shirikodama

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- KAPPA - 河童 / かっぱ /　カッパ - Legends -
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- shirikodama . shirigodama 尻子玉 / 尻小玉 "soul ball in the anus" -

- - - - - shiri 尻 buttocks, backside, behind, ketsu ケツ


shirikodama 尻子玉 / 尻小玉 "soul ball in the anus"
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A legend from Fukui 福井県 about Gawatara Kappa ガワタラ，河太郎

On July 24 there is a ritual called "fire festival of Atago 愛宕の火祭り.
ogara (nowadays straw ropes) are burned while the children chant "yasaiyaa, yasaiyaa 「ヤサイヤー、ヤサイヤー」".
Then the fire has gone cold they take the coals and smear it all over their face and body and then go to the river nearby for a swim. The coal from ogara hemp will protect them from the river imp Gawatara, so that he can not come and pull out the soul ball of their anus.
source : www.nichibun.ac.jp

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SHIRIKODAMA.
As drowning victims are generally found with a distended anus (swollen rectal), the Kappa is also sometimes called the shirikodama 尻子玉 (lit. = anus ball, also written 尻小玉) vampire. The shirikodama is a mythical ball at the mouth of the anus. In order for the Kappa to steal the liver of the victim (by reaching its arm up into the victim’s anus or shiri 尻), the Kappa must first suck out or remove the shirikodama, which means certain death for its former owner.

The belief in this ball is rather mysterious, and scholars have come up with various explanations.
One explanation is the commonly observed “open anus” of drowning victims (as if something had been removed or sucked out).
Another conceivable reason could be the Tanden 丹田, or "elixir field," which is located beneath the navel and represents the focal energy point in age-old yogic breathing and meditative techniques.
Some Japanese scholars (Ando / Seino 1993) say the Kappa offers the shirikodama and/or liver as tribute to a snake-shaped dragon deity (the lord of water, the most powerful of all water deities).
But, in my mind, the most probable explanation relates to the term tama 玉 (also read dama), which can mean either ball or jewel. When read as “jewel,” it could easily mean life force, spirit, or soul. In paintings (see drawing by Jippensha below), the shirikodama is sometimes portrayed as a jewel with a pointed top -- one that looks exactly like the Hōju 宝珠 (Skt. = Cintamani), the sacred all-powerful wish-granting jewel of Buddhist lore.
- source : Mark Schumacher

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koomon 肛門 komon, hole, opening - anus
A kappa is said to have three komon.

- - The question of WHY is explored here :
. - hyoozu no kami, Hyōzu 兵主神 Hyozu no Kami
- Deity of Wind and Weapons - .


idoko イドコ（肛門） anus in the dialect of Gifu

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The Kappa is one of Japan’s most famous and most loved yokai.
I said there would be some blood, and here is a good example.



The Kappa, while one of Japan’s favorite yokai, especially among children, is not at all the cute little rapscallion that most people know him as. In older folklore, they hunt and eat humans, rape women, and murder horses and cattle.
Their favorite food is raw, bloody, human anuses. So be careful!
- source : Matthew Meyer


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You have a magical ball in your butt, and kappa want it.
At least that is how the story goes. Although modern kappa are often portrayed as cute and mostly harmless, during the Edo period they were monsters who had a particularly vicious method of killing their victims. In probably one of the strangest bits of Japanese folklore, it is said that human beings have something in their body called a shirikodama (尻子玉), which translates literally as “small anus ball.” The ball is nestled either immediately inside the anus, or deeper inside the intestines or the stomach. The kappa have a preferred method of extraction.



Folklorist/manga artist Mizuki Shigeru wrote:
“Ever since I was a child I heard that I had to be careful in the water because the kappa would try and take my shirikodama. It was said that in the water, a kappa would come from below, extend an arm upwards and stick a hand up your anus to extract the ball.”

In some stories, the kappa don’t reach up with their hands but instead actually suck the shirikodama from the body. However it was taken, the person whose shirikodama was extracted from was almost always killed in the process. Usually the kappa would hold them underwater to drown them first, before taking the ball.

