THE KAPPA LEGENDA Comparative Ethnological Study on the Japanese Water-Spirit
Kappa and Its Habit of Trying to Lure Horses into the Water
BY

Ishida EiichirB
CONTENTSFOREWORD

CHAPTER I

Horses and Water-gods

The Japanese Islands (1)-Kappa luring horses into the water (1)-Pasturesby the water-side (1)-Fine horses sired by dragons (1)-Fine horses appear outof the water (2)--China a n d i t s borders (3)-Dragon-horses (3)pDragons turninto horses, and horses into dragons (4)-Dragons and celestial horses (7)Pasturing mares by the waterside so that they may bear fine steeds (7)-Divine
horses in the water (11)-Water-gods on horseback (13)-Horses and floods (14)-White Horse Cave (15)-Underground water (15)-Water-horses of Central
Asia (16)-Ting Pu-ling of Annarn (18)-River-gods seek to draw horses into thewater (19)-Sacrifice of horses to water-gods (20)-Importation of Chinese books(21)-Westem and northwestern parts of China (22)-Sea-stallion (23)-The
Thousand Nights and One Night (23)-Wildmales and domesticated females(24)-The Caucasus etc. (26)-Rashi, the winged horse (26)wAnHhita (27)A Permian idol (27)pIslamic culture and sea-stallions (27)-Prows in the formof horses' heads (28)-The god Varuqa (28)-The Finnic peoples (28)-NZikki,
the water-spirit (29)-The G e r m a n i c peoples (29)-Hoofs pointing backward(30)-Odin and the Nakki (31)-Scotland (32)-Kelpies (32)-The Boobrie etc.
(32)-Iron as a charm (33)-Charms
against water-spirits (34)-Ireland(35)-Manannin9s white horse (35)-Fine steeds of ~ ~ c h u l a i n(35)-St.
n
Michaeland others (35)-The goddess Epona (36)-France (36)-The magical propertiesof water (36)-Spain ( 3 7 ) ~ "Horses of the flood " (37)-Russia (37)-The mareRusalka (37)-Bohemia(38)wMisshapen forms and the nether world (38)Barks of trees have magic powers (38)-Lausitz (39)pHeadless black horses (39)-Hungary(40)-Southern
Slavs (40)-The chariot of the sun (40)-The
Greeks a n d t h e Mediterranean (40)-Poseidon, the horse-god (40)-Areion
and Pegasus (40)-Poseidon on horseback (41)-Sacrifice of horses (41)-The
earth and Poseidon (42)-Poseidon the bull-man (42)-God of the blossomingbough (42)-Great sea-bull (43)-Miss Harrison's theory (43)-The Minotaur,
Crete and Greece
the Cretan bull (43)-Minos, the priest and king-god (*)-Egypt,

T H E KAPPA LEGEND(@)-Atlantis (@)-Bull hunting and bull-fights (45)-Sacred pillars and sacrificial bulls (45)-Mycenaean culture and the worship of Poseidon (45)-The sunand Poseidon (45)-Poseidon, the foreign god (46)-The coming of horses toCrete (46)-Libyan origin (46)-Southward movement of the horse (47)-The
rearing and worship of oxen (49)

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods
Eduard Hahn (50)-The mystery of the moon (51)-The moon and women (51)-The cow and the horn (52)-Religious origin of domestic animals (52)-The
wheel and the plough (52)-Nomadic sphere of culture (53)-The
ox and thehorse (54)-The female principle, the moon, the ox and agriculture (55)-Figurinesof the primitive All-mother (56)-The spiral, the serpent and the moon (56)T h e Mother Earth (57)-Lunar mythology (57)-Fertility and ox-worship (57)-The moon and water (59)-The rain-cow (60)-The moon and the water oflife (61)-The horse and the moon (62)-Horses of the sun (62)-Worship of thesky (63)-The replacing of the ox with the horse (63)-Poseidon as earth-god
and god of agriculture (64)-The corn-spirit and the horse (64)-Water and theox (66)-Courtship of a water-god (66)-Sacrifice of virgins (67)-Oxen and horses
offered to water-gods (68)-Horse-headed
agricultural gods (68)-North
andSouth (72)-The Slavs (73)-The water-man (73)-The Turks (73)-The FinnoUgric peoples (74)-Water-festivals, oxen and horses (74)-Master of the water(75)-Oxen kept by water-spirits (75)-Oxen of the earth-spirit and the oxenof wells (76)-The G e r m a n i c peoples (77)-The water-bull (77)-The Celts(77)-The Semites (78)-" Oxen's well " (78)-The bull which bears the " sea "(78)-Petsians(79)-White horses and river-gods (79)-Sacrifice of cows (79)-Distribution of the water-horse legend and the Iranian peoples (80)-Sacredurine of oxen (80)-India (81)-Pre-Aryan culture (81)-Sacrifices to the flood
demon (82)-Buffalo demon (82)-Vamna in the AHvamedha (83)-The horse andthe mysteries of Mrtyu-PrajHpati-Aivamedha(84)-Aditi (84)-The Earth-Motherand oxen (85)-Gods of thunder and rain, and oxen and horses (85)-IndraAdad type of thunder-god (86)-Moon, thunder and rain (86)-The thundergod mounted on the bull (87)-The thunder-god as the god of fertility (87)Susa-no-o-no-mikoto (89)-Thunder-gods in the form of serpents (89)hChina
a n d h e r border regions (90)-Thunder and the dragon (90)-Wicked dragons
destroyed by thunder (90)-The chiao-dragon in the form of oxen (91)-Originof the domestication of oxen and horses (91)-The ox-headed ShCn-nung (93)Water-horses and water-oxen in the Shan-hai-ching (93)-" Ox in the serviceof the river-prince" (94)-An iron ox quells a river in flood (95)-Tree-spirit
in the form of a blue ox (96)-Single-homed oxen of the sacred tree (97)-Blue
oxen in the water (98)-Mongolian water-oxen (98)--Oxen and wind and rain (99)-Golden ox and golden chain (100)-Golden ox in Annam (102)-Hsii ChCn-chiin
imprisons an evil chiao-dragon (103)-Iron pillars and iron chains (103)-Chiaodragons fear iron (104)vFights with oxen in the water (104)-Li Ping and theriver-god (104)-Bull-fight and fertility rites (106)--Clay oxen and ta-ch'un (107)-Oxen, the shd and the tsu (107)-Oxen and the megalithic culture ( 1 0 8 ) X a r pturned into iron (108)-Stones in the earth ( 1 0 9 ) X a r p , chiao-dragons, and serpents

CONTENTS

...

111

(110)-Stone oxen in the water (110)-Water-spirits quelled by stone rhinoceroses(110)-Stone pillars and sacrificial oxen (111)-The earth, ancestors, sexual organs
and serpents (112)-Cutting off the heads of oxen with iron swords (112)-Dragonhorses cum celestial horses versus river-oxen cum earth-oxen (112)eHeaven isrepresented by the horse, and the earth by the ox (113)-White horse and blueox (113)-The Abasy of the Yakut (114)-The Japanese Islands (114)aAgriculture and the ox (114)-Divine oxen in the water (115)-The ox and the ceremony of praying for rain (115)-The Nakoshi festival etc. (115)-The riddle of the
kappa trying to lure horses into the water (116)

CHAPTER I11 Monkeys and Water-gods
Tortoises and snapping turtles (117)--Otters (118)-Boy water-gods (118)The wang-liang (119)-The shui-hu (120)-The ho-shui-kuei (120)-The shuiyun (120)-Bowl on the head (120)-Monkeys (121)-Monkeys by the waterside (122)-Monkeys are considered as the enemies of the kappa (122)-The
water-monster Wu Chih-ch'i (123)-Sung Wu-k'ung (125)-Monkeys, horses andthe kappa (126)-Visl;lu (126)---Gandharvas (127)-Monkeys kept in stables (128)-Monkeys used to cure horses (128)-Monkeys are good for horses (129)Monkeys drive away disease (130)-Sun Wu-k'ung, the keeper of the celestial
stables (131)-The
monkey ancestor of the Tibetans (131)-Chia-kuo
or mahua (131)-The Yang family and the Pai-ma T i (132)-Yang Ch'ien-tu of Shu(133)-Apiece of jade carved in the form of monkeys with arms entwined (133)Monkeys on horseback (134)-Monkeys drawing horses (134)-Crocodiles andthe liver of monkeys (135)

CONCLUSION
Summary (135)-Fine steeds obtained by the waterside (136)-Water-gods inthe form of horses (136)-Oxen and water (136)-Ox-worship (137)-The moon,
the earth, the female principle, oxen, the power of fertility and water (137)-The
southward advance of the horse ( 1 3 7 ) - 0 x e ~replaced by horses (138)-Western
Europe and Eastern Asia (138)-0xen and agriculture (138)-Dragon-horses
cum celestial horses versus river-oxen cum earth-oxen (139)-Continuity of thehuman culture (139)--God of thunder and rain (140)-Megalithic culture (141)-Taboo of iron (141)-The need of vision from the standpoint of world-history

BIBLIOGRAPHY
ILLUSTRATIONS
Varieties of the Kappa. Facsimile of a colour-print of the late Tokugawa period.
Fig. 1 Kappa caught on the beach near Mito, Hitachi province.
Fig. 2 Horses and water combined in a Permian idol.
Fig. 3 Assyrian boat used about 700 B.C. and depicted in the palace of Sargon.
Fig. 4 Hippocampi depicted on the wall of Min-ui near Kizil, Chinese Turkestan.
Fig. 5 Celtic horse-goddess Epona, may originally b: a deity of springs or rivers,
conceived as a spirited steed.
a) From a bas-relief found at Bregenz, Tyrol.

T H E KAPPA LEGEND
From a bronze statuette found in Wiltshire.
Poseidonon horseback, on a fragment of 7th century B.C. CorinthianFig. 6pottery.
Fig. 7 Poseidon as bull-god, on a black figured amphora in the museum at
Wiirzburg.
Fig. 8 Spirals and serpents engraved on each side of a piece of mammoth tusk,
discovered at Malta near Irkutsk.
Fig. 9 Horse-headed Oshira-sama, Hirota village, Kise-gun, Iwate prefecture.
Fig. 10 Unicorns combined with a pipal tree. A sealing from Mohenjo-Daro.
Fig. 11 She-rain with the rainbow over her. A rock-painting by the Bushmen,from a cave under the great precipice of Klein Aasvogelkop, RouxvilleDistrict, Orange Free State.
Fig. 12 T h e rain-bull, with two sorcerers who own it, a snake called kanga wai.
A rock-painting by the Bushmen, from a small cave on the banks of
the Sand Spruit, Basutoland District.
Fig. 13 Monkey holding a horse. The oldest known picture in Japan representing the association of monkeys with horses, sketched on thelower panel of a miniature tower containing some " bones of Buddha,"in the temple ShBmy6-ji, Kanazawa, Sagarni province, in A.D. 1296.
Preserved in the Kanazawa Bunko.
Fig. 14 Monkey drawing a horse, carved in relief on a votive picture dedicatedin A.D. 1589 to the SannB Shrine, Hikita village, Musashi province.
Fig. 15 Charms to be pasted in a stable, issued by a shrine in Kiso province.
Fig. 16 Komahiki-sen or fancy coins bearing effigies of monkeys leading horses.
Fig. 17 A charm to be pasted in a stable, issued by the oshiko shrine, Harima
province.
Fig. 18 Monkeys mounted on horseback found in designs of northern Eurasiannomadic peoples.
a) Pendant drop from Minussinsk.
b) Pendant drop. Site unknown.
c) Pendant drop from Yekaterinovka.
Fig. 19 Kappa from the river Chikugo-gawa, KyQshQ.
Fig. 20 Skull supposed to be that of the famous steed Surusumi, hung on apillar in the house of the family Kumagai, Izumitani village, Suruga
province, said to protect tlie house from fire, and heal or tame sickor too high-spirited horses when tethered to the pillar.
b)Translated by Yoshida Kenichi (j$B@-) from a revised version of
spelially prepared by the author
the Kappa Komahiki K6 (@J~,@j~I%!$)FOREWORD
This essay, the subject of which has so little to do with war and its turmoils,
was written nevertheless during the last stages of World War 11. I t was
originally begun as the author's contribution to a collection of studies in folklore
which was to be published in 1944 to commemorate the 70th birthday of Mr.
Yanagita Kunio, the foremost scholar and pioneer in the field of folklore in
Japan, but as work on the essay progressed, it became apparent that the natureof the questions discussed in it made it too long for inclusion in the collectionof studies if the questions were to be treated at all adequately.
The author left for North China in 1944, and in the comparatively peacefulatmosphere of Peking and Chang-chia-k'ou (Kalgan) where air-raids were
unknown, he was able to continue work on the essay more or less undisturbed.
About that time, an agreement was reached between the author and Dr.
M. Eder, the editor of Folklore Studies, published by the Catholic Universityof Peking, for an English translation of the essay to appear in that journal.
The war ended, and after being repatriated with the greater number ofJapanese residents in China, the author was able somehow to give the essay
its present form during the difficult days which followed in Japan after thewar. The Japanese text was published by Chikuma Shobb Ltd. in 1948
under the title, Kappa Komahiki KG ("Kappa luring horses into thewater "). I n 1949, Dr. Eder left Peking and came over to Japan. I t
was then decided that he should continue to edit and publish Folklore
Studies in Tokyo, and arrangements were once more made for an English
translation of this essay to appear in its pages. The author abbreviated, or
suppressed altogether, passages in the original Japanese text which were
thought to have little importance to foreign readers, in addition to making
some necessary corrections, and entrusted the work of translation to Mr.
Yoshida Kenichi. Mr. Yoshida not being a specialist in the subject, frequentmeetings were held between the two to determine the manner of translating
technical terms and phrases, for which part of the work the responsibility
must rest with the author.
The essay having been written during the troubled days preceding andfollowing the end of the war, much of the material employed in it could only
be obtained from indirect sources, with the exception of that pertaining toEastern -Asia. Should the author be able at some later date to make use ofsome of the great European and American libraries, he hopes to add a considerable amount of relevant material to that already given here.
A summary of the aim and content of the present essay is given in the
concluding chapter. The questions discussed and the method of study em-

T H E KAPPA L E G E N D

viployed may seem a little remote from the problems which now hold the attention of the anthropological world, but the author believes that there will
be some readers, at least, who will understand why he carried on the selfappointed task of writing the essay during the most difficult days of the war
which proved to be fatal to the Japanese.
I n conclusion, the author wishes to express his thanks to Mr. Yoshidafor undertaking the translation of the essay, to Dr. Eder for providing theopportunity to have the translation published, and to HBsei University forcontributing its research fund to defray a part of the expenses of translation.
Tokyo, Sept. 1950

ISHIDAEIICHIR~CHINESE DYNASTIESYin? 1788-1122B.C.
Jiq
1122- 249
Chou
Ch'un-ch'iu sfi
770- 403 t/
Chan-kuo &B
403- 221
Ch'in@
248- 207
Ch'ien Han(Former Han)
206- 24A.D.
Hou Han @@$ (Later Han)
25- 220 //San-kuo(Three Kingdoms)
220- 264Wei
229- 280
Wu $&220- 260 //Shu jj?~Chin
265- 316
Western Chin j@
Eastern Chin
317- 420lLa(Northern Wei)
386- 436
Pei Wei ;Sung% (Liu-Sung ~ I J * ) 420- 479 /t
Ch'i
479- 502
Liang
502- 557 /t
Ch'Cn@
557- 589 1.
SuiI%
581- 618 //T'ang
618- 907
Wu-tai Z K
907- 960Sung
960-1279 t/
Liao
916-1125 #/1115-1234 11
Chin
Yiian
n-;
1280-1368 //Ming
881368-1644 //Ch'ing @1644-1911
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THE KAPPA LEGENDCHAPTER I
Horses and Water-gods
The Japanese have all heard of the kappa. Legends about this little
monster, something half way between a child and a monkey, which lives in The J a w e s e
Islands
rivers and ponds and lays tricks on people, are to be found everywhere in
Japan, from Okinawa in the south to Hokkaido in the north, and there arevery few Japanese who do not have memories of having been frightened inchildhood by stories about the kappa and its doings. The tricks played on Kappa
men by this monster usually follows a set pattern, among which, trying to luring horses intolure horses into the water is so common, that examples of this legend both the water
ancient and modern, collected by Mr. Yanagita Kunio in his paper Kappa
Komahiki (" Kappa luring horses into the water ") alone, cover the provinces of Iwashiro, RikuchO, Echigo, Musashi, Sagami, Suruga, Mikawa,Kai, Shinano, Hida, Mino, Noto, Yamashiro, Izumo, Harima, Nagato, Awa,
Tosa, Hizen and, in fact, nearly the whole of Japan. In most of these stories,
the kappa is described as failing in the attempt to draw the horse into thewater, and being made to apologize in one way or another, sometimes formallyin writing. Mr. Yanagita pays particular attention to the important partplayed by horses in these kappa legends, and it is this that gave him the idea
Pastures by theof writing his Kappa Komahiki. A point to be noticed in connection with water-sidethese legends is that, in many of them, the horses are grazing in pasturesnear a piece of water when the kappa appears and tries to lure them into it.
For instance, in Tsugu village, in otsu district (gun), Nagato province, it used
to be a yearly custom to let the horses of the lord of the clan out to pastureby the dykes round Sugitani pond,l) and in many of the legends from otherparts of Japan, the horses are also either tethered or grazing free by a riveror marsh when the kappa appears. The question arises then, why such Fine horses sired
places near the water were chosen for pasturing horses. In his next paper, by dragons
Batei-seki (" Horse-shoe Stones "), Mr. Yanagita goes into this exhaustively,
giving numerous examples from legends concerning such historically famous
horses as Ikezuki, Surusumi and Tayfiguro. For instance, a dragon was said
to inhabit a pond on Mt. Nakui in Mutsu province, and one night, a horse
-

1)

-

Yanagita, 1912, p. 30 (ed. 1942, p. 38).

2

Fine horses appear
out of the water

THE KAPPA LEGEND

went up the mountain by moonlight and drank the water of the pond, changing
thereby immediately into an extremely fine horse, and so was named Ikezuki(" Moon on the Pond ")2).
Also, a dragon was said to live in RyOgaike(" Dragon Pond ") near the village of Kiyokawa in Higashi-Tagawa districtin the province of Uzen, and when Sakai Tadazane was lord of those parts,
the dragon covered a mare which was grazing by the pond, and the mareconceived, and bore a dapple colt which grew into such a fine horse, that theowner of the mare, a farmer of Narizawa village called CliBemon, presented
the horse to the lord3). I t would seem to be beyond doubt that these legends
have some connection with the popular belief that fine horses are the offspring of dragons, or of water-gods of one sort or another, and so Mr. Yanagita writes on this point: " These facts, particularly when we remember that
there are many fine horses named Ikezuki that are supposed to have been bornnear ponds, clearly show that the fact of many pastures throughout the land
being found near the sea, ever since the time of the compilariori of the Engishiki, was not merely due to considerations of economy in that suchplaces required the minimum of mud-walls and fences. If it had not beenfor some well-established experience, or theory, that one obtained fine horses
by so doing, it is inconceivable that islands and capes should be so muchsought after as pasture land."4) He says further: " These considerations
must show that it is extremely difficult to establish the relationship between
the custom of bathing horses in rivers and marshes, known as uma-arai, theceremony of tethering horses and cattle near a piece of water on certain daysin the year, called Nogai or Nakoshi, and the superstition that water-gods may
be lured into covering mares, and making them conceive. Any of these facts
may be the origin of the others, any of them may be a transformation of anyof the others, and it is not possible to reason about them from the standpoint
merely of a plausible evolution."5) From this idea of choosing land near
the water for the site of a pasture, so that mares might conceive from dragons,
it is surely only one step to the other idea that divine horses appear out of thewater. In each of the three provinces of Uzen, Ugo, an'd Iwashiro, there isa village which is said to be the birthplace of the famous horse Ikezuki. But
whereas in the case of Ishisone hamlet, a part of NishigB village in the districtof Minami-Murayama, Uzen province, the legend is that the site of the village
was once a great marsh inhabited by a dragon-serpent, and that Ikezuki wassired by this monster,Q in Shimo-Kurokawa hamlet, a part of Nichig6 village,
Okazaki district, Ugo province, it is said that once a dragon-horse appearedout of an old pond in the village and neighed, and a mare belonging to a farmer
called Yohei heard it, and conceived, and bore Ikezuki,') while in the village2) ibid., p. 160 (p. 206).
3) ibid., p. 174 (p. 223).
4) ibid., p. 174 (p. 224).

5) ibid., p. 189 (p. 242).
6) ibid., p. 161 (p. 207).
7) ibid., p. 161 (p. 207).

