なぜ醜い魚が神への供物だったのか？Why an Ugly Fish Became a Divine Offering

Traveling throughout Japan, I have encountered various cultures and customs distinct to each location, and yet, at times, I have also come across surprisingly similar beliefs in places far removed from each other. Discussing Japan, in a sense, requires one to continuously traverse as much of the country as possible over a lifetime, thoroughly absorbing its cultural plurality into one’s mind and body, relying not merely on knowledge but on actual experience and sensory perceptions.

Amidst these journeys, there exists a curious folk belief that has particularly captured my interest. And this fascination is not limited to me alone; ever since the birth of folklore studies, scholars have been intrigued by this peculiar practice, which embodies both the complexity and allure of exploring pluralistic cultures. The object central to this belief is a marine fish known as okoze (オコゼ).

Okoze belongs to the Scorpaenidae family, characterized by its ugly appearance covered in sharp spines. I do not know whether it is consumed abroad, but in Japan, it is considered a luxury fish, infrequently eaten due to its scarcity. Contrary to its grotesque appearance, it has a surprisingly exquisite taste. However, during my travels throughout various regions, I discovered a historical practice in which this seafood, okoze, was highly esteemed as an offering dedicated to the mountain deity (山神). Although this custom has ceased today, it was widespread across Japan up to about a century ago, with traces indicating it partially persisted into the twenty-first century.

Considering that Kunio Yanagita, the founder of Japanese folklore studies, was the first scholar to express folkloric interest in this unusual belief of offering marine Okoze to mountain deities, it clearly illustrates how this particular tradition fascinated researchers from the early stages of the discipline. In fact, Yanagita collected various regional legends and continuously published works on them, culminating in a notable essay in 1936 titled “The Mountain Deity and Okoze” (Yama no Kami to Okoze) (山の神とヲコゼ). Within it, Yanagita meticulously listed examples of hunters, woodcutters, and falconers from various parts of Japan who offered Okoze to the mountain deities, clearly demonstrating that similar practices existed extensively, from the Tohoku region in the north down to Kyushu in the south.

Had it been a custom localized to a particular area, the phenomenon might not seem so remarkable. Yet, one wonders why such an unusual tradition existed on a nationwide scale. This might constitute a striking example reflecting yet-unknown traces of cultural transmission resulting from the movement of peoples within Japanese history. Thus, examining the traditions and beliefs surrounding okoze has the potential to reveal an unseen aspect of Japan’s historical landscape.

Moreover, Yanagita’s interest in the “Okoze belief” and the subsequent initiation of his research were influenced by Kumagusu Minakata, an extraordinary scholar who resided in the Kii Peninsula in Kishu (紀州). Minakata documented a tradition in Nishimuro-gun, Wakayama Prefecture, where villagers offered “live Okoze” to the mountain deity to fulfill their wishes. According to his account, when people cut timber deep in the mountains but found insufficient water to transport the logs downstream, they dedicated a live Okoze and a torii gate to a shrine located downstream within the mountains. Miraculously, the river flooded overnight, enabling them to float the timber downstream. Additionally, Minakata reported in the same paper an Edo-period screen narrative (屏風詞書) in which the mountain deity, enamored with Okoze-hime (Princess Okoze), sent a love letter through an otter intermediary. When the octopus heard this, it became enraged and attempted to thwart their union. Nevertheless, overcoming these obstacles, Princess Okoze ultimately became the wife of the mountain deity. Notably, Minakata mentioned that in this screen painting, the mountain deity was depicted as a wolf.

It is not widely known today, but wolves (specifically, the Japanese wolf, or Nihon Okami) were once abundant in Japan’s mountainous regions. However, since the Meiji period, marking the beginning of modernization, wolf habitats were gradually destroyed, and combined with outbreaks of disease and deliberate extermination as reverence for nature faded in the course of modernization, the wolves were driven to complete extinction by 1905 (Meiji 38).

Thus, by the time Minakata conducted his research, wolves had already become extinct, and he likely never saw one himself. Yet it is historically accurate that wolves were objects of worship, and significantly, Minakata highlighted that the wolf’s symbolic identity as the mountain deity is directly related to okoze belief.

Folkloric interpretations have long focused on the ugliness and strangeness of okoze as the reason for its offering to the mountain deity. According to Japanese folklore, it was believed that “the mountain deity prefers creatures uglier than itself.” In regions where Okoze was unobtainable, terrestrial creatures with unpleasant appearances such as land snails (キセルガイ), weasels (イタチ), pit vipers (マムシ), and caterpillars (毛虫) were offered as substitutes under the name “Mountain Okoze” (山オコゼ). While focusing solely on appearance may not fully explain the practice, it likely holds partial truth; additionally, perhaps the extinct Japanese wolves favored these creatures as food.

However, an intriguing point arises here. Almost universally across Japan, the mountain deity has been traditionally believed to be female. Throughout my conversations with elderly locals in various regions, I consistently found that they unanimously identify the mountain deity as female, yet intriguingly, none could mention her name. Rather than suggesting a hidden name, it seems that her identity was lost over a long history, and no one remembers its original form. Despite modern influences that have eroded various local traditions, the belief in the “mountain deity as a female deity” remains firmly ingrained even today. Furthermore, the belief that this mountain goddess is ugly is prevalent nationwide.

Moreover, characteristic of Japanese beliefs which envision humans and deities in very close proximity, the mountain goddess is depicted as deeply jealous, particularly toward beautiful objects or women. According to hunters in the mountainous regions of Tohoku with whom I spoke, during hunting seasons, village women refrained from dressing up, doing their hair, or applying cosmetics, strictly adhering to plainness. Naturally, women were strictly forbidden from entering the mountains, as their presence was believed to incite the jealousy of the mountain goddess, resulting in poor hunting outcomes or even natural disasters like landslides. Therefore, countless folk legends exist throughout mountainous regions, explicitly prohibiting women and children (including boys who had not yet completed their coming-of-age ceremonies) from entering mountainous areas.

From this perspective, okoze offering can be interpreted as an attempt to appease and soothe the jealousy-prone mountain goddess by presenting or showing her an uglier creature, thus ensuring a bountiful harvest from the mountain. If ugliness alone were the motive, however, a mountain-dwelling creature would have sufficed. Here, I sense a hidden historical narrative of migrations of peoples connecting the sea and the mountains in ancient Japan.

In my next piece, I will further explore this topic, addressing how Okoze was also used as a ritualistic object, and discussing the curious fact that the Japanese characters for Okoze literally mean “tiger fish” (虎魚). While wolves did exist in Japan, tigers never did, hinting subtly at Chinese influences.

It is fascinating indeed that from this single fish, okoze, an expansive panorama of Japanese folklore can emerge.