Kappa: the mischievouswater demon of Japanese folklore

4 min read

2 years ago Pavel

In Japanese folklore, a Kappa (河童, “river-child”)is an iconic bipedal, fishy-smelling aquatic goblins who sometimes grabs unsuspecting humans, often children, as they walk over bridges or through swamps, pulling them down into the muck to drown them and eat them.
Its most distinct feature is the bowl-like dent on the top of its head, which it must keep filled with water at all times to stay alive.
There is also a curious myth about a fictitious, mysterious organ called shirikodama, literally “anus ball”, for which apparently the creature kills its victims for.

Although kappa are typically about the size of a child and greenish in color, they can vary widely in appearance and are said to be very courteous despite their malicious tendencies.
They frequently have a turtle-like shell and scaly skin, but sometimes their skin is moist and slick, or coated in fur. Most walk upright on their hind legs, but they are occasionally seen also on all fours.
The Edo period (1603 to 1867) saw some serious scientific literature devoted to the study of these creatures. Suikokouryaku (1820), for istance, is a compendium of kappa-related information gathered from a variety of sources from Japan and China, now housed in the Iwase Bunko Library.
Later in the Edo period, an illustrated guide to 12 types of kappa, Suiko juni-hin no zu, was produced based on information taken from Suikokouryaku.

Either way, the Tokyo neighborhood of Kappabashi adopts the creature as its mascot, even though the “kappa” in its name simply comes from a homophonous word literally meaning “raincoat,” deriving from Portuguese capa.
In this case, the word comes from the name of a local merchant, Kappaya (not by chance “raincoat-seller”) Kihachi, who funded the construction of a canal to prevent flood damages.
During the canal’s construction, it is said that the kappa came from the nearby Sumida River and helped the man in his job.
When he died in 1814 he was buried at Sōgen-ji, a 17th-century temple that eventually became known as the Kappa-dera (“kappa temple”).
Located in the Ueno-Asakusa area of Tokyo, the temple is one of countless places in Japan that has stories and legends of kappa associated with it. According to the legend, the surrounding area was once a basin with poor drainage, making it prone to flooding, and the local raincoat maker took it upon himself to construct a series of drainage ditches, which he was able to complete with the help of a kappa living in the Sumida River. It is said that people fortunate enough to lay eyes on this kappa were blessed with success in business.

Today the temple still stands there, and its altar is kept piled high with offerings of cucumbers, apparently the kappa’s favorite food, and its treasure chamber that contains antique scroll-drawings of the goblins and even the mummified arm of a kappa.
But visitors also can enjoy the numerous statues of kappa that stand outside local shops in the area.
Some of these are cute and cuddly, but others are decidedly creepy.
And, If you ever encounter a real kappa, remember that some of them are good-natured, like the one who helped our Kappaya Kihachi, and some are mischievous and harmless, though there are murderous ones, too.
Even if the kappa often challenges children to a sumo match, and even though it’s incredibly strong and will eat your internal organs if you lose, there is a chance to win: they are obsessed with politeness, so if a person makes a deep bow, it will return the gesture, emptying its head-bowl and losing its strength, rendering it unable to leave the bowing position until the plate is refilled with water from the river in which it lives. If a person refills it, the kappa will serve that person for all eternity.