CHAPTER I Horse and Water-gods

3of Yachi, Kawanuma district, in the province of Iwashiro, the reigning spiritof Kamado pond within the precincts of the village shrine of Haguro is said
to have been a yellm horse and that it became the father of 1kezuki.Q Thereis also a legend that in Tsui on the eastern coast of the district of Suki in Oki
island, the white horse Ikezuki appeared out of the waters of the Male Pond
and the Female Pond there, and crossed the sea to the province of I z u r n ~ . ~ )I n Jbdani, a stream in Hakusan in the province of Kaga, it is said that avillager named Ishihei once saw a small horse with very long manes and tailspring into the stream at dawn,lO)and there is also a legend that Tayii-zaki(Cape TayQ), forming a part of the village of Futomi i n Awa province, was so
named on account of a rock-cave there, out of which appeared Tayiiguro,the favourite horse of Yoshitsune,ll) while marks left on rocks by the waterside, supposed to have been made by the hoofs of such legendary horses, areto be found all over the country.
The legend of the kappa trying to lure horses into the water, and theidea of setting up pastures by the waterside so that dragons or water-gods
might breed with mares, and the superstition that famous horses have appeared either out of the water, or some place near the water, may all be considered to have some connection with each other, and to form a part of acommon folklore, and it is quite possible to suppose that they all spring fromsome common origin. I t is the purpose of the present writer to investigate
further in this direction the questions raised by Mr. Yanagita in his Santo"
Mindan-shd (" Folk-tales of Mountains and Islands ") which contains theabove-mentioned two articles.
The first thing that rises. to one's mind in this connection is the legend China and its
concerning dragon-horses (lung-ma
which is found among the Chinese. borders
The belief that water-gods or water-spirits appear in the form of dragons, iscommon to China and all countries of Eastern Asia, and ever since the days rago on-horsesof remote antiquity when Fu-hsi (@%), who is said to have had the body ofa serpent with a human head, reigned over China, during whose reign a dragonhorse bearing a chart (t'u B) appeared out of the Huangho (Yellow River) andwere formed after the patterns
the diviners' symbols of the eight h a (,ii#)
on the chart,12)the horse and the dragon have always been closely associatedas manifestations of the water-spirit. Among the ancient records giving
evidence of this combination, we may cite the Shan-hai-ching, in which the
god of Min-shan (I&&) is described as having "the body of a horse with adragon's head," etc. But later writings also give detailed accounts of the
dragon-horse, as in the Shang-shu-chung-hou in which we read that " Yaocaused a precious stone to be thrown into the river, and a dragon-horse ap-a,&),8 ) ibid., p. 161 (p. 207).
10) ibid., p. 158 (p. 203).
12) Shang-shu-chung-hou, Wo-ho-chi (ByRB).

9) ibid., p. 167 (p. 2L4)11) ibid., p. 163 (p. 209).

4

T H E KAPPA LEGEND

peared holding a chia (p carapace) in its mouth. The colour of its body was
red with green markings. It went to the altar and released the chia-t'u (Ep B)
from its mouth."13) Again, Sung Jou-chih who lived under the Liangdynasty says in his Jui-ying-t'u that " the dragon-horse loves the virtuous
government, and is a spirit of the rivers. I t is 8 ch'ih (A)and 5 ts'un (3)high(ch'ih=approx. 1 ft., ts'un=approx. 1 inch) and has a long neck, the wholebody being covered with scales. I t has wings above the bones, with hairthat hangs down growing by the side of the wings. I t has nine kinds of cries,
and it steps out on the water without sinking. I t appears when a good kingreigns over the country."14) Thus, its colour, size, shape and even its cries
are given in these records, and we may surmise from them that the dragonhorse was a kind of a fabulous beast that combined the qualities of a dragon
and a horse. It is also recorded that a dragon-horse which appeared in Marchof the 5th year of the Wu-ti? (&@) era during the reign of Kao-tsu of the T'ang
dynasty, in the river Hsi-shuiin Ching-ku-hsien (SSH)to the westof the present Chao-hua-hsien ( @ R E ) in Ssiich'uan province, "was 8 or 9
ch'ih high, and had the form of a dragon, the body being covered with scales
as though sheathed in armour. Moreover, it was striped in five colours, andwhile it had the body of a dragon, its head was that of a horse, white, with
two horns. I t held something in its mouth 3 or 4 ch'ih long, and it rose above
the waves, walked about, and after taking over a hundred strides, disappeared
into the water."l5) According to a report made to the Empercr during theGovernor of LungT'ien-pao (XB) era by Huang-fu Wei-ming (SEE@),
yu (B*, Kansu), as recorded in the T'ang-shu, a dragon-horse borne by amare belonging to one K'u-ti Hsiao-i (@SIC%%),an inhabitant of Lungchih-hsien ( B s E , to the south of the present Lo-tu-hsien $$$?!$%in theeastern part of Ch'inghai province), ninety-nine days after its birth, had its
body covered with scales, being quite hairless. " I [says the report] was examining it, when a cloud of good augury in five colours descended on it fromafar, and remained even after a considerable time had elapsed."16) There
are also many legends of dragons turning into horses, and horses into dragons.
For instance, an incident that occurred early in the 4th century is recordedin the Chin-shu as follows: " During the T'ai-an (A%) era, children sang,' Five horses running about loose crossed the river, and one of them turned
into a dragon,' and soon afterwards, the middle part of the Empire fell into
great disorder, many great ruling familie: being destroyed."17) From thisone may conjecture that the idea of horses turning into dragons and vice versa(ma)

D~~~~~~turninto
horses, and horses
into dragons.

13) Tai-ping-yii-lan, 893 (cit. Shang-shu-chung-hou)14) T'ien-chung-chi, 55.
15) T'ai-ping-kuang-chi, 435.
16) Tai-ping-yii-lan, 895 ; Tien-chung-chi, 55.
17) Chin-shu, 28, Wu-hsing-chih (Zfi,&).

CHAPTER I Horse and Water-gods

5

was already prevalent enough at the time to be used in such every day metaphors. According to the local tradition, a dragon is said to have once appeared out of the water of Lung-t'an ( 3 s " Dragon Abyss "), a pond twenty
li to the east of T'ung-chiang-hsienin the Chia-ling-tao
section of Ssiichban province, and turning into a horse, pranced about,leaving marks of its hoofs on a stone which are still supposed to be visible
today.ls) Again, two dragons were supposed to live in Chin-lung-chih (&@#&" Golden Dragon Pond ") in Ma-i-hsien
to the northeast of Shuohsien ($@%,)in North Shansi, and these, ever since the of reign the Pei Wei
dynasty, transformed themselves from time to time into two horses, one blackand the other yellow, appearing when the sky was overcast, and mares meetingthem bore colts afterwards that grew into remarkably fine horses.lQ) The
Lung-ma-t'an ( B E @ " Dragon-horse Deep "), 20 lito Lu-chou (BM)in thenortheast of Ssuch'uan, is supposed to be the same into which a horse plunged
and became a dragon, this horse being the one on which Wang Ch'ang-yii( 5 3 % ) of the T'ang dynasty was sent home by Lo-p'o-hsien ($&%&ill[),
who had taught him Taoist magic. The horse carried Wang back to his homein an instant, after which the horse leaped into the abyss.20) Contrary tothis, a dragon once appeared out of the Pai-ma-ch'iian (BE,% "White
Horse Spring "), a 100 li to the north of Ya-chou (WN) in the eastetn partof Sik'ang province near the Ssuch'uan border, and transformed itself
into a white horse.") In the time of Emperor Hsiian-tsung of the T'ang
dynasty, a strange horse was captured.in the Yellow River and sent to theEmperor from Ling-ch'ang-chiin (%Em, to the southwest of the present
district Hua-hsienin Honan Province), and this beast had a body covered
with dragon's scales, a tail like that of a serpent, hair with the thickness ofa man's fist, manes that were not of hair, but of flesh. When rebellion brokeout, and the Emperor fled west to Hsien-yang (&@), the horse went westwards also and entered the river Wei-shui (@&), ohanged itself into a dragon
and swam away, no one knows where.22) Also during the T'ang dynasty, ahorse from the barbarous regions bought by one Hsii Hsi-yen (SB*), having
been told to do so by a Taoist fortune-teller, turned out to be a dragon froma cave in which dwelled the Taoist sage T'ai-i-yuan-chun (A&%%),and
when the horse was taken as far as the Kuo-hsien (%%, 50 li to the east of
in Shensi province), and let loose near
the present Pao-ch'i-hsien g@j#
the Wei River, it entered the river and became a dragon again, and went a ~ a y . ~ Q(%a%),(%@a)(,@a%),

18)
19)
20)
21)
22)
23)

Ta-ming I-t'ung-chih, 68, Pao-ning-fu (f!$sj$j); Ta-ch'ing I-t'ung-chih, 297, Pao-ning-fu, 1.
Ta-ming I-t'ung-chih, 2 1, Ta-t'ung-fu (AMR).
ibid., 72, Lu-chou, Shan-ch'uan (mJI]) and Hsien-chih (1~4s).
ibid., 72, Ya-chou.
Liu-win, 19.
Yu-hing Lkh-hien-ch'iian-chuan, 6.

THE KAPPA LEGEND

6

In connection with these legends, passages in the Hsi-@-chi which may be
regarded as a mine of Chinese folklore from the earliest times, are of evengreater interest. According to the story given in this book, Hsiian-chuang(jig),on his way to India to obtain the sacred Buddhist sutras, comes toin Mt. Sh&-p'an (@&$A),when a dragon
the river Ying-ch'ou-chienappears out of the water, eats u p Hsiian-chuang's mount.24) This is no
ordinary dragon, but a son of the dragon-king of the Western Seas, that had
been sentenced to be suspended in the air for having burnt one of the precious
pearls in his father's palace. However, Kuan-yin, or AvalokiteSvara-Bodhisattva, took pity on his plight, and freed him from his position, and after
saying to him, " Change yourself into a white horse and follow the one who
is going west to bring back the sacred writings, by which you shall gain merit,"
had sent him into the river.25) So, when Kuan-yin arrives from the Southern
Seas before Mt. She-p'an, at the instance of Sun Wu-k'ung ( @ ~ &andg Chin)t'ou Chieh-ti
and waves a willow branch over the dragon's body,the dragon is immediately changed into a dragon-h~rse,~e)and for over ten
years, faithfully shares all the hardships of the journey with the rest of Hsiianchuang's little group on their way to India, serving as Hsiian-chuang's mount,and proving himself to be of great use to them in time of need. For instance,
when Hsiian-chuang is turned into a tiger by a demon in the kingdom of
Pao-tsang (BG), and shut u p in an iron cage, the white dragon-horse turns
himself into a dragon again and fights the demon, but finding himself outmatched by the enemy, plunges into the river Yii-shui (&7&), hides there fora while, and becoming a white horse once more, returns to the stable. Chu
Pa-chieh (ij$j,\&) sees the horse covered with sweat and wounded in thethigh, and wonders at it, when the horse speaks to him in human language,
and acquaints him with all that has happened to the priest.27) So, when
Hsiian-chuang finally reaches India and obtains the sutrm, Buddha rewards
the white horse by appointing him Heavenly Dragon, and when Chin-t'ou
Chieh-ti, by Buddha's command, leads the horse to a pond at the back of Mt.
called Hua-lung-ch'ih (&%a),the hair instantly falls off from
Lin (SJJ),
the horse's body, the skin is cast, and in the place of the horse appears a golden
dragon.2*) Such instances of physical relationship between horses and dragons
are to be found even as far as Annam, where, according to the legend connectedwith the White Horse Shrine in Hanoi, in Tonkin, the spirit within a dragon's
body is once said to have come out of the temple in the form of a white horse,29)
while Dang Cao, an Annamese hero who was killed in leading a rebellion
against the Chinese, is supposed to have been given a golden collar to wear()fgF&ay)(-&a%%),

24) Hsi-yu-chi, 15.
25) ibid., 8.
26) ibid., 15.

27) ibid., 30.
28) ibid., 100.
29) Matsumoto, p. 1016.

CHAPTER I Horses and Water-gods

7

as a charm, by a spirit half-dragon and half-h~rse.~O)
Examples of the relationship between dragons and horses are by no means Dragons and celesconfined to those rhat have already been given. The emperor Wu-ti of the tial horses
Han dynasty says in his Ode on the Celestial Horse, supposed to be written
in the 3rd year of thewhen a horse appeared out of the river Wu-wa
era (120 B.C.), " Now who is there for me to consort with.
Yuan-shou (ZR)
The dragons are my friends."s1) In another of his compositions, the Odeto the Celestial Horse from the Western Borders, said to be written when
General Li Kuang-li defeated the king of Ta-yuan (Fergana) and cut off hishead, and returned with horses of the breed which sweat blood in the springof the 4th year of the T'ai-ch'u (A@)era (101 B.C.), there occur the words:" The coming of the celestial horse is brought about by the dragons,"32)and
Shih-kuin his commentary on the first Ode, says, " I t is here meant,that there is now no one to consort with, unless it be the dragons," and Yingshao
in his commentary on the second, says, " Celestial horses are
kin to the divine dragons, so that the coming of the celestial horse foretells theadvent of the dragon." In the reign of the emperor Hsuan-ti, F&ngF&ngshih (gsj@)
also went to Ta-yuan, where he obtained a fine horse shaped
like a dragon and returned.33) At the same time, we find the following passage Pasturing mares byin a book under the Ming dynasty: " The dragon by its nature is most lustful. the waterside sothat
When it copulates with cows, the cows bear giraffes, when with sows, the they may bear finehorsessows bear elephants, and when with mares, the mares bear dragon-horses."34)
The idea of dragon-horses being the product of dragons or water-gods copulating with mares is also of considerable antiquity, further evidence of which
may be found in the numerous records of the superstition which made men
pasture mares by the waterside so that they may bear excellent horses. In
Pieh-kuo-tung-ming-chi, said to be written by Kuo Hsien (SD,~)of the Later
Han dynasty, we read: " In the country of Hsiu-mi were found many divine
horses. Mules and asses are 100 ch'ih high, pure white in colour, able to go
about on the water, and having wings, often fly over the sea. Wheneverthey cover the mares of the inhabitants, the mares bear divine asses." Thelake Tien-ch'ih (&E&), to the south of the present Hui-li-hsien (&3Ej!R) in
Ssfich'uan province, has a circumference of about 300 li, and while at its

(@z)

(m&),

(@a),

30) Langlet, p. 176.
3 1) Ch'ien Hun-shu, 22, Li-lo-chih.
32) ibid., 6 , Wu-ti-chi; 22, Li-lo-chih.
33) " FOng-shih a t last reached Ta-yiian in the west. [The king of] Ta-yiian, having heard that(m,the king of Sha-ch'&
Yarkand) had paid an extraordinary respect to him, presented
says that by this, a horse having a
him yith a fine steed like a dragon [Shih-ku
shape resembling that of a dragon is meant] to take back with him. The Emperor wasvery pleased when FOng-shih offered him the horse."-Ch'ien
Hun-shu 79, F2ng F2ng-shihchuan (:Em@$).
34) Wu-tsa-tsu, 9.

(Em&)

8

T H E KAPPA LEGEND

source it is deep a'nd wide, it narrows and becomes shallow towards the end,so that its source has the appearance of being its end, and its end its source,which is the reason why it has been named Tien-ch'ih (" inverted lake "). According to the popular belief, divine horses lived in the lake, and mares thatwere covered by them bore fine steeds that could travel 500 li a day.35) At
the foot of Mt. Lung-ch'iian (B,! " Dragon Spring ") to the northwest of
Chien-yang-hsien (f@g)#)in Ssuch'uan province, is a lake called Ch7iushui (@7k),also known as Ch'ing-ch7ih ( % a ) or Lung-ch'ih" Dragon
Pond '7. In times of drought, the inhabitants offered prayers by thislake, which were always answered by rain, and when mares were pastured
beside it, many of them became mothers of fine horses.36) Concerning
Ma-ming-hsi (B, qf&$$)
in the country of Shu (-@, Ssfich'uan), we read:" Once an inhabitant named ChCng
pastured his horses near theriver, and one of his mares bore a dragon-horse which had hoofs that were as
sharp as claws, red manes and .red hair. The beast stood 7 ch'ih high, andshaking its manes, would give long cries, leaping about on the water, which is
the reason why the river was named Ma-ming-hsi (" the dell where the horse
dragons living in Chin-lung-ch'ih ( & % a "Golden Dragon
cried ")."37) TWO
Pond ") in Ma-i-hsien (,&&)#) in North Shansi, have already been mentioned,
which, ever since the time of the Pei Wei dynasty, occasionally took the formof two horses, one black and the other yellow. These appeared when thesky was overcast, and "mares that met them bore colts afterwards that turned
out to be divine horses, some of which had horns like antlers "3'3). In thereign of the Emperor Hsiian-tsung of the T'ang dynasty, Li-i (%&), thegovernor of Lin-tzii (@I#) in Shantung province, sought dragon-horses
in the part of the country comprised in the territory of the old kingdoms ofand Lu (B),following the advice of an old man he happened to meet,
Ch'i (B)and in the summer of the 29th year of the K'ai-yuan ( W E ) era (A.D. 741),
in the 5th month, he finally found one belonging to Ma Hui-Cn (,Be&),an inhabitant of Pei-hai-chun (;lLs@,
in the present I-tu-hsieninShantung), and presented it to the Emperor. This beast had manes thatwere of flesh, the breast of a giraffe, and its cries were not like those of a horse.
It could travel 300 li a day. Ma Hui-Cn had at first only one mare, but he had
always let her bathe in the River Tzii, until one day she conceived, and bore
the dragon-horse. For this reason, we read, the horse was named Lungtzii (%+ " Dragon
The regions round Ch'inghai (Kukunor) have been known from ancient times for the fine horses bred there.

(a)

35)
36)
37)
38)
39)

Huayang-kw-chih, Nan-chung-chih (TPj @,&) ; Shui-ching-chu, 36, Wen-shui (Wk).
T'ai-ping-huanyii-chi, 78, Chien-nan-hsi-tao (@J@Bt),
7, Mao-chou (Bm).
P'in-i-s&ng ma-chi, pt. 2 .
Taming I-t'ung-chih, 21 Ta-t'ung-fu.
T'ai-ping-kuang-chi, 435 ; I'ien-chung-chi, 55 ; cf. T'ang-shu 36, Wu-hsing-chih.

CHAPTER I

Horses and Water-gods

9

We read in the Sui-shu: " Ch'inghai has a circumference of over 1,000 li, andthere is a small mountain in the middle of it. I t is the custom in those parts
to graze mares by the water in winter, and it is said that they conceive andbear horses sired by dragons. T'u-ku-hun (!@%@) once obtained a Persianmare and let her loose into the lake, and she bore afterwards a dapple. This
horse could travel 1,000 li a day with ease, and for this reason was known inYang-lung-k'Cng
its days as Dapple of Ch'inghai (@$&@)."40)to the north of Kuei-yang-hsien ( 2 E R ) in Kueichou province, is a part of ariver which is extremely deep, and supernatural beings are said to live in it.
According to the popular belief:" At the beginning of spring, the barbarians who dwell in the region drive
willow stakes into the ground, and after caressing their mares, tether themto the stakes. Thereupon the sky becomes overcast, indefinite forms appear
which coil round the mares and cover them, and after this, the mares always
bear horses sired by dragons."
A white horse which came from these regions towards the end of theYiian Dynasty, was 9 ch'ih high, over a chang (10 ch'ih) in length, and riding
it was like riding on a cloud. This was later presented to the Emperor,
and was given the name of Fei-yiieh-feng (Bj&g " Leaper of Peaks ").*I)
A similar legend to this is found in Shantung, a region far removed from Kueichou, during the reign of the Ming Dynasty:" In the winter of the 18th year of the Yung-lo (&%) era (A.D. 1420)
of the Ming dynasty in the 10th month, Ts'ui Yu-liang ( B Z s ) ,an inhabitant of Chu-ch'Cng-hsien (%$@%)in Shantung, presented a dragon-horseto the Emperor. It was bluish in colour, and had manes that were of flesh
and stood up. Its body was covered with curious markings which mingledwith each other, and seemed like a dragon's scales. I t had red manes, a tailthat was not of hair but of flesh, a breast which was like that of a giraffe andthat of a phoenix at the same time, a great deal of fat about its body, andaltogether, a very curious appearance. On questioning the inhabitants ofthe district, it was found that the sea about there was so deep as to be quite
unfathomable, and that a supernatural being sometimes appeared there, whoselong form could be dimly discerned in the mist. There was a mare which
always grazed by this sea, and one evening, the wind suddenly rose, rain came,and the mare conceived and bore this beast."d2)
But it seems that supernatural beings that became fathers of finehorses did not always live in the water. For example, a celestial horse lived
on a high mountain in the eastern part of Hui-wu-hsien ( e @ R , now Hui-