What is a Shirikodama?
No one really agrees on what the shirikodama is. Some say that it is the human soul, hardened into physical form. Some say that the shirikodama in pictures resembles the Buddhist Hojo, or wish-granting jewel. The hojo was onion-shaped, with a round body and a tapered top. The usual depiction of the shirikodama does indeed resemble this shape.

Many associate the shirikodama with the liver. Kappa were known to love human livers, and some say that the shirikodama was the liver, or that the ball was blocking access to the liver with the liver being the actual target for the kappa.



Why Do They Want It?
Again, no one really knows for sure. The most basic explanation is that kappa consider the shirikodama to be a delicious delicacy and that they eat it as soon as it is removed. This explanations is contradicted by some Edo era depictions such as the one by Jippensha Ikku that shows a kappa with a freshly extracted shirikodama holding it far away from his face and clearly disgusted with the item. The shirikodama was said to smell as bad as the anus it was removed from.

In one story, it was said that the kappa paid the shirikodama as a sort of tribute and tax to the Dragon King who lived under the sea and was the lord of all things under the water. What the Dragon King would want with such an item no one has dared to guess.

But they did want it. A humorous print by Hokusai Katsushika called “How to Fish for Kappa” (Onajiku kappa-wo tsuru no hō ; 同河童を釣るの法) shows a man using his own backside as bait to lure a kappa in to be caught with a net.



The Origin of the Shirikodama
The most commonly accepted origin is that drowning victims often have an open or extended anus, looking as if something was taken out of it. Bodies that had drowned in the river or ocean and then washed up on shore might have looked as if something had been forcibly extracted from the anus.

With kappa moving further and further way from their role as monsters in Japan, the legend of the shirikodama is on its way to being forgotten. Kappa have been recast in Japan as being friendly mascots of various companies or harmless characters on children’s cartoons. In movies like the popular “My Summer Vacation with Coo the Kappa,” the cute little kappa Coo never once sneaks up on its human friend Koichi to forcibly remove a magical ball from his anus.

in From Mizuki Shigeru, Kappa Stories, Yōkai Stories
source : hyakumonogatari - Zack Davisson


- - - - - Check out other kappa tales from
- source : hyakumonogatari.com
Do Kappa Really Exist? - discussion
The Appearance of a Kappa - Edo Tokyo Kaii Hyakumonogatari (Tokyo)
The Kappa of Mikawa-cho (Tokyo)
The One-Armed Kappa (Gifu)

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source : facebook - Kaidankai

Enco : Monkey Monkey - A type of kappa.
Lurking in rivers and lakes, they wait for humans who drift carelessly too close, and reach out a red hand to plunge into their anus are rip out their shirikodama.
Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai


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Kumamoto 熊本県 - Various legends about the same theme:

Hidari Jingoro, his 藁人形 straw figures turning Kappa!
The straw figures
which Jingoro had made built a temple just over night.
When he threw them into the river after that, he told them "Just go and eat the assholes of people". So they became Kappa.
When such a Kappa eats rice offerings from a Buddhist altar, he can no longer kill people that way.

. Hidari Jingoroo 左甚五郎 Hidari Jingoro - master carpenter .

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. kappa tsuri, kappatsuri 河童釣 fishing for kappa .
- - - - - a la Hokusai Manga 北斎漫画
A man sits above his trap, holding the rope with one hand - and smoking his pipe leisurely.
When the Kappa, lured by the shirikodama anus treasure, comes close, he can capture the Kappa.

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. . . CLICK here for Photos !

- reference -



- - - - - . Gawatara Kappa ガワタラ and the shirikodama .



. - Kasha 火車 Kasha Demon "burning chariot" - .
There is also the theory
that the legend of kappa making humans drown and taking their butts (eating their innards from their butts) was born as a result of the influence of this kasha.

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. - - - Join my Kappa friends on facebook ! - - - .

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. Kappa densetsu　河童伝説, Kappa minwa 河童民話 - Legends - Introduction .

. Mingei 民芸　Regional Folk　Art from Japan .

- #shirikodama #kappashiriko -
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