Doll artist friend Ozawa Yasuko recently sent an envelope of clippings, including a piece that appeared in the Asahi shinbun last year on the 100th anniversary of the publication of the Tono monogatari (legends of Tono), a seminal work in the history of Japanese folklore.
The piece opened with an account of a fire at an inn in Ninohe, a coastal town in Iwate prefecture. Rumor had it that a child dressed in a red kimono was seen darting form the fire and fleeing to the little shrine behind the inn. People said that it was a zasshiki warashi, a child imp believed to bring good fortune to whatever house the child chose to inhabit.
Stories of zasshiki warashi are found elsewhere in Japanese folklore but they are most common in Iwate and other parts of the northeast. When I lived in Kyoto, I used to watch a long-running animated series on NHK television about Japanese folk tales. When I moved to Tono, I ran into the tales in my neighborhood.
A house in a neighboring hamlet had an old wooden statue of what the family called a Kannon, though all agreed that it looked like a Jizo. About 150 years old, the statue was smooth and polished by age. Its story was one I had seen on the NHK series. Once long ago, in the middle of a busy rice harvest the family ran out of help. Suddenly there appeared from nowhere a little boy who pitched in and worked all day helping to harvest the rice. At the end of the day, the family wanted to thank him for his work but he was nowhere to be found.
When they returned home, however, someone noticed muddy footprints leading up to the house, then into the house, and straight to the parlor. There the people of the house found the wooden statue, which has been revered in their family ever since. I got chills hearing the tale and handling the statue.
Zasshiki warashi were rarely seen except in glimpses. Their laughter, however, was sometimes heard. They were believed to insure the good fortunes of the household. When they left, the households inevitably fell into ruin.