(sm),

10

THE KAPPA LEGEND

li-hsien -&@R in Ssiich'uan province) at the source of the Chun-ma-ho(@,&$J ' R i v e r of Fleet Steeds "). The horse could travel 1,000 li a day,and its hoof-prints are supposed to remain to this day. The inhabitants of
the region grazed their mares at the foot of the mountain, and the mares bore
fine horses, which the inhabitants called the progeny of the celestial horse.43)
There is also the breed of horses which sweat blood, that were raised in the
kingdom of Ta-yuan (Fergana). We read in the Han-shu that " they are descended from the celestial horse," and there is a commentary to the work
according to which, " it is said that there is a high mountain in Ta-yuan, on
which lives a horse, that may not be captured. This being so, a five-coloured
mare is placed at the foot of the mountain, and then the horse and the marecome together and the mare foals. All the horses so born sweat blood, forwhich reason, they are called the progeny of the celestial horse."44) Thereis also a passage in the Sui-shu to the effect that a divine horse lives in a caveon the southern face of the mountain P'o-li-shan (~@J&J), in the kingdomof Tokhara. Every year, the inhabitants graze their mares by the side of
the cave, and the mares become mothers of noble horses, all of which aresaid to sweat blood.45) There is a legend similar to this which is still preserved among the Mongols today. I t seems that in ancient times, the divine
horse Bosafabo, a red chestnut stallion with a white star on his forehead,
lived in Donran cave. Everyone, from the king to the common people,
brought mares to the cave where he lived, so that they might have foals sired
by Bosafabo, and even today, many fine horses are supposed by the Mongols
to be descended from him.46) Again, just as in Japan a horse grazing in43) Hua;vang-kuo-chih, Shu-chih (a&); Shui-ching-chu, 36, Jo-shui (37k).
Ch'ien Hun-shu, 96, pt. 1, Hsiyu-chuan, Mkng K'ang's commentary.
Sui-shu, 83, Hsiyii-chuan, T'u-huo-lo ; T'ang-shu, 221, pt. 2, Hsiyii-chuan; cf. note 353.
46) Larson, p. 159. Marco Polo says that the country of Badascian (Badakshan) produces abreed of fine horses with remarkably hard hoofs, which can travel with great speed overmountains that no other horse could possibly traverse, and that until not long before histime, there were many horses in that country of the strain of Alexander's horse Bucephalus,
all of which had a horn or a particular mark on the forehead like their famous ancestor, but thatthey were now extinct.-Moule and Pelliot, vol. 1, pp. 137-138, ch. 47 ; Yule and Cordier,vol. 1, p. 158, bk. 1, ch. 24, p. 162, note 4. The name Bosafabo also, which is clearly notof Mongolian origin, may quite possibly be derived from Bucephalus, which gradually took
on that form in the course of ages during which the legend of the Macedonian horse washanded down from generation to generation among the nomadic tribes of Inner Asia. On
the other hand, we read in the Hsi-ho-chiu-shih (By$iJgZj$)
concerning a supernatural
stallion living on the top of a high mountain in Ta-yuan, which became the ancestor of afamous breed of horses through mares which the people brought to the mountain to be covered by the stallion, that " The Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty, hearing that there lived ato invade the country. The
celestial horse in Ta-yuan-kuo, sent Li Kuang-li (3E;FIJ)
horse being captured, it was found to have a horn on the forehead, which caused muchwonder. It was then that the Emperor composed the Ode on the Celestial Horse."-T'ienchung-chi, 55. If we compare this with the legend of Bucephalus in Marco Polo, we begin
to see the possibility of a strong desire to improve the breed of horses by cross-breeding withthe superb Western horses underlying all these legends of modern Mongols, those about
Tokhara and T'u-ku-hun of the Sui and the T'ang dynasties, and about Ta-yuan of thetime of the Han dynasty.
44)
45)

CHAPTER I Hroses and Water-gods

11

Sumiyano plain at the foot of Mt. Nakui in Mutsu province, is said to haveclimbed the mountain by moonlight, and having drunk the water of the pondon the summit in which a dragon lived, became pregnant and bore the steed
Ikezuki,47) or just as a mare belonging to the wealthy Damburi of Azukizawa
in Kazuno-gun in RikuchQ province, drank the water of the pond on Mt.
RyQba (" Dragon-horse ") and is supposed to have been changed
into adragon-horse,48) so in China, in the time of the Sung dynasty, a white mareonce drank the water of the spring Ch'u-ch'an-ch'iian (Ej&,%),
4 li to thesoutheast of Shih-lou-hsien ( z @ B ) in the western part of Shansi, andbore a dragon-horse,49) while the water of Lung-ma-ch'uan (@&& " Springof a Dragon-horse") in Hsi-ho-hsien ( E m % ) in Ransu is said to have thisproperty that, " every spring, mares drink there at night, and become pregnant
and bear foals, which at first have no hair, and have to be wrapped in felt.
After a few months, hair begins to grow, and in less than three years, the horses
grow to be identical with those of T a - ~ i i a n . ~Although~)
actual intercourse
between mares and dragons, or divine horses, is not recorded, we read in
the Shu-i-chi of J&n Fang of the Liang dynasty:" King Mu (BX*)
grazes his eight horses in Lung-ch'uan
in the island of the Eastern Sea. Grass grows on the island, of a particularkind called lung-ch'u" dragon-fodder "). When a horse eats of it, it
becomes capable of travelling 1,000 li a day, and it is written in an ancient
record that a tuft of this lung-ch'u grass once turned into a dragon-horse."51)
This, and other passages like: "Where Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty used to graze his horses in the midst of a lake, the grass even to this day
retains the appearance of having been bitten. So this place in the midst ofwould seemthe lake is today called Ma-ts& (,&@ " Moor of Horse~"),"5~)
to be further evidence of the idea of pasturing horses by the waterside, so thatmares might bear fine horses.
Once mares are supposed to bear noble horses through intercourse with Divine horses i n

(mil)

(@a

47) Yanagita, 1912, p. 160 (ed. 1942, p. 206).
48) ibid., p. 173 (p. 222).
9, Hsi-chou (Rfi]). We read in this work49) I'ai-ping-huanyu-chi, 48, Ho-tung-tao ($J*g)
that, " A passage in the Ch'un-ch'iu says that Hsien Kung (R2),with the ch'tng @ (chariots)of Ch'u-ch'an (E&) passed through Yu
and invaded Kuo
Ch'ii-ch'an isthought to produce a breed of fine horses," and some people ,are of the opinion that Ch'uch'an is the country of Ch'ii-chih ( & z ) or Kuei-tzti
a country known for its breedof fine horses. In a corresponding passage in the T'ai-ping-huanyii-chi, a n explanation of
the Lung-ch'iian (@,5
" Dragon-spring ") in Shih-lou-hsien (Z&R) is given as follows:" Lung-ch'uan is a spring a t the foot of the mountain Tung-shan (Ra), 10 l i to the southeast of the hsien. Many fine horses are bred among those pastured by this spring, whence
its name of Lung-ch'uan."50) Ta-mitlg I-t'ung-chih, 35, Kung-ch'ang-fu
51) Shu-i-chi, pt. 1.
52) ibid., pt. 2.

(s).

(B)

(a%),

(ZgR).

the water

THE KAPPA LEGEND

12

divine beings in the water, it is quite natural that the divine beings themselves
should next come to be thought of, not only as dragons in the shape of serpents,
but as having the form of water-horses. The divine horses of Tien-ch'ih,already mentioned, e m b ~ d ythe same idea as the yellow horse of Kamado
Pond in Yachi village in the province of Iwashiro, which became the fatherof Ikezuki. Four divine horses of Tien-ch'ih are supposed to have appeared
together, first during the reign of Emperor Chang of the Han dynasty,53)
and then again much later, during the Yuan-ho
era of the T'ang dynasty,54' at both times when the province of I-chou (ajfj)
was being ruledby a particularly beneficent governor. I n the 14th year of the T'ai-yuan (2z ) era of the Chin dynasty (A.D. 389) also, two such horses, one white andthe other black, are supposed to have appeared over the water of the lake, as
though engaged in play.55) The idea of these divine horses coming out of thewater is in itself an ancient one. The passage in the Hsiao-ching-ecei yiianshtn-ch'i which says, " When virtue reaches the mountains, .. divine horses
shall appear out of the lake,"56) expresses the same idea as that of the dragonhorse emerging with a chart out of the river, and we also read in the recordsof the time that in the summer of the 2nd year of the Yuan-shou ( z g ) era (121
B.C.), during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty, a horse appeared
to the north of Shu-fangout of the water of the river Yii-wo-shui (&57x,
chun
in Ordos in Inner Mongolia), and again in the autumn of the
4th year of the Yiian-ting (%A%) era (113 B.C.), out of the river Wu-washui (@&Jc, said to be a tributary of the river Tang-ho
in An-hsihsien SpjB in K a n ~ u ) . ~ ' )A pond on the mountain Sh&n-ma-shan (@,&h" Mt. Divine Horse," the present Mt. Nan-po-chung G&#zh)in
Kansu has been known from old to be the abode of dragon-horses, andonce a horse was captured there with a head 3 ch'ih long.58) In the time of

(%a)

.

$JJzm

s$J

" During the reign of the emperor Chang-ti of the Han dynasty, Wang Fu (39)of
Shu-chiin
was made governor of I-chou (MI).He ruled over the people so well thatfour celestial horses appeared out of the river Tien-ch'ih."-T'ai-ping-kuang-chi,435. A passage in the Hua-yang-kuo-chih which also says that, " Four celestial horses appeared out othe river Tien-ch'ih," is quoted in the T'ai-ping-yii-lan, 897, and again, as in the following
note, in the P'in-i-sung Ma-chih.
54) " It says in the Hua-yang-kuo-chih that, four celestial horses appeared out of the river Tiench'ih. I t says in the Nan-man-chuan (&-)
also, that during the Yiian-ho
era under
became governor of I-chou, and he ruled so well that
the T'ang dynasty; Wang Tsao (Eg)four celestial horses appeared out of the river Tien-ch'ih."-P'in-i-sMng Ma-chih, pt. 1.
55) Shui-ching-chu, 36, WZn-shui.
56) Hsiao-ching-wei y iian-sun-ch'i, pt. 2 ; T'ai-ping-yii-lan, 893.
But in the Li-lo-chih (@$$&) of the same work,57) Ch'ien Hun-shu, 6, Wu-ti-pin-chi
the above Ode is described as having been " composed when a horse was produced fromera." Cf. Izushi, p. 225, note 39.
the water of Wu-wa in the 3rd year of the Yiian-shu (zg)58) " The Ma-ch'ih-shui (,&mk) flows by the foot of Mount Po-chung and joins the River Hsihan-shui ( a w k ) further south. I t says in the K'ai-shun-tu (Tun-chia-k'ai-shun-tu) that there
is a pool in the Mount Shen-ma ("Divine Horse ") i n Lung-hsi (Kansu) which is supposed tcr produce dragon-horses, for'which reason it is called also Lung-yiian-shui (%#37k" Dragon Pool River ").
A horse was captured here in ancient times whose skull measured
3 ch'ih in length."-Ta-ming I-t'ung-chih, 35, Kung-ch'ang-fu.

53)

(%a)

(za)

(s@zF;:$&).

CHAPTER I

Horses and Water-gods

13

the Han dynasty, a tributary of the river Mien-shui (~$37&, the present riverHan-shui), which flows through Hupei province, constantly produced several
hundreds of horses, and the hole out of which they appeared was named forthat reason Ma-hsiieh (,Ex " Horse-hole "). When Lu Hsiin (@%) of
the kingdom of Wu, during the period of the Three Kingdoms, attacked
Hsiang-yang (BE),he too is said to have captured ten horses there.59) At
the beginning of the Chia-p'ing (%+) era, during the reign of the kingCh'i-wang of Wei, a strange horse is said to have appeared out of the Paima-ho (BEm " River of White Horse "), to the south of Yao-yang-hsien(BBH)in Hopei province, and passing by the royal pasture at night, emitted
cries to which all the horses neighed in response. When its footprints were
examined the next day, they were seen to be as large as a hu (B#, a ten shihmeasure), and after going for a few li, were seen to return to the river.60)
Among other ancient records, the name t'ao-tu
is mentioned in thefollowing passage in the Shun-hai-ching : " In the Northern Seas lives a beast
which is shaped like a horse, and this beast is called t'ao-tu. There is anotherbeast, which is called chiao (@). This is shaped like a white horse, it has
great teeth with which it eats tigers and leopards. There is another whitebeast, shaped like a horse. This is called k'ung-k'ung ( g g ) . . ."6l) This t'ao-tu,
too, later came to be regarded as a supernatural beast which appeared whenan enlightened ruler governed the country, as we may see from such descriptions as : " The t'ao-tu is a mystic beast, which appears when an enlightened
king is on the throne. I t sometimes averts disasters, and comes when virtue
fills the land,"62) and the name was also applied to all fine horses in general.
Such legends as King Mu staying at Ch'ii-lo (Hg) when he visited Huangts& (gg " Yellow Moor '.'), and making the court musicians sing: " In
the Yellow Pond, sand flows from the horses' mouths. In the Yellow Moor,
jewels flow from the horses' mouths,"63) would also seem to derive from theidea of divine horses appearing out of the water.
Legends about water-gods, or the messengers of water-gods, appearing water-gods onmounted on horses, particularly white horses, must also be considered to have horsebacksome connection with this idea. The " chief of fishes," who is a species ofwater-gods, has a human form, goes on horseback with numerous fishes in
his train, and has the power to cause floods. A man saw the god by the sideof a river towards the end of the Han dynasty, and the god was mounted ona horse, his body, shaped like that of a great carp, was covered with scales,
and only his hands and feet, ears and nose were like those of human beings.

(m)

14

Horses and floods

T H E KAPPA L E G E N D

After the man had been looking for some time, the god entered the river.64)
In the Sun-i-ching we read:" There is one in the Western Seas who rides a white horse with redmanes, wearing a white garment and a black crown, and followed by twelveboys. The horse goes over the waters of the Western Seas as swift as thewind, and men call its rider the messenger of the river-prince. Sometimes
he comes on land, water following wherever the horse goes, so that the countries
he visits are inundated with rain. At nightfall, he returns to the ri~er."6~)The coming of this white horse with red manes is also supposed to beconnected with the presence of enlightened rulers, and the appointment ofwise men to important government posts.G6) But the point to be noticed
about this passage is the inundation by rain wherever the horse goes. In
era (A.D. 446), underthe 6th month of the 23rd year of the Yiian-chiatothe (Liu-)Sung dynasty, in P'ing-tu-hsien (qgpIg), An-ch'&ng, (gg),the southeast of the present An-fu-hsien
in Kiangsi province,a son of the family Yin (9)aged thirteen was at home by himself, when ayoung man riding a white horse, with an umbrella spread over him, andfollowed by a man in a yellow garment, came from the east and entered thehouse. The boy looked at the young man's dress and saw that it had nostitches, the horse was dappled in five colours which resembled the scalesof a fish, although the skin was covered with hair, and after a while, when it
seemed about to rain, the party left the house and went west, gradually rising
into the air and walking on it. The next day, the rivers flooded, the mountainvalleys seethed, hills were covered with water, and a great chiao-dragon (dragonof the species which inhabit the earth, as opposed to the lung-dragons which
inhabit the heavens) over 30 ch'ih long appeared, and was seen to cover thehouse of the family Yin, as though sheltering it.67) In the summer of the 1styear of the T'ien-chiian ( X s ) era (A.D. 1138), during the reign of Emperor
Hsi-tsung of the Chin dynasty, a dragon appeared out of the river Yashui (87J) in Hsi-chou (Rj+l),and remained three days, sometimes playing
with a little child. A boy mounted on a white horse, and wearing a red dress
and a band studded with precious stones, also appeared. A toad went before
the horse, and the party vanished after about 3 hours. The people of the
district flocked to see these sights. In the 7th month, the rivers flooded,
and many houses were destroyed.68) There was also a horse in E-mei-hsien( R E , ! ) in Ssuch'uan province which was so swift that it seemed to fly.
The inhabitants of the village where the horse lived, caught it and wounded

(zs)

64)
65)
66)
67)
68)

Chung-hua-ku-chin-chu,pt. 2, Shui-chii (7kE).
Shin-i-ching, Hsi-huang-ching (@%@).
Jui-ying-t'u.
Sou-shin-hou-chi, 10 ; T'ai-bing-yii-lan, 930.
Madenokiji M S . (cites Ts'un-hsin-lu sfis).

CHAPTER I

Horses and Water-gods

15

it in the leg, and threw it into a pond, when one evening, it thundered and raincame down in great quantities, causing a gap to open in a mountain, after
which the thunderstorm ceased.6s) In Japan, too, it used to be a custom,when praying for rain, to cut off a horse's head and throw it into a deep partof a river, or to present black horses to various shrines. There is also anancient legend connected with the river Uma-kawa ("Horse River ") inthe district of Asai in Omi province, according to which a white horse wassaid to appear in time of flood and cause havoc among the people who passed
by.70) All these stories seem to show that there is some connection between
horses and water-gods, floods, wind and rain, and the ritual of praying for
rain, and it is the present writer's purpose to treat of this question again in
the following chapter on oxen and water-gods.
As we may see from such examples as a divine horse living in a cave on White Horse Cavethe south face of Mt. Po-li in the kingdom of Tokhara in Central Asia, andYoshitsune's favourite steed, Usuzumi, or Tayiiguro, appearing out of a cave
at Tayiizaki, in the village of Futomi in Awa province,7l) it is not uncommon
for fabulous horses to go in and out of underground caves, as well as throughwater. There is a stone cave 30 li to the north of the ancient I-ling-hsien(?&@%), now I-ch'ang-hsien (B&,$$$)
in Hupei province. This cave iscalled Pai-ma-ch'uan (Q,!$$$ " White Horse Cave "), and about this cave
we read in the Shui-ching-chu :" Once a white horse appeared out of the cave and began to graze. A
man pursued the horse into the cave, and going underground, found himself
on coming out of it in Han-chung (g+). A man in Han-chung once lost ahorse, and going after it, came out of the mouth of this cave. The two places
are several thousands of li apart."72)
There is a legend similar to this in Japan. An ox is once said to haveeritered a large cave in Mt. Shiranuka, near the village of Higashi-d6ri in the
district of Shimokita in Mutsu province, and having vanished for a while,
appeared in the village of Yokohama in Kamikita district, at a great distancefrom the first village, for which reason the place where the ox appeared iscalled Ushinozawa (" Ox Swamp ").73) This particular form of superstition, underground water
known in Japan as ushi-kukuri (" ox-burrowing-underground "), is also to
be found in the Malay peninsula,74)while there is a story in the Konjakumonogatari-shli, in the section of stories about India, which tells how an ox
once entered a stone cave and reached the abode of celestial beings.75) In
69) T'a-ming I-t'ung-chih, 72, Chia-ting-chou (SSM).
70)
71)
72)
73)
74)
75)

d m i 'Zochishiryaku, 85, Asai-gun 2, Nakano-mura, pt. 2, p. 269.
Yanagita, 1912, p. 163 (ed. 1942, p. 209).
Shui-ching-chu, 34, Chiang-shui (x7k); cf. T'ai-ping-kuang-chi, 435.
Yanagita, 1912, p. 55 (ed. 1942, p. 209).
Skeat, p. 250.
Konjaku-monogatari-shii, Tenjiku-Shintan-no-bu, 5, no. 31 ; Uji-shiii-monogatari 13.

THE KAPPA LEGEND

16

Water-horses
Central Asia

this connection, it should be remembered that, according to the old Chineseconception of the universe, these underground caves were themselves, as
the fact of their being called ti-mo" veins in the earth ")shows,
considered as being in communication with the world of water underneath,for according to this Chinese conception, the earth is thought to be a large
mass floating on the ocean, like an iceberg, as we may see from such words
as Fu-chou (g1NJ" floating continent ") and Fu-shan (@b" floating
mountain "), and where the earth has crumbled in places, we have lakes, aswell as what were known as hai-yen (&BE " eyes of the sea "), or wells andso forth that led finally to the ocean.76) This idea of underground watercommunicating with the sea is also to be found everywhere in Japan, andMr. Yanagita and Mr. Orikuchi have both pointed out the transition of the
supposed seat of water-gods to rock caves. I n the island of Iki, there is alegend about a beautiful woman from the water world who married one of
the inhabitants, and who one day threw herself into a well in the grounds ofthe house where she lived, and so returned to the sea. T h e ceremony of
mizu-tori (" drawing water "), annually performed at the NigatsudB temple
in Nara, is supposed to bring up the water of a pond in far-off Wakasa province,
and traces of this form of superstition are to be found in all parts of Japan.77)
Where water welled up from rocks in the depths of a valley, the spring was
said to lead to RyOgO, or Dragon Palace, beneath the sea and there seems tohave been a tendency to regard such springs as something more mystic thanwater flowing along the surface of the earths, and to imagine them as being
in communication with the seat of water divinities.78) The widespread saying
in Japan that, water filling the foot-print of a horse is enough to serve as a home
for innumerable kappa, is surely best understood when we connect it withthis ancient belief concerning underground water.79)
Returning to the question of divine horses in the water, materials for the
study of the subject are to be found in places as far away as Central Asi? andIndo-China. Among the remains of Buddhist art at Min-ui (" Thousand
Buddhas ") near Kizil to the west of Kucha in Sinkiang province, paintings
on the walls of a cave show sea-horses with wings and double tails, and thelower half of their bodies shaped like serpents, leaping out of the water de" The Chinese have a peculiar idea concerning the earth.
We read in Kuo P'o's (BE)commentary on the Shan-hai-ching that, 'The lake Tung-t'ing is a hole in the earth in Paling, Ch'ang-sha. There is at the present time Mount P'ao
in the midst of theto the south of Wu-hsien (WR),a t the foot of which is Tung-tying-hsueh
lake T'ai-hu (k#J)" Hole of Tung-tying").
I t is said that, going beneath the water there, there isno point on earth which one may not reach. These subterranean passages are called ti-mo(" earth veins ").' "-Huang Chih-kang, pp. 140-141.
77) Orikuchi, 1930, pp. 1012-1015.
78) Yanagita, 1942, p. 70.
79) Orikuchi, 1930, p. 1010.

