sense a malignant intent within Tamamo-no-Mae. He used his power to reveal her true form as a golden furred fox, and she fled. The Emperor recovered, and when he found out that the kitsune had caused his sickness, he became enraged. He sent his best warriors to hunt the fox and exterminate her once and for all.

  Tamamo was not easy prey. She used her powers to appear in the warrior’s dreams. She begged for her life, but the hunters had no mercy for one who had wished to bring ruin upon Japan. They chased her all the way to the Nasu plain which is to the north of modern day Tokyo.

  When Tamamo-no-mae was finally destroyed, her body turned into a stone that killed anyone who came near it. Some stories say that her spirit lingers in that stone to this day. Others claim she eventually found redemption, but who is to say?”

  I shivered. “Wow, that is quite the story. How would I know a good kitsune from a bad one though?”

  Jomei frowned thoughtfully. “Most stories say that you can tell a kitsune by looking for the tail. Even in human form there is difficulty hiding it. The best way to avoid the bad kitsune is to always use your best judgment and do not be tempted off a moral path. You’re a smart young man and know better than to trust in the wiles of ill contented spirits.”

  “I bet Michiko knows all these old stories too.”

  “Michiko is a girl you know?” Jomei stared at me with quiet amusement.

  “Yes. She is my translator. She was the one who first told me about kitsune.”