76)

(am)

($@z

CHAPTER I Horses and Water-gods

17

Their forms and the manner of their reprepicted in blue (Fig. 4j.80'
sentation, found in the Buddhist art of Central Asia and far away from theseas, clearly show them to be the Greek hippocampi. The hippocampi will
be dealt with later in this book. Hsiian-chuang (*@), who passed throughsouthern Sinkiang in the 7th century, has recorded among his writings alegend concerning a white water-horse which was then told among the peopleof that section of the country now called Khotan, According to his Tafang hsi-@-chi, there was a large river to the southeast of the capital of the
kingdom of Ch'ii-sa-tan-na (BESa),the water of which was enough toirrigate the fields of the whole kingdom. Once the river suddenly ceased
flowing at a certain point in its course, and on the king's questioning a monk
as to the reason of this, the monk answered that it had been caused by a dragon.
The king then offered prayers to the dragon of the river, when a woman appeared out of the water and bowed and said to the king, " M y husband diedprematurely, and I have no one to serve as my master, which is the reason
why the river has ceased to flow, so causing distress to the farmers. If I
may have your minister of state for my husband, the river will begin to flow
again as before." So the king's minister put on a white dress, mounted a whitehorse and went into the river, and found that he did not sink though he wason the water. I n midstream, he raised his whip and drew a line in the water,
and the water parted, and he discended into the river-bed from there. Aftera while, the white horse reappeared, carrying a drum of candana-wood anda casket containing a letter. The letter said, " Hang this drum on the southeastern side of the citadel, and when enemies approach. to attack the city, thedrum will sound by itself." The river then began to flow again, greatly tothe benefit of the inhabitants of the
There is also a legend abouta Zoroastrian temple that stood in the middle of the River Oxus (Amu Daria).
The god of this temple had arrived in those parts from Persia by means of
his supernatural powers, and having shown many other signs of those powers,
had had this temple erected to him. There was no image placed inside, thetemple faced west, and the people worshipped facing east. There was also
a bronze horse, which was supposed to have descended from heaven, and thishorse, though its front legs were bent down in a kneeling position, still stoodhigh enough in the air to face the god, while its hind legs, which were notbent, were buried deep in the ground. They stretched downward to a distance of several hundred ch'ih, and though many had tried digging round themfrom ancient times, no one had been able to reach the hoofs. There wasalso a golden-coloured horse which lived in the River Oxus, and this horseappeared out of the river once every year, and neighed in unison with thebronze horse, after which it promptly vanished into the water. Later, the80) Griinwedel, S. 107, Fig.237 b ; S. 108,Fig.238 b.
81) Ta-t'ang hsi-yii-chi, 12.

18Ting Pu-ling ofAnnam

T H E KAPPA L E G E N DKing of the Saracens tried to destroy the temple, but fire came and burnt
the soldiers, and so the king was forced to abandon the attempt.82) The
legend concerning the hero Ting Pu-ling (T%$B), who conquered thetwelve monarchs of Annam in the middle of the 10th century, has also muchto do with beasts whose supernatural powers are traditionally connected withwater, such as beavers, horses and dragons. Ting Pu-ling's mother had borne
him after having intercourse with a giant otter by the side of a river. Sometime afterwards, the otter was caught by others and stewed, and its bones
thrown away, but the woman secretly gathered them together and placed them
above the oven in her house, and used to tell her son that his father was there.
The child grew up to be most agile in his movements, and a great swimmer
and diver, and called himself Ting Pu-ling. One day, a Chinese astrologer
came from the north to Annam, and following a vein in the earth proper todragons, arrived at the place where Ting Pu-ling lived. He consulted theheavens, and saw a crimson light which rose from the river, reaching up to
the constellation of the Celestial Horse like a roll of ?ilk. He knew from thissign that some divine being lived in the water, and sought good swimmers
to search the bottom of the river. There was a spot in the river which had
always been held sacred, and which no one dared to approach. Ting Puling undertook to carry out the search, and reached the bottom of the riverat that spot, where he found by groping something shaped like a horse standingon the river-bed. He returned to the surface, and reported his find to .theastrologer, who told him to go down once more and place a bundle of grassin the horse's mouth. He did so, and on his coming up and telling himthat it was done, the astrologer said, " It is as I thought. There is a hole,"
and promising to reward Ting Pu-ling richly later on, went away, nor did
he come back for a long time. In the meantime, Ting Pu-ling who wasnaturally sagacious took down the bones above the oven and wrapped themwith grass, and going down into the water, pushed them into the horse's
mouth. The horse instantly ate them, and after this, people flocked to him
and made him their leader. He was defeated in a battle with one of his uncles,
and in his flight, became caught in a bog. His uncle approached to kill him,
but saw two yellow dragons suddenly make their appearance as though to
defend him, and so losing courage, the uncle fled in his turn. This served
to increase the hero's prestige, and his army swelled in proportion. Aftera few years, the Chinese astrologer.came back with his own father's bones,
to put into the mouth of the horse in the river, so that he might gain honour
and riches, but confronted with Ting Pu-ling's fame, and hearing what hehad done to obtain it, the astrologer was filled with rage and spite, and told
Ting Pu-ling that, if he should go into the water and place a sword on thehorse's neck, he would come to conquer the whole kingdom. Ting Pu-ling-82) Yu-yang-tsa-tsu, 10, I-wu (WB).

CHAPTER I Horses and Water-gds

19

believed this, and dived down and placed a sword on the horse's neck andreturned. After this, he won every battle, assumed the title of the Ever
Victorious King, and finally conquering all Annam, made himself emperor.
But after a reign of 12 years, he was assassinated by his court servant TU
Shih (HB), and this was believed to be due to the horse's curse, incurred
through placing a sword on its neck as the astrologer had deceitfully told him
toThis legend forms the subject of an article by Mr. Matsumoto
Nobuhiro, entitled, An Annamese variant of the legend of No-tal-ch'i. I tshould be noticed that, whereas in the Annamese legend, the bones of theotter are put into the mouth of a horse under the water, in the Korean legendof No-tal-ch'i (%@@), the otter, the father of No-tal-ch'i, who was the fatherof the Chinese Emperor T'ai-tsu of the Ch'ing dynasty, has his bones hungby No-tal-ch'i on the left horn of a stone shaped like a crouching dragon
at the bottom of a deep
We may see here an example of the horsemotif taking the place of that of the dragon in folklore.
The material already cited, mainly from Chinese sources, clearly indicates River-gods seek toa remarkable affinity between Chinese and Japanese folklore in regard to the draw horses into
idea of pasturing mares by the waterside to obtain fine horses, and in the the water
matter of legends concerning divine horses which live in the water. If weturn back once more to the legend of the kappa trying to draw horses into thewater, it is true that the kappa itself is a water-monster, the conception of which
has developed along lines peculiar to Japan, but tales of supernatural beingsin the water making similar attempts on horses, are to be found in China also.
For instance, in the Wu-yiieh-ch'un-ch'iu attributed to Chao Hua (BE) of
the Han dynasty, we read, " Tzii-hsii
says, Chiao Ch'iu-su
was a superior man from Tung-hai. He went on an embassy for the Kingof Ch'i ($$) to the kingdom of Wu
and crossed a ford in the River Huai.
His horse was about to drink the water of the river, but the official in chargeof the place said, ' There is a god in the water who, whenever he sees a horse,
comes out to cause harm to it. So you must not let your horse drink here.'Su said, ' In the presence of a brave man, what god would dare to do such athing,' and commanded his servant to let the horse drink. The water-god
appeared, as the official said he would, seized the horse, and the horse vanishedinto the water. Chiao Ch'iu was filled with rage, stripped and, with his sword
drawn, entered the water, sought out the water-god and a combat ensued between them. I t went on for several days, after which Chiao Ch'iu came out,
having been wounded in one eye. He then continued his journey to Wu,
where he attended the funeral of one of his friends."85)
The same story is given in the Hun-shih-wai-chuan, where the water-

(3e)

(s),

83) Matsumoto, pp. 1012-101 3 (cites Kung-yu-chieh-chi &@$&%, 5).
84) Imanishi, pp. 728, 731.
85) Wu-yiieh ch'un-ch'iu, 2, Ho-lii-nei-chuan (BmfiB),4.

(ms)

20

T H E KAPPA L E G E N D

god is described as a chiao-dragon, and we read, " (the hero) killed three chiaodragons and one lung-dragon, and came out of the water. Thunder and lightning followed him for ten days and ten nights, and blinded his left eye."86)The story is also recorded in more or less the ;me form in the Po-zcu-chih.87)
The extraordinary legend that the Choryong-tLae" Dragon Fishing" White Horse River "), the present
Terrace ") on the Paekma-kang
KGm-kangin Puy6-hy6n (Hf&B)in Korea, is the place where,
during the expedition to Paekche (EB)under Su Ting-fangof theT'ang dynasty, a monster was seen to cause storms over the river, and to put
an end to this, a dragon was fished up from it with a white horse for bait, isfound in the Tongkuk-yiichi-siingnam, written during the Li dynasty in
Korea.ss) The legend is of interest in that it shows the close relationshipwhich exists between dragons and horses. During the reign of Emperor
Ming of the Chin dynasty in China, a man was on his way to present a horseto the Emperor, when he dreamed that the god of the Huangho came to him
and asked for the horse. He arrived at the capital, when it was found thatboth he and the Emperor had the same dream, and so the horse was thrown
Here it is no longer a question of
into the Huangho as a gift to theclose association merely, but of actual sacrifice of horses to water-gods.
King Mu of the Chou dynasty caused oxen, horses, pigs and sheep to be
thrown into a river as a sacrifice to the ri~er-god.~O)The Second Emperorof the Ch'in dynasty, having dreamed of a white tiger killing the left one of
the three horses that drew his chariot, was alarmed, and ordered astrologers
to study the dream, when it was found that the river Ching-shui ($$7&) was
offended with the Emperor, and so prayers were offered to the River Chingat the palace Wang-i-kung (Zgg),and four white horses were thrown into
the river.S1) When Wang Tsun (59)was governor of Tung-chiin
under the Han dynasty, the Huangho flooded, submerging the Chin dyke(&pg, in the northern part of Honan province), and those who dwelled alongit, both young and old, ran about in fear of the dyke being pierced and thedamage that this would occasion. Wang Tsun led the people in person in($@u)

Sacrifice of horses
to water-gods

(Q,&a

(@jss

(#&zk)(s@)86) Hun-shzh-wai-chuan, 10.
87) Po-wu-chih, 7, I-wen (EM).
88) Tongkuk-y5chi-sitngnam, 18, p. 174; Yanagita, 1912, p. 92 (ed. 1942, p. 118).
89) " A man was on his way to present a horse to the Emperor Ming of the Chin dynasty, ant!
had a dream in which the god of the Yellow River appeared and asked the man to give him
the horse. On arriving a t the Imperial Palace, the man found that the Emperor also had
had the same dream, and so the horse was thrown into the Yellow River as an offering to
the Grand Tutor to the Heir-Apparent, wished to have thethe god. Ch'u Pao (@%I,
horse, too, but was told by the Emperor that it had already been offered to the river-god.
T'ien-chung-chih, 55.
After Ch'u's death, soldiers saw him mounted on the horse."-I-ytian;90) Mu-t'ien-tzil-chuan, 1.
91) Shih-chi, 6, Ch'in-shih-huang $&-chi(s@s$z).

CHAPTER I Horses and Water-gods

21

the fight against the water, sacrificed a white horse to the river-god and otherwater-gods, and slept on the Chin dyke, praying to the gods that he himself
might be taken in return for the safety of the dyke being ass~red.~2)I n
Huai-an-fu, Kiangsu Province, we read in the Yuan-shih that during theera under the Yiian dynasty, when the Huangho pierced
Chih-yiian (3%)
its dykes, T'ai Pu-hua (%&$), at the command of the emperor, offeredprayers to the river god, and sacrificed precious stones and white horses.93'
We shall see later that the custom of sacrificing horses, particularly whitehorses, to water-gods and river-gods existed widely over the marginal
portions of the old continent from ancient times, and a more recent exampleof this is reported to be found among the natives of Patagonia in SouthAmeri~a.$~)This custom might be regarded as a variation of the habit ofsacrificing white horses to heaven, which was characteristic of the nomadic
races that dwelled in the steppes of Inner Asia, and which took this new form
when the horse made its appearance among the agricultural peoples. As
Mr. Yanagita has pointed out, the legend of the kappa trying to lure horses
into the water may also be regarded as having its remote origin in some ancientsacrificial custom. But such a change in the cultural history of mankind
contains other questions which are not easily to be disposed of, and it is thepresent writer's purpose to postpone the solution of the problem until after
more material from other parts of the world has been examined, and to proceed
first to study the question of how it came about that there should exist sucha close resemblance between the folklore of China and other countries along
its borders, and that of Japan, in all that concerns horses and water-gods.
The first question that rises to one's mind is, whether the resemblance Importation ofis due to the writings of the Chinese which were brought over to Japan. That Chinese books
such names as Ryii-ga-ike, Ryii-ga-zawa, RyGme-ishi, and Rhyiime-ga-mine(" Dragon Pond," " Dragon Marsh," " Dragon-horse Stone," " Dragonhorse Mount ") should be found all over the country in conjunction withthe legends already mentioned, as well as the popular belief that fine horses
are sired by dragons, would seem to confirm the idea to a certain extent. Words
like ryzi (dragon) and ryG-me (dragon-horse) were certainly imported from
China (ryzi<lung, ryzi-me<lung-ma). But books such as those from which
passages have been quoted above, were only read by the court nobles living
in and round Ky6t0, the capital, and it is doubtful whether they were readat all before the Ashikaga period (A.D. 1336-1573). It is hard to think thata group of ideas, having their origin in the reading of a limited class of people
living round Ky6t0, at a comparatively late period in the history of the country,
should be so widely diffused as to be found in the identkal form in the remotest
92) Ch'ien Hun-shu, 76, Chao-Yin Hun-Chang liang-wang-chuan f&$$$$&$jE@f).
; Huai-an-fu-chih, 1884, 40.
93) Yiian-shih, 143, T ' a i Pu-hua-chuan (%+=)
GB,
pt.
1,
vol.
2,
p.
16.
94)

22

T H E KAPPA L E G E N D

parts of the Japanese Islands. I t would seem more likely that, besides thislimited intercourse between the intellectual classes, communication was keptu p between the people of the two countries in a more general form, such as
trading, and that this had the attendant effect of bringing about an intermingling of the two cultures. Or perhaps, the peculiar relationship between horses
and water-gods might already have had its place in the popular beliefs of theJapanese people, as forming a part of a basic culture stratum common to thetwo countries, prior to our acquaintance with the Chinese civilization, and it
is for this very reason that conceptions imported from China like that of the
dragon-horse were easily assimilated by the Japanese, and gave birth to suchplace-names as have already been mentioned. T o obtain the solution tothis problem, we must now extend the field of our inquiry to zones beyond
that of Chinese culture.
Western and northT h e present writer, in quoting the material obtained from Chinese sources,parts
has endeavoured to give, so far as it was possible, not only the period in which
China
the works in question were composed, but also the localities where the legends
given originated. T h e reader must have noticed that the group of ideas concerning horses and water-gods often occurs in such provinces as Kueichou,Ssiich'uan, Ch'inghai, Kansu, Shensi, Shansi, Suiyuan, Sinkiang, or thewestern parts and northwestern borders of China, and the area stretching
still further west to Central Asia. T h e two rivers of Yu-wu and Wu-wa,
out of which celestial horses made their appearance during the reign ofEmperor Wu of the Han dynasty, are supposed to have been then located inand~ ) today, by the side of the Yiieh-yaOrdos and Kansu r e ~ p e c t i v e l y , ~ch'uan (J/!$,%"Moon-bud-spring "), to the north of Tun-huang (%&),
there even stands a stone monument bearing the characters Wu-wa-ch'ih(ch'ih=pond). T'u-ku-hunof the time of Sui and T'ang dynasties
in China, where a mare was let loose into the lake Ch'inghai and bore theDapple of Ch'inghai, is situated near the present Ch'inghai or Kukunor. Tien-ch'ih, out of which divine horses are said to have appeared fromancient times to cover the mares of the inhabitants, siring foals that grew intofine horses, has been shown to be either the present lake K'un-ming-hu in
Yunnan, or a river in Huai-li-hsien in Sstich'uan province.96) The kingdomof Ch'ii-sa-tan-na, about which Hsuan-chuang records the legend that a whitehorse bearing a drum of candana-wood once came out of a river there, is thought
to be the present Khotan region in southern Sinkiang. This makes it
all the more interesting that to the northeast of the place, in a cave near Kizilin the Tarim basin, there should be found depicted the Greek h+pocampi,
borne on the tide of hellenistic culture into such a remote part of the Asiatic
continent. Again, the story of the horse which appeared out of the River

(a$$@)

95) Cf. note 57.
96) Cf. Chung-kuo ku-chin ti-ming ta-tz'ii-tien.

CHAPTER I Horses and Water-gods

23

Oxus every year to neigh in unison with the bronze horse before the fire-god
temple, takes place in Western Turkestan, while the kingdom of Tokhara
in which was situated Mt. Po-li, where noble horse that sweated blood
were sired by a divine horse living in a cave, is located on the northeasternborder of Persia. In this connection it is of interest to find that in the sea-stallion
regions of Kashmir, on the eastern border of the then kingdom of Tokhara, themotif of a water-horse covering a mare, and the mare bearing a magic horse
in consequence, is preserved even today among the inhabitants in the following story:
Once, afakir who had a wise parrot, was forced by his wife to go out andsell it. He came to the sea-shore, and there, letting loose the parrot and themare he was riding, he lay down for the night. While the fakir slept, ananimal that looked like a xalgur (" horse of the river ") appeared out of thewater, covered the mare, and returned to the sea. The parrot saw all this,but told no one. The fakir meanwhile arrived at the capital, and the kingagreed to buy the parrot from him for 10,000 rupees. Before parting fromhis old master, the parrot makes the fakir promise to present to the king thefirst foal borne by the mare. After a while the parrot incurs the displeasureof the king's favourite mistress, and is about to be killed, but the parrot asks
for a delay of six days, and flies to an island in the sea where he becomes thepet of a beautiful princess, whom he persuades the king to marry on his return.
The king asks the parrot the way to the island, and the paxrot causes the first
foal borne by the fakir's mare to be sought for, mounted on which, the kingarrives at the sea-shore. The horse then gallops over the water as easily as
on land, and carries the king without mishap to the island, where the kingmarries the princess. On their way back, the king goes to sleep on a desert
island against the advice of the parrot, as a result of which the king has boththe princess and the horse taken away from him. But the parrot is equal
to the occasion, and through his ingenuity, the king recovers the princess
and the horse, and so all return safely to the capital.97)
It is interesting to note that a motif very similar to this is found in the he Thousand
Thousand Nights and One Night, that vast repository of folklore of the Nights and One
Saracen civilization which extended its influence to the regions of Tokhara, Nighta work comparable for its scope and richness with the Chinese novel, theHsi-yu-chi. The story in question occurs in the 1st voyage of Sindbad, when,
mistaking the back of a gigantic fish for an island, he lands on it and lights
a fire, which causes him to be thrown off the back of the fish into the sea. He
is then cast up on King Mihrjan's island, and while he stands wondering at
a mare tethered by the sea-shore, a groom of the royal stables appears andtakes Sindbad to an underground hiding-place, where he tells Sindbad thefollowing story :97) Knowles, pp. 312-320.

T H E KAPPA L E G E N D

24

Wild males anddomesticatedfemales" Every month, about new-moon tide we bring hither our best mares
which have never been covered, and picket them on the sea-shore and hideourselves in this place under the ground, so that none may espy us. Presently
the stallions of the sea scent the mares and come up out of the water and seeing
no one, leap the mares and do the will of them. When they have covered
them, they try to drag them away with them, but cannot, by reason of theleg-ropes; so they cry out at them and butt at them and kick them, which wehearing, know that the stallions have dismounted; so we run out and shoutat them, whereupon they are startled and return in fear to the sea. Thenthe mares conceive by them and bear colts and fillies worth a mint of money,
nor is their like to be found on earth's face."
When the groom has proceeded so far with his story, the stallion appears
out of the sea, and springing on the mare, covers her. Then, just as the groom
had told Sindbad, the stallion tries to take the mare with him into the water,and being prevented from doing so by the leg-rope attached to the mare, begins
butting and crying at her. Hearing the noise, the groom rushes out of thehiding-place, taking a sword and buckler with him, and striking the buckler
with his sword, calls to his comrades, who also appear making great cries andbrandishing their spears. This frightens the stallion, causing him to plunge
into the sea, and disappear under the waves " like a buffalo."98) Burton commenting on this story says that the myth of the " sea-stallion " may have" arisen from the Arab practice of picketing mare asses to be covered by thewi!d ass."99) According to Colonel J. D. Watson of the Bombay Army, it
seems that the wild ass, Equus onager, still breeds among the islands formed
during the rainy season at the mouth of the River Kachch (or Cutch), on thewest coast of India, and Colonel Watson suggests that Sindbad may have beencast u p on one of those islands.100) I t is a fact that the practice of picketing
domesticated female animals to be covered by wild males so as to strengthen
the breed, is not confined to asses, and prevails also among the nomadic races
who keep reindeer in Northern Asia, like the Chukchi, Yakut and the Northern
Tungus.lol) By the shores of Kuku-nor, famous from of old for the legendof keeping mares to bear foals sired by dragon-horses, great herds of wild
asses, called by the natives yeh-ma ("wild horses "), are to be seen eventoday,lOz) while the district of Fergana or the kingdom of Ta-yiian where it

98)
99)
100)
101)
102)

Burton, vol. 6, pp. 8-9.

ibid., p. 9, note 3.
ibid., p. 9, note 3.

Koppers, 1932, S. 185 f.
Dr. W. Filchner who has made frequent trips to these regions says, in a recent record of his
travels, that he saw great herds of these "wild horses " there (Filchner, 1938), and Dr. Andersson who, on a journey undertaken a little earlier, came as far as Ch'inghai (Kuku-nor) andthere saw these animals for the first time, describes his experiences as follows:" On July 28th (1923) we left our first camp at the Kuku-nor in order to begin our projected journey round the lake. In the morning we already had a glimpse of the principal

CHAPTER I

Horses and Water-gods

25

big game of the Kuku-nor area, the wild ass or kiang, calledyeh ma by the Chinese. To callthis animal a wild ass is somewhat misleading, for it is very much larger, reminding us rathero f a wild mule. Neither is it really a wild horse, for its head is undeniably asinine."-Andersson, 1934, p. 228.
But perhaps both Filchner and Andersson overlooked a passage in the authoritative record of the travels of Prejevalsky, the zoologist who explored these regions during the second
half of the last century. Prejevalsk~says in his work that, "The most remarkable animal of
the steppes of Kuku-nor is the wild ass or kulan, called djang by the Tangutans (Equus kiang),i n size and external appearance closely resembling the mule," and proceeds to give a detailed
description of the shape, colour, size, habits and the area of distribution of the animal.Prejevalsky, vol. 2, p. 1% ff. Haslund also wrote in 1927 of the wild ass, kfiulan, he met
while traversing the IChara Gobi on his way from Etsingol to Hami that, " In size and build
they reminded one of big ponies, but their ears and tails were those of the ass " (Haslund, p.
152), and the question of size stressed by Andersson cannot serve as a zoological standard in
distinguishing between horses and asses. However, although Prejevalsky considers the kulan
and the djang (kiang) to be the same animal, some scholarsdistinguish between them (Brehm,
Bd. 12 [Saugetiere, Bd. 31, S. 669), and it is now usual to classify them respectively as Equus
hemionus hemiorrus and Equus hemionus kiang as belonging to two different sub-species. The
latter inhabits the Trans-Himalayan regions, whereas the animals found near Kuku-nor aresupposed to belong to the former sub-species. The word kiang is the equivalent to the
Tangutan djang mentioned by Prejevalsky, and according to Yule, kulan'seems to be a wordof Eastern Turkish origin. Pallas was the first to classify the kulan scientifically, and it was
he who gave it the name Equus hemionus. The sub-species, then, of the genus Equus which
are known to exist in Central Asia today are:
1) Equus caballus przewalskii
2) Equus hemionus hemionus
3) Equus hemionus kiang
O f these 1 is a horse, and 2 and 3 are asses belonging to different sub-species, the kulan
living in herds in Ch'inghai today being asses of the 2nd sub-species. During Prejevalsky's
journey, great herds of the Equusprzewalskii seem to have been met with in the steppes near
Lop-nor in Southern Sinkiang, but rare in Western Tsaidam in Ch'inghai.-Prejevalsky,
vol. 2, p. 170. There are some records which describe the kulan as being even larger thanthe Equus przewalskii, and the Mongols, regarding these animals as a kind of horse, consider
it a sin to hunt them (Haslund, p. 193), while it seems that sometimes, horses kept by
the Mongols run away from the herd and join the wild ku1an.-ibid., p. 192. But according
to Prejevalsky's observation, the kulan live in more or less clearly defined harem groups,
each centring round a stallion, so that it is a question whether a strange mare from the herdsof domesticated horses would be so easily admitted into such a group. (The greater partof the above note was written mainly through the assistance of Mr. Umesao Tadao).
Cf. J. G . Andersson, 1932, for further information concerning the wild horses and wild
asses of Central Asia. It has also been shown by Prof. Egami Namio that the ancient nomadic peoples like the Hsiung-nu may quite possibly have captured wild horses and wild
asses and added them to their herds of cattle.-Egami, pp. 193-217. In Li Fei's commentaryon the passage about a horse appearing out of the River Wu-wa in the autumn of the 4thyear of Yiian-ting era, in the Ch'ien Hun-shu, 6, we read: " Pao Li-ch'ang (SqJFIJA)
lived inHe was sent as a colonist to Tun-huang for an offence
Nan-yang Hdn-yeh
during the reign of the Emperor Wu. He saw herds of wild horses by this river, among
which was one that differed from the rest, and which came to drink in company with otherhorses of the common variety. Li-ch'ang sent men with a halter to the riverside, and madethem practise throwing it a t the horse from behind for a long time. He then took the halter
himselfand captured the horse, and sent it as a present to the Emperor. He wished to give theimpression that the horse was of adivine nature, and said that it had appeared out of the water."This may indicate that wild horses were at one time actually captured in this manner,and that the best among them were so much prized that they were considered as being of
mystic origin. During the ages in which wild hurses were found in great numbers in the
steppes of the Asiatic continent, crossing domesticated mares with them may also have been
widely practised.

(@BRs).

26

The Caucasus
etc.

Rashi, the winged
horse

T H E KAPPA L E G E N D

is said that five-coloured mares were placed at the foot of a mountain to bear
afterwards foals sired by the divine horse that sweated blood is a region known
for its breed of fine horses that has played an important part in the improvement in the stock of Chinese horses. These facts would seem to show thatthese legends of water-horses and foals sired by divine stallions, to be foundover a wide area stretching from Eastern to Southwestern Asia, owe at least apart of their origin to such customs of nomadic tribes as have already been
described. But we must next seek for the reason why in this type of legends,
either the stallions live in the water, or it is the water-spirits who play the partof stallions. Even if it is true that these legends arose simply from the customof pasturing horses by the water-side, there is nothing to deny the possibilityof there being something more than the actual technical advantages to begained from such a procedure, some magical or religious significance, to besought for behind the custom itself. T o solve this question, we must extend
the field of our investigation, and consider in general the close relationshipwhich exists bktween horses and water.
The mountainous regions of the Caucasus, lying between the CaspianSea on the east and the Black Sea on the west, so forming a boundary between
the two cultural spheres of Europe and the Orient, have early attracted theattention of scholars as the place where ancient races, languages and cultures
have intermingled, and been preserved in that state. It also happens to bea region where horses are more loved and esteemed than anywhere else in
the world, and perhaps also owing to the fact of the place being near the sea,
there are many legends concerning divine horses of the sea to be formed there.
For instance, in Georgia, there is a legend about a hero who goes through all
kinds of trials in his quest of a divine horse which lives on the summit of amountain that rises above the sea, another in which the hero mounted on awater-horse he obtained at the bottom of the sea, fights with a dragon andrescues the " Beautiful Golden Maiden," and another of Rashi, the winged
horse, and how he helps the hero bring from the bottom of the sea some of
the fine horses that live in the sea. Rashi is a horse that appears often in
Georgian folklore, usually serving as the mount for the hero of the St. George
type who kills serpents to obtain a magic apple-tree, or rescues a princess who
is about to be sacrificed to a dragon. In the legend just mentioned of thecapture of horses living in the sea, Rashi tells the hero, who is about to undertake a journey to the bottom of the sea, to empty a pail of oil into the water.
If this causes the sea to become covered with foam, it is a sign that the horsefrom above has joined the horses of the sea, and will succeed in bringing
them up to the shore. The sign is seen; and one of his horses, a red steed
that had been bred by demons, becomes invisible and succeeds in carrying
the hero down to the kingdom of the subterranean world. In another ofthese legends, the only spring of water in a subterranean kingdom is in theCHAPTER I

Horses and Water-gods

27

possession of a dragon, who will not permit anyone to draw water from thespring unless a beautiful maiden is sacrificed to it every day. The heromounted on Rashi, who in this legend is a red horse, penetrates to the kingdom,kills the dragon, and rescues the king's daughter whose turn it was to be sacrificed that day.103) In this type of legend the water-god represented by the
dragon is placed in opposition to the horse, a theme which is often encounteredin the folklore of the Indo-European peoples and elsewhere,lo4)and which initself offers many interesting problems.
Among the Scythians, that ancient race of horsemen who dominated the AnHhita
plains of South Russia immediately to the north of the Caucasus, a deity called
Anlhita after the manner of the Iranians, and having a fish for its symbol,
presided over water and also horses. As a charm against the evil eye, theScythians hung oblong strips of gold in the form of sturgeons on the foreheadsof their horses. These gold effigies of fishes have been excavated over a wildarea, from the banks of the Oxus in Turkestan in the east to Ukraine andBulgaria in the west, the oldest of them dating back to the 5th century B.C.
Those that have been so far discovered are ten in number, of which threewere found on the heads of buried horses.lo5) A bronze pendant discovered
in Perm to the west of the Urals, on the upper stream of the River Kama in
East Russia, represents in a debased form the motif of the gold effigies offish, and it is estimated that a period of from 2 to 5 centuries separates theseeffigies from their degenerate copies.lo6) But among the Permian finds which A Permian idolshow more clearly the characteristics of the local culture before it received
the influence of Scythio-Sarmatian art, we find a curiously-shaped idol(?)
also in the form of a pendant, which seems to represent the union of horses
and water.lo7) From either shoulder of the central figure, a horse's head
curves upward in an arc, so that the horse's heads face each other, while water
falls in waves from the arms held rigidly akimbo (Fig. 2). Such symbols offlowing water often accompany images of deities in Mexico and the Orient,and this Permian idol, and the Anlhita deity of the Scythians also, probably
show the influence of Oriental mythology coming up from the south.
In Armenia in the Caucasus, too, there exists a legend of Iranian origin Islamic culture andsea-stallions103) Phalipau, p. 176-177.
104) Negelein, 1903, S. 347.
105) Tallgren, 1928, pp. 75-76, Fig. 2-4.
106) .ibid., pp. 77-79, Fig. 6, 7. " This divergence of cme has not yet been satisfactorily accounted for.: the difference in time between the models and their descendants is about 200500 years. Either the Permian group is older than we now believe, o r else the 'fish,' for
instance, has lived on the Siberian steppes longer than our prtrsent.information shows. 11.
any case, the genetic connection is beyond all doubt. It is left to students of folklore andmythology to show whether in the Ob-Ugrian area conceptions existwhich bear some relation
to the Iranian water-deity."-ibid.,
pp. 80-82.
107) ibid., p. 68, Fig. 10; p. 69.

28

Prows in the formof horses' heads~h~ god VaruQa

The Finnic
peoples

THE KAPPA LEGEND

in which the hero, Burzi, in his struggle with the " flame-horse " who appears
out of the sea and kills all the horses in the royal pasture, overcomes the horseby means of the bridle of his dead horse, marries the king's daughter, andbecomes his heir,1°8) while the Kurds, a semi-nomadic race who inhabits
Southern Kurdistan, also have a legend among them in which a magic stallion
appears out of the sea. I n this legend, as told in the epic poem of Sotch
Osman, his steed is a sea-stallion whose speed is such that eagles and wild
ducks in their flight cannot compete with him, and the Sultan wishes so muchto obtain possession of the horse, that he causes the hero to be beheaded in
the end. As we have seen in the Kashmir story of the parrot, and the taleof Sindbad in the Thousand Nights and One Night, legends of sea stallions
abound in Islamic folklore, and the theme of this epic poem too, as well as
many other legends of the Kurds, must have been received from the Arabs,
or at any rate, the Islamic peoples to the south.loS) But the fact that theassociation of horses with water in Southwestern Asia dates back to a far
older period than the rise of Islamic civilization, may be gathered from a
picture of a boat used by the ancient Assyrians, with the prow shaped likea horse's head and the stern in the form of the tail of a fish, which was discovered in the palace of Sargon of approximately 700 B.C. (Fig. 3).l10) A
boat with the prow shaped like a horse's head appears in ancient Roman
sculpture also,ll1) but it is of still greater interest to note that large, flatbottomed ferry-boats used on the River Tsangpo in Tibet carry even today
a wooden beam carved in the likeness of a horse's head fixed on the prow,
and that these boats are called by the natives " wooden horses."112) Coincidences of this nature found in regions so far apart, leave us no room for
doubt as to their being due to some deep-rooted idea concerning the relationship between horses and water. Descending south from Tibet to the fertileuof how, at the wedding
plains of India, there is an account in the V i ~ PurEnaof the sage Richika, V a r u ~ a the, god of the water-world, supplied the bride's
father with the thousand fleet white horses which the latter had demanded.l13)
This story is not unconnected with the Greek and Roman legends of PoseidonNeptunus, with which we shall deal later, and we are now obliged to shift
the field of our inquiry from Asia to Europe.
An oriental saying compares the rapid passing of time to a white horse
leaping, seen through a cleft in a wall, and prior to the invention of the steam
engine, horses must have certainly been the fastest means of travel available
-

108)
109)
110)
111)
112)
1 13)

Chalatianz, S. 152.
Phalipau, p. 177.
Howey, p. 148.
ibid., p. 147.
Waddel, p. 310.
Dowson, p. 338.

CHAPTER I

Horses and Water-gods

29

to man. That being the case, the present writer now proposes, like the mounted
nomads of ancient times, to urge his steed in one momentous rush from one
extremity of the Eurasian continent to the other, and to appear by the shoresof the Baltic Sea, whence he will descend gradually southwards and explore
the continent's western borders.
In Finland, first of all, a country rich in folklore occupying the northwestern corner of the European continent, knights of old, in order to obtaina fine steed and gain the necessary qualifications for becoming its master,
had to bathe three times, once in a spring, then in the dew on the fields, andthe third time in the dew lying on pastures.114) Here again we see a relationship established between divine horses and the power of water. The sea,rivers, lakes and marshes of this country are the domain of a water-spirit
called the Niikki. He is usually seen in human form, but sometimes assumes Nikki, the waterthe shape of a man with the legs of a horse, and drags men and beasts, particu- spirit
larly horses, as in the case of the Japanese kappa, into the water.115) At othertimes, he appears in the form of a dog with a long beard, or a gigantic he-goatwith a bag of netting hanging from the horns, or a tree-trunk, or a log of wood,
only the tree-trunk or log of wood differs from others in that it has an eye aslarge as a plate, manes growing along the back. I t may also assume the appearance of a tree that has fallen into the water, and as soon as someone climbs
on it, it disappears under water, carrying the person with it.ll6) Among theEsthonians, the N a i , besides taking the form of a human being, is also said
to appear in the form of a white or grey foal. The foal runs about the waterside and entices children to get on its back, and when they do, immediately
rushes back into the sea.l17) Among the Livonians, a people who are foundliving today only in twelve villages at the extremity of Cape Kurland (Kuolka)
in Lithuania, we also find legends of the Nakki taking the form of a horse andluring children into the water, and of sea-horses appearing on the beach andchasing people who struck or otherwise annoyed them, besides storiesof people
who have seen these horses swimming about in the sea.lls)
Although the Nakki legend is found over a wide area stretching from The Germanic
Finland and Esthonia to Karelia, the spirit itself often occupying a prominent peoples
position among the water-deities, the original water-god of the Finno-Ugricpeoples seems to have been of human form, the horse-shaped N U i being,
together with the name, an importation from the Germanic peoples of Scandinavia.llg) The origin of the names, Neck, Nokke, Nikur, Nennir, Hnikur, etc.,
114)
115)
116)
117)
118)
119)

Phalipau, p. 257.
Holmberg, 1913, S. 197.
ibid., S. 194.
ibid., S. 161 f.; Holmberg, 1927, p. 202.
Loorits, p. 42.
Holmberg, 1913, S. 191 f.

30

H O O ~ S pointing

backward

THE KAPPA LEGEND

by which this water-god is called among the Germanic peoples, is not clear.
Some consider them to be derived from an ancient Norse word for river-horse,
while others connect them with Nanna, the name of a goddess,120) or with
Nicholas, the Christian saint.lZ1) This water-spirit appears by the sea-shorein the form of a beautiful dapple-grey stallion, but one can recognize the spirit
by the fact that the hoofs all point backwards towards the tail. Should anyone
place himself on its back, it at once dives into the water and drowns him. But
it seems that it was also possible to capture the horse and set it to work fora while by certain means, and in Morlanda, in Bahus in Southern Sweden,
a wise man once made the horse plough all his fields by employing a special
kind of bridle, but by chance the bridle came off, and it is said that the Nakkiat once rushed back into the lake, drawing the plough with it. There is asimilar legend in Germany, according to which a great black horse once appeared out of the sea, which a farmer caught and attached to his plough. T h ehorse started to draw along the plough with vigour, when in the next instant,both the plough and the farmer were dragged headlong into the sea.122)
T h e fact that the Nakki, as many demons in the Indo-European countries,
has hoofs pointing backward is of special interest in that it has its counterpart
in Chinese legends, the monster shun-ts'ao (hijg, hB),shun-shao ( b & ) , o r
shun-ching (&$g), half-ape and half-man, which lives in the mountains being
described as " having one foot pointing backward," or "one foot with theheel in f r ~ n t . " l ~ ~This)
conception seems to be of considerable antiquity,
since already in the Shan-hai-ching there occur such passages as:" T h e country of Hsiao-yang (&%) lies to the west of the Pei-chii (;lLj@).
T h e inhabitants of this country have human faces with long lips. They haveblack bodies covered with hair, and their heels are placed in +frontof their feet,
When they see a human being laugh, they laugh also. They wield a tube in
Hai-nei-nun-ching (sn&$S).
their left hand."-10," I n the south live the giants of Kan (B). They have human faces with
12U) Grimm, 1876, Bd. 1, S. 405.
121) Anichkof, pp. 115-1 16. Anichkof says: " I n Germany millers throw different things into
the water on tbe 6th of December, St. Nicolas' Day, as an offering to the water-deity. I n
Northern countries millers are particularly afraid of a certain deity Neck. Besides Nicor
and Neck, who remind us of St. Nicolas as a sea-monster, the very name of Nicolas is used
in a similar signification, but only in its diminutives. For instance, in Germany the seadeity is sometimes called Nickel or Nickelmann, and in England Old Nick is a familiar nameof Evil Spirit. . . " Artemis of Ephesos, as most sea-deities, is sometimes represented bn horseback; so
is also sometimes St. Nicolas, he being a patron of horses.
" After all that has been said, we may, I think, draw the conclusion that the Christiancult of St. Nicolas has, as a whole, replaced that of Arternis of Ephesos."122) Grimm, 1876, Bd. 1, S. 405 f.; Keightley, p. 162.
123) I'ai-ping-kuang-chi, 428; Pin-ts'ao-kang-mu, 51 ; H~in-ch'i-hsieh,Hsu (@), 5.

CHAPTER I

Horses and Water-gods

31long lips, and black bodies covered with hair. Their heels are placed in frontof their feet. They laugh when they see a human being laugh, so that theirfaces become completely covered by their lips, and this makes it possible torun away from them."-18,Hai-nun-ching (&B#S).
The Nakki is sometimes thought to assume the form of a horse when Odin and thebeneath water, and that of a beautiful boy or young man when above, and is NBkki
also said to be seen at times sitting on the cliffs in the shape of an old man,wringing the water out of his long beard. But it is in this last form that thechief deity himself, Odin or Wodan, is often represented in the Icelandic
sagas,124) and when we think of the relationship already mentioned as being
supposed to exist between Nikur, the water-spirit, and St. Nicholas, and that~ ~would)seem that
Hnikur is one of the appellations of Odin in the E d d a . ~ , lit
we have a series of new problems hitherto overlooked.12" Again, the conception of Odin or his Valkyries speeding across the sky on horseback, hasthat in it which makes one think of the terrifying aspect of rain-clouds rushingon in a storm, and perhaps has something to do with the belief among the
inhabitants of Amstetten in Lower Austria, that sometimes they see a giant
astride on a white horse on the summits of mountains, and that it never fails
to rain afterwards.l2" This question will be discussed further in the next
chapter, together with kindred Chinese legends of someone appearing mounted
on a white horse, causing abundant rain to follow.
Apart from the examples already given, legends of water-spirits appearing
in the form of horses are to be found in various parts of Germany such as
Silesia, Pomerania, Westphalia, and Bavaria, besides Austria, Switzerland,
England and France.12s) When a band of soldiers were sent out to seize theLorelei, she cast a spell on them so that they found themselves unable to move,and causing the waves to rise as high as the rock on which she was sitting, shecalled up a sea-green chariot drawn by horses with white manes from thebottom of the river, and taking her place in this, vanished underneath the waves,124) Keightley, p. 148.
125) ibid., p. 162.
126) From the ethnological point of view, Odin and St. Nicolas both possess characteristics that
remind us strongly of secret societies, and if a common link can be found between these twoand Nakk, the water-horse, as to their names and other characteristics, it may serve as aclue to the study of the nature of water-spirits in the form of horses, as well as of the complex
of beliefs associating the horse with wind and rain, spirits of the dead, the nether regions,etc., and we hope to take some other opportunity to enter into a detailed discussion of thequestion.
127) JBhns, 1872, Bd. 1, S. 277 (cit. by Negelein, 1902, S. 24). Wodan and the Valkyries bothhave the power to carry away the spirits of the dead. The harpy, the female monster inthe form of a horse in Greek mythology, who rules over tempests, has points of similarity
with the Va1kyries.-Negelein, loc. cit.
128) Steller, S. 1635 ; Panzer, S. 131.

32

ScotlandKelpies

The Boobrie, etc.

THE KAPPA LEGEND

never again to appear in human sight.129) The black horse which carried
Dietrich von Bern, the hero of a mediaeval German legend, to hell, is also said
to have appeared out of the sea.130) The idea of a black horse in this case, andthat of hell, both contain much matter that calls for inquiry, while legends ofdapple grey horses appearing out of the water and covering mares belonging to
the inhabitants,131)form a significant counterpart to Oriental legends of divine
horses coming out of the water to cover mares. Turning now to Scotland,
the sombre lochs of that country harbour a species of water-horse known
widely as kelpies. Men can tell the approach of a kelpie by the terrible soundof its neighing, and those who have seen one cannot escape the fate of drowningsoon after. The kelpies themselves drag men into the water, break up boats,
and indulge in all kinds of other mischief.132) Sometimes the kelpie assumes
the form of a beautiful young man and wins the love of mortal maidens, but
as soon as any doubt arises in the mind of the maiden as to the identity of her
lover, the kelpie reveals itself in its true form and drowns her in a marsh, riverIn the Scotch Highlands also lives a monster called the Boobrie.
orThis monster has its abode underneath the water like the kelpie, and has thepower to change itself into three different forms, horse, bull, and bird. About
this water-monster is told the following legend, of the same type as those justcited from Swedish and German folklore:
On the banks of Loch Freisa in the northern part of the island of Mull,on the west coast of Scotland, a tenant and his son were ploughing some landso hard that they had to use four horses. Early one morning, one of thehorses cast a shoe. They were nine miles from a smithy, and the nature of
the ground made it impossible for a horse to draw the plough with one hoof
unshod. Just then, they saw a horse grazing by the loch, and at the suggestionof the son, they decided to enlist its services for the time being, and caught
it and attached it to the plough. The horse seemed to be quite used to thework, drawing first uphill, then down again without mishap, until they cameto the end of the furrow close to the loch. Here the tenant tried to turn thehorses again, upon which the borrowed one became a little restive, causing
the farmer to use the whip, though only lightly. But as soon as the thong
touched the horse, it changed itself into a monstrous bird, for this horse wasin fact the Boobrie, and uttering a cry that appeared to shake the earth, plunged
into the loch, carrying the other three horses and the plough with it.134)
In the same Highlands, we find another legend of the water-horse, with
129)
130)
131)
132)
133)
134)

Howey, p. 146.
Steller, S. 1634.
Simrock, S. 469.
Grimm, Bd. 3 (Nachtr.), S. 142.
Howey, p. 145.
ibid., pp. 145-146 (Campbell of Islay MSS.).

CHAPTER I

Horses and Water-gods

33

a motif of the swan-maiden system :A beautiful black water-horse once lived in the pond of Poll nan Craobhan,by the banks of the River Spey, appearing from time to time to cover mares
grazing by the pond, and whenever it succeeded in decoying anyone to mounton its saddled back, immediately leaping into the pond and so drowning him.
A daring man, following the instructions of a witch, once covered himself
with the skin of a dappled cow and approached the water-horse after nightfall,and suddenly springing up, took off its bridle. I n this way, the horse being
deprived of its power, was forced to work for the man, who in a short time
became exceedingly rich. After some years, while the man and his wife wereout, their only daughter came across the bridle and saddle hidden in a cornerof the kitchen, upon which, wishing to go out riding, she put them on theblack horse. T h e horse neighed with joy, and no sooner was the girl in thesaddle than it galloped away, to disappear into the deepest part of a lochan
which was said to be b o t t o m l e ~ s . ~ ~ 5 )There is also a story in Boswell's Journal of a T o u r to the Hebrides with
Samuel Johnson, told by an old man living on the island of Raasay, according
to which a water-horse that dwelled in the lochs once caught a man's daughterand devoured her. S o then the man lighted a great fire and put a spit in it,
and hid himself nearby, leaving a sow to roast on the fire. The smell attracted
the monster, and on its approaching the fire, the man took u p the red-hot spit
and destroyed the monster.ls6)
A point of special interest in this story is the use of a spit to overcome themonster. T h e practice of putting into the water pieces of metal, particularly
iron, and various objects made of metal while bathing, as a charm against
the Nakki, is found widely in Finland, Esthonia and Sweden, where also, people
often bathe with a knife in their mouths, or leave a knife on the shore with itsedge turned towards the water, during the time they are in it. When horses, thefavourite prey of the Nakki, are being bathed, metal objects are also throwninto the water, or a fire-steel is attached to the tail, or a bell hung on the horse's
neck. This is particularly so in the case of unshod horses, since shod ones are
believed by some to be safe from the attacksof the Nakki.lS7) T h e Scandinavians
place a knife at the bottom of the boat when they go out to sea, or set a nailin a reed. The following incantation is used against the Nakki in Norway;
Nyk, Nyk, nail in water !
T h e Virgin Mary casteth steel in water !
Do you sink, I flit !lSs).

135) MacDougall and Calder, pp. 308-319.
136) Boswell. DD. 153-154.
137) ~ o l m b d r g ;1913, pp. 197-198; 1927, pp. 205-206.
; Holmberg, 1913, p. 199. In Finland, when one is entering the138) Keightley, pp. 1!:-149
water, the words, The Nakk is as heaw as Iron, I am as light as a, leaf*" are added afterreciting the words of the charm against thh Nakk. and the o~posite." I am as h e a w as iron.
k as light as a leaf," rested while drawing out knGes etc: planted in the water, on
the ~ a k iscoming up to land.-Holmberg, S. 198.

as a ,harm

34Charms against
water-spirits

T H E KAPPA L E G E N D

One is reminded here of the fact that the kappa and other Japanese waterspirits also hold anything made of iron in abhorrence. There is a legend ofa kappa who failed in an attempt to lure a horse into the water, and being
spared its life by the man who caught it trying to lure the horse, promised tobring river-fish in return every morning, only begging him not to have any
cutlery lying about as it could not abide such things, and how after a time thetribute of fish ceased, because the kappa's injunctions were forgotten and sickles
and knives left about the house. The legend is to be found in the provincesof Hida and Awa, and at Oni-fuchi, in the village of Kiyomi in the districtof 8 n 0 , Hida province, where this legend exists, it is said that even today there
is a tabu on all metal article~.l3~)There must surely be some relationshipbetween this and the theme of another group of Japanese legends of theMiwayama type, in which a serpent assumes human form and becomesa girl's lover, only to lose his life through the poisonous action of a needle
the girl attaches to the hem of his gown,l40) as also the Chinese custom ofthrowing great quantities of iron utensils, from cauldrons to hoes and spades,
into the water when building a dyke, from the idea that the chiao-dragon, theChinese water-spirit, is frightened away by anything made of ir0n.l") The
Malays, when they are about to drink from a river that is not familiar to them,
plant knives into the river-bed with the edge towards the s0urce,l4~)while
the Tobelo in Halmahera have a custom of boiling iron in their drinkingwater.ld3) But not only water-gods are frightened away by anything madeof iron. The popular belief that iron may be used as a charm against
wizards and evil spirits is to be found all over the world, from Europe andIndia to the Pacific, so that E. Tylor is of the opinion that it reflects the ideaof the superiority of iron utensils entertained by men in the period oftransition from the stone age to the iron.144)
As charms against the Nakki in Finland and the other Scandinavian
countries, besides the forms already mentioned, there are various others inusage such as scooping up the mud and sand at the bottom of a lake with anoar, throwing stones and slag into the water behind a horse, carving crosseson the hoofs of horses and cattle, and pronouncing the names of the people
who have been drowned,l45) while it is also considered efficacious to call the
Nakki by its name and to speak to it. When a water-spirit hears its own namecalled, or finds that its presence has been discovered by human beings, it is
139)
140)
141)
142)
143)
144)
145)

Yanagita, 1912, pp. 21-22 (ed. 1942, p. 271, p. 25 (p. 32).
Takagi, pp. 181-184 ; Seki, pp. 440-471. Cf. Kojiki, pt. 2, p. 65.
Tai-jing-yii-lan, 73.
Skeat, p. 274; Kruijt., blz. 161.
Kruijt, blz. 163.
Tylor, vol. 1, p. 140.
Holmberg, 1913, S.201.

CHAPTER I

35

Horses and Water-gods

said to disappear into the water.l46) This again must derive from the samekind of idea as the belief in China, that if a mountain-spirit is called by its
name, it will do no harm,l47) and the custom still prevailing in Japan, in NishiKawazu of the village of Kawazu, Yasaka-gun, Izumo province, of saying,in connection with the legend of a mishap which overtook a kappa of the same
district, " Un-shG (i.e. Izumo province) Nishi-Kawazu," when bathing, asa charm against these creatures.148)
Returning to the main subject of this essay, if we now shift our ground Ireland
to Ireland, we find an even closer relationship between horses and watergods in the Celtic mythology of this island. Among the gods whose names
are preserved in records of ancient Erin, the sea-god corresponding to Poseidonof the Greeks, is Ler, and his son, Manannhn rnac Ler, performs many deeds ManannAn's whiteof prowess among the gods, mounted on a splendid horse. He also is a sea- horse
god, and a special patron of sailors, and is supposed to have journeyed backand forth between Ireland and the Celtic Elysium in the West, in a chariot
drawn by horses tliat ran aloqg the surface of the sea. A horse he had, which
he lent to the Sun-god Lug, is called Enbarr, or Splendid Mane. This horse
could travel " swifter than the wind of spring " both on land and sea, and its
bridle, said to have been obtained from a water-horse, had the power of causing
the image of a worker of evil magic to appear in water contained in a special
kind of pail. When a storm is raging over the sea, the Irish call the breaking
waves " the white horses of Manannin rnac Ler."l49)Chchulainn, the hero of old Irish legends, is a being that might be ranked Fine steeds ofwith the thunder-god Th6r of Northern Europe and Indra of the Indians, Cfichulainn
and the steeds he captured also came from the water-world. One of them,
the Grey of Macha, appeared out of the Grey Lake. Chchulainn approachedit from behind, and wrestled with it all round Erin before it was mastered, andwhen it was wounded at his death, it went back into the lake to be healed.150)
Even after the advent of Christianity, St. Michael of the White Steeds took St. Michael andthe place of Brian, a divinity of old Irish mythology that is thought to have others
been partly a sea-god, and the saint became a sort of Neptune, while St. Bairreof Cork, called Find-bharr or White Mane, also assumed a Neptunic character,roaming over the seas round Ireland on a steed lent him by St. David.lsl) In
the 7th century, St. Fechin of Fore, another Irish saint, is supposed to havecompelled a water-horse to take the place of one of the horses that were drawing146) ibid., S. 197.
147) " The mountain-spirit is shaped like a little child, with one foot pointing backwards. It
does harm to people during night, and is called mei (g,g).If its name is called, it loses
its power to do harm."-Pao-p'u-tzii, Nei-p'ien (&B),17, T'eng-she148) Yanagita, 1912, p. 29 (ed. 1942, p. 37).
149) Howey, pp. 142-143 ; MacCulloch, 1918, p. 128.
150) MacCulloch, 1918, p. 128.
151) Howey, pp. 143-144.

(m).

36

T H E KAPPA L E G E N D

his chariot, and that had died on a journey, allowing it afterwards to returnto the water.152)
T h e Celtic goddess Epona may originally have been a goddess of a river
The goddess Eponaor a spring, while she is clearly also a goddess of horses, as in the case of thegoddess AnIhita of the Scythians. In a bas-relief discovered in Bregenz,
in Vorarlberg, she is shown feeding five horses, while a bronze statuette foundin Wiltshire, in the southwestern part of England, represents her sitting between two colts, and holding a cornucopia in her left hand (Fig. 5).153) The
cornucopia is worthy of particular attention as indicating that Epona is a goddessof plenty, as well as a goddess of horses.
Legends
exist, not only in Scotland but in France also, of water-horses
Francethat can assume whatever form they please, causing harm to travellers, or appearing as human beings to lead their lovers to destruction,154)and sometimes
this takes place at some distance from the water, so that it is not easy to know
them for what they are. I n Plouguenast, in the department of C6te-du-Nord,a horse appeared before some children and caused its back to stretch, until
four or five of them were mounted on it, after which it plunged into a pond
and drowned them. There is another legend in Jugon of the fairy Mourioche
taking the form of a horse, and drowning anyone who gets on its back. In
Guernesey, a beautiful white horse made its back stretch until twelve children
found they could mount it with ease, when suddenly it started to leap overhedges and ditches, and at midnight, after having galloped across thecountry at an incredible speed, throw the children into a marsh. In Albret, a
red horse with a short tail took nine men on its back and galloped away.
Eight of them were flung down on the way, and the ninth, who was clinging
to the horse's manes, disappeared with it into a marsh. I n lower Normandy,
spirits, usually of the feminine sex, are said to assume the form of mares andcarry anyone who has got on its back for long distances, and then dissolve in apond, causing the rider to be thrown into it, laughing greatly at his discomfiture. I n Bocage, spirits of this type appear as beautiful black horses, in Poitou,
as white horses already saddled and bridled, and when they have succeeded
in enticing men to get on them, are said to throw them into rivers and marshes,assume their original form, and laugh at the unfortunate people. We find asimilar legend in S01ogne.l~~'O n the other hand, streams are supposed to
The magical properties of water
have the power of giving health and strength to horses. I n Brittany, there
used to be a custom in the old days of sturdy boys mounting bare-back on
horses that had not yet been broken in, and making them leap across a wide
stream that flowed round the chapel of St. Eloi, on the feast-day of the saint.
152)
153)
154)
155)

MacCulloch, 1918, p. 129.
ibid., pl. 15.
ibid., p. 129.
Sebillot, tome 2, pp. 441-442.

CHAPTER I Horses and Water-gods

37

Horses that went through this trial successfully were supposed to possess
more strength than others. A stream in the neighbourhood of Morlaix isthought to ha;e the power of assuring the fecundity of fillies that forded it,
while there is a custom in Ploudalmezeau of bringing fillies after mass on
the indulgence-day of Saint Herbot, and making them leap three times
across a stream that flows near the chapel.156) Not only streams, but
stagnant pieces of water also seem to possess the same power, for in Brittany,
there are often ponds near chapels dedicated to St. Eloi, in which it is thecustom to bathe horses so that they might receive the patronage of the saint.
St. Eloi has apparently taken the place of some earlier local deity, and many
make pilgrimages to chapels dedicated to him, in the hope of obtaining assistance from him as the patron-god of horses.167) We are naturally remindedby these French customs of such Japanese customs as the uma-arai (" horsewashing ") and Nakoshi (" passing the summer ").
Going south into Spain we find records of a century ago of " horses of spain
the flood," horses of monstrous shape which lived in deep pools and lakes " Horses of theamong the Caballero mountains, and appeared sometimes among men to do
great darnage.ls8) All this shows that there is no country on the west coastof Europe that does not have its legends and myths concerning water-horses.
But before we carry our inquiry into this world of magic to Southern Europe
and the Mediterranean, we must turn our attention next to the northeast,
to the villages of Russia, and so, threading our way through the Slavic andFinno-Ugric peoples of Central and Eastern Europe, give a glance at the interior regions of the continent.
The horse appears in all ancient Slav festivals for celebrating the ,,Rcoming of spring or summer, and in Russia, on the festival of the saints
Peter and Paul on June 29, a mare called Rusalka representing the spirit The mare Rusalkaof water formed a part of the proce~sion.l6~)It is worthy of notice that amare should be chosen as a symbol of water in this festival for bringing
in the summer. In the legends collected by V. Wollner and others, there
are many instances of divine horses appearing out of the water. I n oneof these legends, the Tsar had a field into which came a herd of horses
out of the water and ravaged the crops, and one of these had the markof a star on its forehead, another that of the moon, and another that of thesun.lso) These marks of celestial bodies on the foreheads of horses should
be compared with the white star borne by the divine horse Bosafabo of theMongols, already mentioned, the custom of attaching rosette signs on the
156)
157)
158)
159)
160)

ibid., p. 381.
ibid., p. 462.
Howey, p. 147 (George Borrow, The Bible in Spain, 1842).
Phalipau, p. 257.
ibid., p. 257.

38

Bohemia

Misshapen forms
and the nether
world

Barks of trees havemagic powers

T H E KAPPA L E G E N D

foreheads of horses offered in sacrifice at the ceremony of AQvamedha,as givenin the sacred texts of ancient India, and the star which appears again on theforeheads of the divine oxen--the celestial cows-of
ancient Egypt andMycenae.lG1) I t is possible that the idea originated with the nomadic peoplesof the steppes, who, in their worship of the sky, gave to the sun, moon, stars,
wind and rain, thunder and lightning, and other phenomena connected withthe sky, the forms of the beasts they kept.lG2)
Coming next to Czecho-Slovakia in Central Europe, water-spirits in thatcountry often appear in the form of horses, particularly white horses. But
in this instance, the horses lack the lower jaw, while the spirits sometimes
also take the form of carp without tails. Being misshapen in one way or
another, other examples of which are seen in headless horses and horses provided with a horn that we shall mention later, and the Naklr with its hoofs
pointing backwards, already cited, is a condition which often accompany
spirits, especially spirits of the nether world. This Czech water-horse ravages
pastures, and scatters heaps of fodder with its hoofs. A farmer of Novjr
Bydiov near Zachrastany once saw a herd of beautiful white horses grazing
by a pond. He was on the point of getting astride one of them, when he noticed
that it had no lower jaw, and stopped. Then the horse laughed and said:" You are lucky, for if you had got on my back, I would have drowned you,"and the whole herd leaped into the pond. This legend differs a little according
to districts. I n some places, the water-horse is supposed to appear in theform of a black horse foaming at the mouth, and sending forth sparks of firefrom its eyes. If anyone hits the horse, his fields are sure to be ruined by ita few days later, but by using a kind of rope made of the barks of trees, it ispossible to capture these horses and put them to work. A single water-horse
can do as much work as several ordinary horses, but in time it becomes
terribly thin. This is because it is never fed, nor given water to drink, forif water is given, it recovers its former strength in an instant and disappears
for ever in the nearest river or pond. In the Drahonicko district lived awater-horse named Uskocny (" cunning "), and this, indicating that it camefrom the nether world, had a horn growing on its head.163)
Krolmus, the well-known folklorist, has collected a great quantity ofEastern Bohemian legends of this type, while A. Dan&k has made a similarcollection of legends of Western Bohemia told in districts round Sumava and161) Koppers, 1936, S. 383.
162) I n the !gueda, the word Aditi, which meant originally the infinite heavens with theirillimitable stores of riches, gradually came to be used a t the same time for the heavenly cow,
so that, the clouds were called cows, and the wind either the calf or the bull, and Indra, thesupreme god, having both the attributes of the sun and of thunder and rain, " the bull amongbulls." In the world of night, the moon and starswere also represented as cows (VII. 36,l)Gubernatis, vol. 1, pp. 5-8, 17, 18.
163) Phalipau, p. 258 ; Panzer, S. 131.

.-

CHAPTER I

Horses and Water-gods

39

Chodsko. T o give one or two examples of these legends:
A farmer of Volenice noticed that someone scattered about the fodder
in his pasture night by night, so he hid himself behind a handmill and lay inwait for the intruder, when at midnight, a white horse appeared and began
kicking the fodder about. The farmer sprang up and caught the horse, andfindidg that it was a water-horse, released it after making it promise that it
would never do harm to his pasture again, and the horse vanished into a nearby
pond called the Rhbsky pond.164) This story reminds us of the Japanese taleof the kappa who was forced to give a written apology for its misdemeanours.
I n Ptikovice near Strakonice, a labourer was ploughing a field with his oldmare, when a fine white horse made its appearance. The labourer wanted touse this unknown horse for ploughing and so give his old mare a rest. The
horse was easily caught, and the ploughing finished in no time, when, looking
back, he found the field in the same condition as it had been when he had started
ploughing. The labourer went home and spoke of his adventure to his employer,
and his employer then told him that the horse was a water-horse, and that a
halter made of bark would subjugate it. In this way, the horse was caught
again, and taking care not to give it any water, the people of the farm used it
this time to carry bricks to build a wall in the farm. The wall was soon built,
but came down again in a heap immediately afterwards. In the end the horse
was released, and it disappeared into a pond near the farm.l65)
The Slavs of Lausitz, to the north of Bohemia, were protected by their Lausitz
geographical position from the inroads of the Scythians, Avars, and othermounted nomadic races from the east, and they had no knights who would
have joined the crusades. This explains why the horse seldom plays theprincipal r6le in their legends, but even among these people, water-monsters
sometimes assume the form of horses, and when a water-spirit takes to thewater on seeing a human being, it is said to " neigh like a horse." Amongthe old legendary kings of Lausitz, there is one who belongs to the waterworld and always goes on horseback. T o throw off those who might pursue
him, his horse is shod with the shoes pointing backwards, a detail which may
have originated from the same group of ideas as the hoof pointing backwardsof the Niikk. There is another legend of Lausitz about a carriage which appears out of the water. This is drawn by headless black horses, and anyone Headless black
who has the misfortune to see it is bound to die. This legend, which reminds horses
us of the Japanese story of the headless horse of Awa, is to be found in the districts of Goritz, Wtschau and Stradow, but its origin is not clear. Perhaps
it is a reminiscence of the black horse of Triglav, the hero and sun-god of
the Western Slavs, which no one except the priest was allowed to mount.l66)
164) Phalipau, p. 258.
165) ibid., p. 259.
166) ibid., pp. 259, 70.

40

T H E KAPPA L E G E N D

With the Hungarians also, water-spirits sometimes appear as horses.
Horses lacking the lower jaw, as in the case of the water-horses of Bohemia,
often come out of the River Perecz and thrust into the water anyone who has
not had the time to flee from them. And, as in the case of Finland, the waterspirits of this country sometimes appear in a form half-human and half horse.
According to a popular belief, an old man, half of whose body is that of a horse,
lives in the Hoviz pond near Saj6-VAmos in Borsod, and throws out toys andother objects from the bank to entice people into the water. In Hungary,too, water-spirits are frightened away by anything made of iron, and to clear
wells of spirits who would otherwise try to draw men into them, iron nails
and locks are thrown into the ~ e 1 l s . l ~ ~ )Lastly, we come to Yugoslavia. We have already mentioned the legend
Southern Slavsof the Western Slavs about headless black horses that come out of the water,
and the possible connection between these black horses and the sun-god.
Among the Southern Slavs, we come across a legend of the sun speeding across
The chariot of the the sky on a chariot drawn by white horses. Whenever the horses shake theirsuncaparisons, rain falls and the wind rises. From being the representativesof the mysterious power of water, the divine horses now have their share incontrolling celestial bodies and the wind and the rain.l68) At this point, Slavmythology is seen to draw very near to that of the Greeks.
The Greeks land
We have now reached the shores of the Mediterranean, and are about tothe Mediterraenter the world of the Greek civilization. The first figure to meet our eyesneanhere is that of Poseidon, and there is nothing- that is known to us about thePoseidon, theconnection between horses and water-gods in Greek and Roman mythology
horse-god
which does not have something to do with this god. We read in the HomericHymn : " Twofold, Shaker of the Earth, is the meed of honour the gods haveallotted thee, to be the ' Tamer of horses ' and the ' Succour of ships.' "169)
In the same way, Poseidon is called " Giver of horses and of ships withspread sails" in the most ancient hymn composed for the ~ t h e n i a n s . ~ ~ ~ )When Zeus proclaimed that he would make anyone who created the mostuseful thing for mankind the patron of the newly built town of Athens, andname the town after him, Poseidon struck the e a ~ t hwith his trident and caused
a splendid horse to leap out of there.171) Poseidon became enamoured of
Demeter and pursued her, and when she turned herself into a mare in her
flight, he also turned himself into a horse and had his will of her, the fruit of
Areion and Pe~asusthe union being the divine horse A r e i ~ n . l ~Pegasus,~)
too, was created by167) Holmberg, 1913, S. 259 f.
168) Phalipau, p. 257.
169) Homeric Hymns, X X I I : Evelyn-White (tr.), p. 449; Harrison, p. 17.
170) Pausanias, VII, 21, 9: Frazer, 1913, vol. 1, p. 360; Harrison, p. 17.
171) Virgil, Georgics, I, 12-14: Fairclough (tr.), p. 81; cf. Apollodorus: Frazer (tr.), vol. 2,
p. 79, note 1; Howey, p. 133.
172) Pausanias, VIII, 25, 4: Frazer, 1913, vol. 1, p. 405.

CHAPTER I Horses a n d Water-gods

41

Poseidon out of the blood that dropped into the foaming sea from the head ofMedusa G0rgon.l7~) At the wedding feast of Peleus, king of Thessaly, andThetis, the Nereides, Poseidon gave them as gifts two immortal horses, Xanthus
and Balius.l74) On a fragment of Corinthian pottery of 7th century B.C., Poseidon on
Poseidon is depicted astride a horse with the reins in his left hand and the horseback
trident in his right (Fig. 6),175) while in Atlantis, the lost kingdom imaginedby Plato, a gigantic statue of Poseidon in gold stands on a chariot drawn by
six winged horses in the temple of the god.17=) In later times, Neptunus isseen in a mural painting at Pompeii riding on a car drawn by hippocampi,
the fore halves of whose bodies have the form of horses, and the hind halves,of dolphins,l77) and at the games of the Consualia held in his honour, horses
and mules were decked with garlands of flowers.178) Moreover, to this god
who himself assumed sometimes the form of a horse, and was represented
in painting and sculpture as having the head of a horse and the body of a fish,
horses were offered in solemn sacrifice. According to Pausanias, the Argives Sacrifice of horses
in ancient times threw horses, bitted and bridled, into the fountain of Dione
in honour of P o ~ e i d o n , land~ ~ )Festus says that in Illyria a yoke of four horses
was sunk in the water every nine years.ls0) It is said that even the peopleof Pontus, on the far-off coast of the Black Sea, had a custom of sacrificing toPoseidon a chariot drawn by four white horses which they drove into the sea.lsl)
There can be no doubt at least that the sea-god Poseidon holding in his
hand the " trident fishing-spear " was a god of the fishing folk. There is
as little doubt that this god who was called the " Succour of Ships," and was
supposed to calm the roughest sea merely by appearing on it, was a godof sailors also. But then the question arises, why he should also be the godof horses, with which animals sailing and fishing have very little to do. Where
should we look for the origin of such of his epithets as Hippius (" horse-god ")and Hyppodromus (" horse-tamer ") ? I t is sometimes said in explanationof these names, that they arose from the resemblance of sea-waves to the manesof galloping white horses, which causes them to be called "white horses "173) Apollodorus, 11, 4, 2: Frazer (tr.j, vol. 1, p. 159; Howey, p. 139. "But on one monument, a Boeotian stamped amphora in the Louvre, Medusa herself has the body of a horse,though the face of a woman. She is a horse goddess and as such the fitting bride of thehorse-Poseidon. The Boeotian horse-Medusa recalls the horse-headed Demeter worshipped
a t Phigaleia in Arcadia."-Harrison,
pp. 42-43. Perhaps we may see a combination of
the horse and the dragon-serpent in Medusa also.
174) Apollodorus, 111, 13, 5: Frazer ( ~ r . ) ,vol. 2, p. 69; Howey, p. 142.
175) Harrison, p. 19, Fig. 2.
176) Plato, Critias, 116: Bury (tr.), p. 291.
177) Howey, pp. 134-135.
178) ibid., p. 134.
179) Pausanias, VIII, 7, 2: Frazer, 1913, vol. 1, p. 381; Harrison, pp. 19-20.
180) Festus, Lib. VIII: vol. 1, p. 307, Hippius; Harrison, p. 19.
181) Howey, p. 141.

42

l-he earth andPoseidonPoseidon thehull-man

God of theblossoming bough

THE KAPPA LEGENDor " sea-horses,"ls2) or the fact is recalled that when horses were first brought
to the Peloponessus by sea in the time of Adrastus in the middle of 14th
century R.C., the Argives were so struck by the novelty of these animals, thatthey held them to be sacred and as having come from Poseidon, the sea-god.ls3)
Rut neither of these explanations would seem to be adequate. Indeed, asMiss Jane Ellen Harrison has pointed out, the fountain of Dione alreadymentioned as having been the place where horses were sacrificed to Poseidon,
is a fresh-water spring near Genethlium in Argolis,ls4)while Onchestus, " thebright grove of Poseidon," which was a great religious centre in the time ofHomer and where, nre read in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, fine chariots
drawn by young horses were dedicated to Poseidon the King (Anax), is a town
in Boeotia far removed from the sea.ls5) And why is it that his pursuing
Demeter, the earth-goddess and the goddess of cereals, and the subsequentbirth of the divine horse Areion, or his producing the horse out of the earth
in his contest with Athene, does not seem to have much to do with the sea
or its white horses, the waves ? Perhaps it will be possible to find in theanswer to this query the clue to the whole question of horses and water-gods
which form the subject of this chapter. I t is now our purpose to introduce
here the theory advanced by Miss Harrison, the eminent mythologist alreadycited, and, in doing so, to take a further step towards the solution of the question.
" Poseidon then so far is fisherman and horseman," says Miss Harrison," strange and incompatible enough are the two functions, but a stranger fact
still remains to be faced. H e is not only fisherman and horseman; he is bullman."ls6) ?'he figure of Poseidon on a black figured amphora in themuseum at Wiirzburg, given in Miss Harrison's book, is of greatest interest.
T h e lord of the " unharvested " sea is shown riding on a bull, and holdingin his right hand, with similar irrelevance, a great blossoming bough, whilein his left hand he grasps a fish and behind him vaguely unattached is his
trident. H e is a bundle of incongruities (Fig. 7).ls7) We must rememberthat one of the epithets friquently given to Poseidon was Taureus ("whois a bull "). Festivals held in his honour were called Tauria, and in
Ephesus, boys whose rBle it was to pour wine at the festival of Poseidon
were called tauroi (bulls).lBs) I n the story of the death of Hippolytus, the182) ibid., p. 134. The breakers are called sometimes " white horses " or " sea. horses." " Themariner who rides the white horses (or waves) is thence called Hippion. For this reason
too, the ship Argo was known as Hippodaxneia, that is 'the Horse-tamer,' because she rodeover the billows."-loc.
cil.
183) ibid, p. 141.
184) Harrison, p. 20.
185) ibid., pp. 20-21; Homeric Hynzns, 111, 229-238: Evelyn-White (tr.), p. 341.
186) Harrison, p. 21.
187) ibid., p. 21 ; 22, Fig. 3.
188) ihid., p. 23; ERE, vol. 1, p. 501.

CHAPTER I Horses and Water-gods

43

grandson of Poseidon, the sea-bull sent by the god plays, together with horses, Great sea-bulla decisive rble. Theseus, the father of Hippolytus, cursing his innocent son,says, " Poseidon, reverencing my prayers, shall slay and speed him unto
Hades' halls." So, while Hippolytus is driving his chariot by Saronis Golf,
a wild sea-bull makes its appearance out of an enormous wave, and thefrightened horses dash Hippolytus to death against the r 0 ~ k s . l ~ ~ )Miss Harrison's theory in regard to this dficult question is as follows: M;,, H,,;,,,~," The animal on which a god stands or rides or whose head he wears is, it is theory
now accepted, the primitive animal form of the god. Poseidon then had once
for his animal form a horse and also it would seem a bull. The bull was in
the fullest sense his vehicle, his carrier. As the god has himself no actuality,
as there is no god, his worshippers choose something, some plant or animalor man to be the vehicle of their desires, to represent the god they have projected. Now a bull is often thus chosen by a people of agriculturists, he isa splendid symbol and vehicle of that intense and vigorous life they feel without
and within them; so is the horse to a people of horse-rearers . . .Is0) Poseidon
then is fisherman-god, horse-god, bull-god. Finally we must never forgetthat though he is not the sea-incarnate, he is not elemental, he is rulerof the sea, pontomedon as the Greeks called him. thalassocrat as we should say
today. These various and contradictory aspects so puzzling to the old methodof mythology are clear enough once we adopt the new, once we state the god
in terms of his worshippers: Poseidon fisher-god, horse-god, god of theblossoming bough, bull-god. Finally we must never forget that imagined
idolon of a people of fishermen, traders, horsemen, agriculturists, bull-rearers,
thalassocrats . . ."Then, did there really exist in antiquity a people who were at the sametime, fishermen, agriculturist, horse-rearers, thalassocrats and who actuallyworshipped the bull ?
" The word thalassocrat, ruler of the sea, instantly reminds us that theCretan Minos was the first of the thalassocrats. His god was the Minotaur, The Minotaur, thethe Minos-Bull. The god Poseidon was primarily and in essence none other Cretan bullthan the Cretan Minotaur .
" The Minotaur is not identical with Poseidon, rather he is the point derepdre about which the complex of Poseidon slowly crystallizes. Beginning
as an island holy bull, worshipped by a population of fishermen, agriculturists,and herdsmen, he developed with his people. As Minotaur he spread his
dominion across the islands and the sea to Greece proper. There shedding
his horns and hooves, he climbed at last to the snow-clad heights of Olympus.
Where and when he got his new name Poseidon, which in all probability..

189) Euripides, HiPPoEytus, 895-896, 1198-1249: Way (tr.), pp. 233, 257-259; Harrison, pp.
24-26.
190) ibid., pp. 23-24.

44

Minos, the priest
and king-god

Egypt, Crete andGreeceAtlantis

THE KAPPA LEGEND

means Lord of Moisture, we can not certainly say."lS1)
I t cannot be denied that the bull forms the centre of all religious andpolitical life in the ancient kingdom of Crete. " T h e Palace of Cnossus isfull of the Holy Bull; his Horns of Consecration are everywhere, the wholepalace is his Labyrinth." I n the Greek legend of the king-god Minotaur,calling every seventh year for his toll of victims, Athenian youths and maidens,
and in ancient Cretan coins and innumerable designs on amphorae, Minotaur
is always represented as a man with the head and hoofs of an OX. On the
Cretan sealing discovered by Sir Arthur Evans, the head of the Minotaur has
become irre~o~nizable,
but a bull's tail is clearly seen curling up behind thethrone.lg2) T h e explanation given by Miss Harrison to this is that the Minotaur,
half-bull and half-man, is the king-god Minos wearing a ritual mask, thebull's head and horns and possibly a bull's hide in his priestly capacity.
" I n Egypt, Diodorus tells us, it was the custom in the ruling house to
put on the head the foreparts of lions, bulls and snakes as tokens of the royaldominion. Sir Arthur Evans kindly tells me that the ritual form of the Minotaur, as bull-headed man, can, he believes, be traced right back to the hieroglyphs of Egypt. T h e Minotaur is but King Minos masking as a bull. The
object is, of course, that the royal functionary as representative of the wholestate may get for it the force, the mana of the holy animal, that like Hannah
his ' horn may be exalted.' "lS3)Intercourse existed between the Minoan culture and that of ancient Egypt
since the earliest times, and all historians agree that the Minoan culture
played an important part in furnishing the background to the formation of
the classic culture of Greece. Now, in all Greek records concerning the
kingdom of Crete and its bull, the sea-god Poseidon, strangely enough, always
makes his appearance. King Minos wishes for a kingdom and prays to
Poseidon to send him a bull, whereupon Poseidon sends him a magnificentbull out of the depths of the sea, and so enables the king to obtain his kingdom.lg4) Again, the island of Atlantis described in Plato's Critias is thought
to be the kingdom of Crete which, after a period of unparalleled splendour,sank into complete oblivion, and this Atlantis according to Plato's work is
ruled by Poseidon. When the gods divided the world among_themselves,the island of Atlantis fell to Poseidon's lot, and the god having had children
born to him on the island, made them settle in a part of it.lg4a) I n Greek
legend, Minos became the first lawgiver and as lawgiver he lived on, " uttering
dooms " to the dead in Hades, and in Plato, Poseidon is shown giving laws to191) ibid., pp. 26-28.
192) ibid., p. 28.
193) ibid., pp. 29-30; Diodorus, I, 62, 4 : Oldfather (tr.), vol. 1, p. 213; 1 Samuel, 11, 10.
194) Apollodorus, 111, 1, 3: Frazer (tr.), vol. 1, p. 305; Harrison, p. 32.
194a) Critias, 113: Bury (tr.), pp. 279-281 ; Harrison, pp. 32-33.

CHAPTER I Horses and Water-gods

45

the first men in Atlantis, who swore to uphold these laws which were inscribed on pillars in the god's precincts. In many frescoes and gems discovered at Cnossus, we find scenes of bull-hunting and bull-fights, and at ~~11-hunting
andthe ceremony of giving oaths to keep the laws in Atlantis, the kings chase and bull-fights
capture with staves and nooses the bulls that are kept at large in the sanctuaryof Poseidon. After a bull has been caught, it is led up to the column and its
blood was shed over the inscription. The blood is mixed with wine anddrunk by all, who then invoke curses on those who shall disobey the laws.195)" The remarkable analogy here," Miss Harrison continues, " is not the Sacred pillars andmere sacrifice of the bull but the conjunction of bull and ~ i l l a rin Atlantis sacrificial bulls
and the conjunction of bull and pillar in Crete. On the frescoed shrines ofCnossus the holy pillar rises straight out of the 'horns of consecration.' On
the famous Hagia Triada Sarcophagus we have indeed no direct certainty
that the blood of the sacrificed bull is actually applied to the pillar but theclose conjunction of the two, sacrificed bull and pillar, make it highly probable.
Anyhow one main point is clear. Plato could hardly have imagined aritual so strange and complex. I t must be traditional and its origin is to besought in the ritual of the bull-Poseidon in Crete."lg6)
The Cretans colonized Greece during the 3rd and 2nd millenium B.C. Mycenaean culture
and it is a fact of great interest to us that, wherever one finds traces of the and the worship ofworship of Poseidon on the mainland, there one is sure to come across relics Poseidonof the Mycenaean (Later Minoan) culture. Miss Harrison enumerates examples of this and concludes that " the sites of Poseidon-worship are the landing
places of immigrant Minoans," and expresses the opinion that this is anotherirrefutable evidence of the Poseidon-Minotaur theory.197)
An additional fact to be noted is that, both the Cretan Minotaur and Poseidon, ~ h , andwho may be regarded as a later form of the Minotaur, are connected in one way Poseidon
or another with the sun. When Odysseus did mischief to the kine of the Sungod, it was Poseidon who punished him. The bull of Crete had another namethan that of Minotaur, he was also known by the name of Talos. Talos isusually taken to be the brazen man who kept watch over the island of Crete bycircling it three times a day. According to Apollodorus, when Minos married
Pasiphae, the All Shining One, the fire-god Hephaestus made a present
to him of the brazen man Talos. But Apollodorus also says that, " Talos was a
brazen man, but some say he was a bull."198) Talos is shown on ancient
Cretan coins as a butting bull, but at the same time, Talos, like the Minotaur,
is sometimes represented as a man holding in his hand a stone, the symbol ofthe sun, and Hesychius of Alexandria says that Talos means the sun.l99)
195)
196)
197j
198)
199)

Harrison, p. 33; Critias, 119-120: Bury (tr.), pp. 299-303.
Harrison, pp. 33-34.
ibid., pp..4jL57.
ibid., p. 34; Apollodorus, I, 9,26 : Frazer (tr.), vol. 1, p. 119.
Harrison, pp. 34-35.

46
Poseidon, theforeign god

The coming ofCrete

Libyan origin

THE KAPPA LEGENDT h e bull-god Poseidon's Cretan origin explains a great deal. " In
Homer, Poseidon claims equality with Zeus. H e was obliged to yield to his
brother's supremacy but he is always a malcontent and often in open rebellion,
persistently vindictive. H e is connected always with the impious and outrageous giants; the Cyklopes, a godless race, are his children."200) Moreover, Poseidon is nearly always being beaten in his struggles with the othergods on the mainland.201) W.E. Gladstone, in his great work, Juventus Mundi,
considered Poseidon to be a foreign deity from the fact of the god's antipathy
to Zeus, and his aloofness from the Olympian assembly,202)and the knowledge
gained by subsequent archaeological excavations in Crete would seem t oconfirm Miss Harrison's opinion that the origin of this foreign deity is to be
traced to the Cretan Minotaur.
But the riddle of the horse-god Poseidon still remains to be solved. I t
is the bull that forms the centre of religious and political life in the kingdomof Crete, and in the Crete of the period we are discussing, we can find no traceof horse-worship. But it is possible to ascertain from archaeological remains
the date at which the horse was first imported into Crete, and the route bywhich it came. I n the early part of the Later Minoan period, which coincides
with the Eighteenth Dynasty in Egypt, that is to say, about 1500 B.C., horses
and chariots make their appearanceon Minoan moiluments as well as on the-tombstones and late frescoes of Mycenae. I n a curious seal-impression of
the period discovered at Cnossus, we see an enormous horse standing upona single-masted ship with several rowers in a line beneath, and Evans takes
this to be a record of the first coming of the horse to Crete. The horse's
mane, as with the manes of horses in the fresco of the megaron at Mycenae,
is bound up in a series of tufts, and although this is contrary to the custom
in Europe and Asia, it coincides with the practice in Libya in Africa. Whatis more, the fan-shaped tail of the horse depicted is a characteristic of Libyan
thoroughbred.203) I n Libya we have the steady tradition of a breed of horsesthat were the wonder of antiq~ity.~04)Here at least we have the clue to themeaning of Herodotus' statement that Poseidon came to the Greeks from the
Libyans. H e says, " Of him they got their knowledge from the Libyans, bywhom he has been always honoured, and who were anciently the only people
that had a god of the name."205) Furthermore, Herodotus says that it was
the Libyans who taught the Greeks how to yoke four horses to a chariot.206'
Again, we read in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius (2-3 c. B.c.), that when
200)
201)
202)
203)
204)
205)
206)

ibid., p. 35.
ibid., p. 37.
Gladstone, pp. 241-251 ; Harrison, p. 36.
Harrison, pp. 38-39.
ibid., p. 41.
Herodotus, 11, 50: Rawlinson (tr.), vol. 2, p. 93; Harrison, pp. 39-40.
Herodotus, IV, 189: Rawlinson (tr.), vol. 3, p. 164; Harrison, p. 40.

CHAPTER I

Horses and Water-gods

47

the Argonauts ran aground on the shifting shallows of the Syrtes in Libya, andPeleus who was one of their leaders had become well-nigh desperate, a hugehorse sprang out of the sea, and with its mane flowing in the wind, spurned
the salt sea-foam and made swiftly for the shore, the sight of which gladdened
Peleus who understood that Poseidon himself was about to lift the ship andfree her from the sandbank.207) We have already mentioned the fac; that
Gorgon Medusa, who gave birth to the celestial horse Pegasus by Poseidon,
is sometimes represented as having the form of a horse, and to this we might
add that the phrase " race of the Libyan Gorgons " appears in the Baccha!
of Euripides. The kibisis or leather wallet in which Perseus puts the head ofMedusa is the primitive bag in which the Libyans used to carry stones whichwere his principal weapons, and on a Corinthian vase we see Perseus represented
as attacking the monster with ~tones.~Os)On the strength of these facts, Miss
Harrison concludes that the story of the winged horse Pegasus also has its
origin in Libya, and that it was brought from there to Greece by the peoples
who were worshippers of P o ~ e i d o n . ~ ~ ~ )Mainly availing ourselves of the theory advanced by Miss Harrison, we southward movehave so far managed to trace the origin of the bull-god Poseidon to Crete, ment of the horse
and that of the horse-god Poseidon to Libya. But as.far as we know, the date at
which the horse first made its appearance in Crete cannot, as we have pointed out, be earlier than the end of 16th century B.C., nor can the history of
the horse in North Africa go back beyond the invasion of Egypt by the Hyksosin 18th century B.C.210) The invasion of the PunjPb by the Aryans already
employing horses begins a little later, and it is fairly certain that the horse
was unknown in the Indus civilization of Mohenjo-daro and Harappl and in
the ancient Indian culture of the pre-Aryan period.211) I n Mesopotamia,
207) Harrison, pp. 40-41 ; Apollonius Rhodius, IV, 1363-1379 : Seaton (tr.), pp. 387-389.
208) Harrison, p. 41 ; Euripides, Bacchn, 989-990: Way (tr.), p. 85.
209) Harrison,, p. 41.
2 10) However, figures of what are believed to be domesticated camelides have been discovered
among remains of the Neolithic Age in Egypt. Prof. Menghin, S. 308-310, connects thisfact and the discovery of equide iigures at Ur with the appearance in these regions after acertain period in the Neolithic Age of elements pertaining to the Upper Palzolithic bone
culture in the north, elements which until then were unknown in these parts; and he concludes that one may see here traces of the southward advance of the riding animal rearing
culture of Inner Asia. But for some reason that has not yet been explained, with the exception of asses which may have become domesticated in Africa, the rearing of ridmg a&mals
does not seem to have existed in the civilization of the ancient Orient until long after the
beginning of the historical age.
2 11) Some doubts remain however in regard to this question. The bones of the Equus caballus,
probably of the same stock as the modern country-bred of Western India and closely akin to theAnau horse, have been discovered either on or near the surface of the earth a t Mohenjo-daro,
and taking into account the denundation that has taken place, we cannot be certain whether
the bones belong to prehistoric or later times. But the complete absence of the horse in
the numerous representations of animals among the remains of the period, points strongly
to these bones near the surface of being of more recent origin.-Marshall, vol. 1, pp. 27-28.

48

THE KAPPA LEGEND

the question is a little more complicated. I t was thought until quite recently
that since there was no mention of horses in Hammurabi's Code of ca 2000
B.C., horses were not yet reared in that part of the world at that period. Then
C.E. Woolley found, in the course of excavations he carried out at Ur, the capitalof ancient Sumeria, a remarkably fine representation of a horse-like figure
on a rein-ring, and representations of animals drawing chariots on the mosaic" Standard " and on stone reliefs, and while Woolley himself maintains thatthe animals represented are asses, M. Hilzheimer, who with B. Meissner andothers had pointed out previously that what may be recognized as the figuresof mules or horses are to be found among Sumerian remains of the 3rd millenium B.C., believes that the animals in question are mules, and consequently,that horses existed in those parts before 3000 B.C.212) Following on the excavations by Woolley, R. de Mecqenem discovered in 1930, between the firstand second strata of Susa (end of the 4th millenium B.C.) at Elam, the world's
most ancient figure of a man mounted on a horse engraved on a piece of bone,
ES well as what would seem to be a record of the pedigree of horses, showingthat the rearing of horses, asses and mules must have already reached a highstage of development in Elam of that period.213\ If we are to consider thesefacts together with such theories as that the first traces of domesticated horses
found in the Anau Culture I in Western Turkestan date back to the latter partof the 4th millenium B.C.,214) and that the term " ass of the mountains "which was used for a horse in Mesopotamia, first appears in some Sumerian
documents of the end of the 4th millenium B.C.,215)we are led to the conclusionthat the horse must have come into these parts from Central Asia and the
Iranian plateau to the northeast sometime towards the end of that millenium.
However, we are still left with the question why such an important domestic
animal as the horse should have practically disappeared from Mesopotamianrecords from the time of the fall of the ancient Sumerian kingdom until thefirst half of the 2nd millenium B.C., a question that must wait for further
researches for its solution, and the fact remains that it was only after thesupremacy of the Kassites had been established towards the middle of the 18th
century B.C. that the use of the horse became general over Southwestern
2 12) Woolley, 1934, text, pp. 27 1-273, pls. 90-93, 166, 181 b ; Hilzheimer, 1931, S. 13 ff. ;Hilzheimer, 1932, S. 140.
213) Amschler, 1934, S. 298-299 ; 1936 (Dd&&k m Perse, A~&&Ix, +erne 43).
214) Pumpelly, vol. 1, p. 41. According to Pumpelly's calculation, they date back to 80006000 B.C., but the theory is not adopted here. We are following Christian and others inassigning the date to the second half of the 4th millenium B.C.-Christian, S. 39.
215) Hilzheimer, 1932, S. 140 (cites Langdon, 1929. It is a question whether the word Ansirkur, " the ass of the mountains," already signified "horse " or whether it meant what itsays, and the phrase was revived a good many centuries later to describe an animal thenintroduced for the first time by people who did not know anythin? of its nature.-Woolley,
1934, p. 271.

CHAPTER I Horses and Water-gods

49

Asia, and Media and Armenia became known for their breeds of fine horses.21s)
In a word, the establishment of the horse as a domestic animal in Southwestern Asia, a region which has for its centre the Tigris-Euphrates agricultural area, probably only took place after a powerful wave of horse-culture swept
across the ancient Orient from Inner Asia, just about the time of the invasionof Egypt by the Hyksos, and that of the PunjZb by the Aryans. Andsince
the horse was first introduced for fighting purposes, the period when it becamea part of agricultural activities which form the basis of all ancient Oriental
culture, and thence made its appearance in the world of religion and mythology
must belong to a later epoch still.
The rearing for agricultural purposes and the religious worship of oxen, The rearing andworship of oxenon the contrary, had developed inseparably with the culture, not only of Crete,
but of pre-Aryan India and the ancient Orient in general, including Egypt,
Mesopotamia and Asia Minor.217) In Egypt and Mesopotamia, the domestication of oxen had been completed in the prehistoric era, and the uses to whichthese animals were put during that era must have differed little from later
peri0ds.~l8) Furthermore, among the sacred images of prehistoric Egypt,
the worship of which was forgotten in later ages, we already find one oftwo bulls symmetrically joined together at the middle of their b~dies,~lB)
and of the bulls that were sacred to the gods of successive dynasties, Apisof Memphis and Mnevis of Heliopolis are known to a11.220) The mothergoddess Hathar who was regarded from the earliest times as being on thesame footing as the goddesses Nut and Isis, was sometimes represented
as a cow, or as a goddess
with the head or the horns of one.221) The bullheaded Cretan Minotaur must surely also derive its origin from the sacredbulls of Egypt. The copper figure of a bull, the bas-relief of bulls shown
lying down on a sculptured belt, and the mosaics representing a milking scene,
discovered among the ruins of a temple of the 1st Ur dynasty in 1923, indicatethat at the close of the 4th millenium in Mesopotamia, oxen were alreadyregarded in some way as being ~ a c r e d . 2 ~The~ ) figures of bulls called lamassi,
placed at the entrance to Babylonian temples, houses and gardens to ward
off evil spirits, must have their origin in these sacred oxen of the Sumerians.
The lamassi sometimes had wings, and the Assyrians gave them human faces.223)
At Anau in Western Turkestan, as evidence of the most ancient domesticated216) Meissner, 1920, S. 218; 1926, S. 221 a.
217) Malten, S. 90-139 (cit. by Koppers, 1936, S. 373).
218) Ranke, 1926, 220 a ; Meissner. 1926, S. 220 b ; Ranke, 1927128, S. 142 a.
219) Miiller, p. 22, Fig. 2, c, d, e.
220) ibid., pp. 162, 163, Fig. 167; Ranke, 1927128, S. 142 b.
221) Miiller, pp. 37-38, Fig. 25, 2 6 ; Ranke, 1927128, S. 142 b.
222) Woolley, 1927, pls. 26-32, 38, pp. 15 ff., 86, 110, 116-1 17 etc. ; 1929, pp. 99-100,
pl. 8, a, b.
223) Sayce, pp. 887-888.

50

THE KAPPA LEGEND

animal we find traces of the domestication of the Asiatic urus, Bos nomadicus,
in the Culture I of North Kurgan (latter half of the 4th millenium B.C.),224)
and terra-cotta figures of bulls or cows, together with crude female figurines
also in terra-cotta, thought to represent the All-Mother, have been unearthedfrom the Culture 111 of South Kurgan (middle of the 3rd millenium B.C. ?).225)
As for remains of the Indus civilization, numerous terra-cotta figures of bulls
have been discovered among the ruins of the period from Mohenjo-daro andHarappl to North and South Baluchistan, and many more figures of bulls
are found represented on earthen vessels, while on a great number of seals
are engraven single-horned beasts shaped like oxen, wild bisons, buffaloes
and zebus, and the fact that a censer-like vessel is placed before each of thesingle-horned oxen which are by far the most numerous, places it beyond
a doubt that they were animals with some religious significan~e.~26)What ismore, these examples date from a period anterior to the introduction, popularization and firm establishment of the horse along the agricultural regions
stretching from the River Indus to the Mediterranean, from which we canonly conclude that, long before the god who ultimately became the sea-god
Poseidon on Mt. Olympus was first represented as a horse-god, he was conceived and represented as a bull-god.

CHAPTER I1Oxen and Water-gods

Eduard Hahn

We have now to consider a fresh problem, that of oxen and water-gods.
Before we enter into this question, we must first, following the conclusionsof the last chapter, make clear the religio-mythological environment andcharacter of the agricultural society which came to regard the ox as a sacredanimal. This in turn will serve as a basis in elucidating the question before
us as a whole.
Eduard Hahn, who from the close of the last century to the beginningof the present won a unique place for himself by his study of enonomic history
from the ethnological point of view, has sought for the origin of the domestication of animals in the religious need felt by the agricultural peoples of Southwestern Asia for the constant supply of oxen, to be held ready for sacrificeto the god to whom they were held to be sacred. According to his theory,
three separate elements which until then bore no relation to each othercorn, oxen and the plough-were henceforth inextricably combined together
224) Pumpelley, vol. 1, p. 41.
225) ibid., pp. %-48, pls. 46,,47.
226) Marshall, vol. 1, pp. 69, 72; vol. 2, pp. 382, 385, 386 ; vol. 3, pls. 102-1 11 etc.

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

51

a s a result of this domestication of oxen, and so gave to agriculture the form
under which we conceive it today, i.e. that of " plough-culture." T h e present
writer now proposes to give a synopsis of those parts of Hahn's historical
work that have direct bearing on the subject before us, following the line ofreasoning pursued by Hahn himself:" T h e transition to the most primitive form of agriculture, the hoe-culture,
freed men in Western Asia also from the crude, economically unstable condition in which people who live by hunting are placed, and thus the ground
was prepared for cultural development on a far wider scale than hitherto. At
this point, a group of ideas sprang u p in a certain region of the Near East.
These ideas at first (and this is quite possible) may have grown up in separate
regions independently of each other, but were later fused together, and cameto form an internally combined and organically interrelated system of religious
and economic concepts which was to play a most important part in the development of the entire culture of Western Asia and Europe.
" T o this group of concepts which constantly made their appearance in The mystery of
the lives of peoples belongs the idea that the moon exerts aeprofound influence the moonon the growth and propagation of all organic bodies. This idea, which seesin the moon the great principle of all growth and propagation, is not difficult
to explain, T h e transition from the invisible new moon to the full moonin her splendour, the manner in which her light waxes and wanes, these aspectsof the moon must have excited the curiosity and the wish for a knowledgeof their workings in mankind at a far earlier date than those of the sun. Particularly in regions of low latitude, the motion of the sun shows little changeover long periods, so that it did not occasion any desire in men to attempt tostudy the changes. But in regard to the moon, mankind was forced from theearliest times to take the greatest interest in her transformations. I t wasparticularly in the moon as a measure of time that men felt this interest, andit must have been for this reason that the moon came to be considered as theoutstanding embodiment of the female principle. Whether a woman has The moon andconceived or not, whether a man has become a father or not, these were important womenquestions which affected mankind even in its earliest stages. T h e cessationof menstruation as a sign that a woman has become pregnant, must havebeen among the first things known by mankind, and this question of pregnancy,
even in the oldest times, could only be answered with the help of the moon.
Thus, if a woman said that menstruation usually occuad five days, or six days,
after the new moon, or full moon, and since it had not occurred this time, shemust have become pregnant, men were bound to recognize some sort of relationship which existed between these facts and to attribute the widest powers
over such matters to the moon. If man had to recognize the possession by
the moon of such powers over the propagation of his species, and if, to peoples
who lived by agriculture, the moon played a decisive part in the measuring

52

The COW and thehorn

Religious origin of

THE KAPPA LEGENDof time, it was only natural that the moon should come to be regarded as the
all-powerful principle in all matters connected with growth, propagation andplenty. As everyone knows, the system is still being actively applied evenin our own days. The cutting down of trees, the cutting of men's hair, bleeding, in other words, in all that pertains to the sowing and planting, growthand propagation, the moon still remains for us at the present time the deteremining factor. Obviously, this does not apply to all peoples and to alltimes. But it must be assented that for one great circle of peoples, and one
in which the European culture has its roots, the foregoing holds true.
" But at the same time as the moon, in this sphere of culture, became
identified with the female principle, this principle tended more and more in thisparticular sphere to be represented by the cow. It is sufficient here to remindourselves of the cow's horns of the Babylonian Ishtar and the Syrian Ashtoreth,and the forms in which Isis, Europa, 10 and Pasiphae are represented to us.
These all show that the great goddess hidden behind these names has in eachcase something to do with cows. The origin of this relationship should probably also be sought for in the moon. The sickle-shaped new moon musthave suggested to our ancestors, besides such things as a little boat, the ideaof the horns of an ox, particularly the straight horns growing apart of the wildox, Bos primigenius. In this way, the ox became the animal sacred to thegoddess, and not the Bison europaeus. The horns of the latter species curve
inwards and downwards from the forehead.
" The ox thus became the animal sacred to the greatest among the deities,
but for a long time, this still did not mean that the ox had become domesticated. But its domestication was in itself an outcome of religious ceremonies.
The goddess requires offerings, and man must have in readiness these offerings,
especially held sacred to her, for sacrifice at all times. There was a reason
for men to be compelled to do this. If the moon was regarded by a ' hoeculture ' people as something by which time could be measured, and if, by
analogy with events in the human world, the moon was held to be the great
principle governing growth, propagation and prosperity, it followed that
religious ceremonies, accompanied by sacrificesas in all other religious ceremonies, became necessary. Often the moon-goddess threatened her worshippers
with signs of anger or her decline. The great nocturnal light would approach
the point of extinction. This was the eclipse of the moon. On such occasions,
man had to help her, or strive to appease her anger. And to do this, it wasnecessary to sacrifice to her the animal that stood in the closest relationshipto her, a cow or a bull. Eclipses of the moon came without warning, so thatmen could not rely on the booty of the chase to furnish them with the animals
for sacrifice. Rather, sacrificial animals had to be kept ready at hand all time,
and this object was attained by herding a small number of animals in pens,or rounding them up in these pens. The idea was not a new one. Even

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

53

peoples in the earliest stages of their development, have made use on a large
scale of these pens. And in the same regions, we find in later ages vast parks
for animals. These were the so-called ' paradises ' of the Persian kings andtheir predecessors.
" More or less under such conditions, the ox must have become domesticated and multiplied in these pens. The transition from a free existence in thewilds to a life of slavery under men must in this way have been.unconsciously
got over, and the productive faculty of the animals could not have been impaired
so much as in the case of a restricted existence in smaller pens. And in courseof time, the process gave rise to new important factors. First, white animals,
sacred to the silver moon, began to make their appearance. Then men turned
their attention to the milk produced by the animals. The product of thesesacred animals first gained a religious significance, and then ultimately cameto be utilized economically in everyday life . . ."227)Hahn then goes on to say that, when next the oxen sacred to the goddess The wheel andwere made to draw the plough, which was also a sacred implement, the faun- the plough
dation of present-day agriculture (Ackerbau) was then laid, and supposes
as an intermediate process the invention of the wheel, and the innovation of
making the sacred oxen draw the chariots of the gods in procession of thetemples in M e s o p ~ t a m i a . ~ ~ ~ )Hahn's authority made his theory accepted for a long time by a!l who
were engaged in the same field of research. In consequence, many scholars
believed that cattle-breeding was a practice which grew out of an agriculturalsociety and that such domestic animals as goats, sheep, horses, camels andreindeer were gradually made known to the inhabitants of Central andNorthern Asia through a process following the prototype set by the domestication of oxen. But in the meantime, rapidly accumulating materials had caused
culture historical ethnology to make great strides, and voices, which could not
be ignored, began to be raised in that circle against Hahn's theory. As early
as in 1909, Fritz Grabner pointed out that the close relationship seen in Europe
and the Near East between plough-agriculture and milking economy did notarise in the manner imagined by Hahn, but was the product of cultures ofdifferent origins touching and mixing with each other, and asserted that cattlebreeding was not started by agricultural peoples but took its rise from a kindof symbiosis between men and the animals they hunted.229)
Then Father Wilhelm Schmidt, who developed the sphere of culture Nomadic sphere oftheory on a still greater scale, advanced the theory of the existence of a nomadic- culture
patriarchal sphere of culture centring round the steppes of Inner Asia, isolated
from the agricultural peoples of the south, and rather carrying on an inde227) Hahn, 1896, S. 90-93.
228) ibid., S. 93 ff. ; Hahn, 1926, S. 218 b.
229) Grabner, S. 1030 u. Anm. 2.

54

The OX and thehorse

THE KAPPA LEGEND

pendent growth of its own derived from a hunting culture which had once
stretched across the northern regionsof the Eurasian continent. In thisnomadic-patriarchal sphere of culture he placed the origin and main streamof cattle-breeding.*O) Following this hypothesis, the domestication of suchanimals as the reindeer and the horse would have to be dated back to a periodof great antiquity. Unfortunately, the difficulties which beset researches
in prehistoric. archaeology in regions named have made it impossible up to
the present for Schmidt's theory to be verified in detail by actual excavation,
but it still remains none the less true that, from the ethnological material at our
disposal today, various marked characteristics are to be noticed in the nomadic
culture which is seen to stretch across the Eurasian continent from the northeast to the southwest, reaching as far as North and East Africa, characteristics
which show a difference in their origin from the agricultural culture along thesouthern part of the Old Continent.
I t is obviously outside the scope of this paper to deal with these questions
in detail. All that the present writer wishes to say here is that the two conflicting views presented above have to do with the origin of the culture in which
the development of cattle-breeding in general took its rise, and that as regards
each domestic animal in particular, no one can deny the truth of such facts
as the close relationship between oxen and agriculture existing in the ancient
Orient which has been pointed out by Hahn. In the case of the horse,
even if we confine ourselves to the facts already given at the end of the lastchapter, it is clear that the circumstances attending the horse were quite different from those under which the ox was placed, and that the horse-breedingmust be traced to the steppes of Central Asia. For this reason, Schmidt himself, as well as Prof. Wilhelm Koppers,
thinks that the domestication of the- ox most likely took place on the southernmost edge of the nomadic zone of
the Old Continent, the animal early becoming a part of the life of the agricultural society, and indeed, even admits the possibility of some magicoreligious motive arising out of a matriarchal culture in the formation of domestic
animals of a secondary order like the ox and the pig.Z3l' Furthermore, Prof.
Oswald Menghin, who achieved an epoch-making synthesis by applying to
the field of prehistory the concept of spheres of culture, divides the culturesof what he calls the Protoneolithic Age into three large spheres of the cultureof pig-rearers, the culture of horned animal rearers, and the culture of riding
animal rearers, and sees a further development of each of these respectively inthe village culture, the urban culture, and the steppe culture of the Mixoneolithic Age which succeeded the Protoneolithic. That is to say, the agricultural zone of culture stretching from the Eastern Mediterranean to India,
which has been shown to be inseparably bound up with the ox at the end of
230)
231)

Schmidt und Koppers, S. 194-224, 502-538.
ibid., S. 196, 518-519, 507.

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

55

the last chapter, is, in Menghin's terminology, a zone of the Mixoneolithic
urban culture or development of that culture, which in its turn was derived
from the culture of horned animal rearers in the age which preceded it. Against
this, the horse which made its appearance at a much later period in this worldof kings and lords of cities had been originally bred by the peoples of the steppe
culture-the culture of herdsmen-warriors, the Hirtenkriegerkultur, which initself was a development of the culture of riding animal rearers. In this way,
the authority on the history of the Stone Age had assumed that the ox andthe horse had each pursued its own course in different cultural milieus in theprocess of becoming the companions of mankind,232)and we for our part also
must refrain from passing hasty judgment on Hahn's theory merely on the
ground that it is outmoded, and endeavour rather to examine it from the pointof view of modern ethnology in order to determine what part of it is still tenable
today.
We had set out to study the religio-mythological milieu of the agricultural The female prinsociety which had come to regard the ox as an animal sacred to the gods. What ciple, the moon,
had caused the ox to be linked up with agriculture ? Hahn's perspicacity the OX and agriculture
had seen the origin of this to lie in the moon and women. But the idea was
not necessarily a new one. As early as 1861, J.J. Bachofen in his great work
Das Mutterrecht had touched again and again on the theme of the moonand the cow as the symbols of the female principle in the classical world, anddrawing examples from primitive peoples, had stressed the fact that it was
the females whose duty it was originally to till the ground, and to harvest
the fruits of the earth.233) Ethnological research since then has led manyscholars to think that the matriarchal society owes its origin to the fact thatthe development from food-collecting economy to primitive agriculture wasaccomplished by females who had until then been engaged in gathering vegetable food. And, while it is equally clear that, in this matriarchal-agricultural
culture, the moon, the woman and the earth become combined with various232) Menghin, S. 273-477. However, Menghin recognizes, in accordance with the findings of
ethnological research, that in the steppe culture of the Mixoneolithic Age, in contrast to theriding animal rearing culture of the preceding period, the rearing of horned animals alreadyoccupied an essentially important position.-ibid.,
S. 517, 528. On the otheqhnd, whereas
in the urban culture of Southwestern Asia and Northeastern Africa, both horned animals
and riding animals existed at one time, the horse, the camel etc. disappeared later fromsome undiscovered cause, leaving only the domesticated ass in Africa.-ibid.,
S. 308-309.
Cf. note 210. I t is necessary to recognize the fact that the two spheres of culture, one
northern and the other southern, represented respectively by the horse and the ox, had already mingled to a considerable extent towards the end of the Neolithic Age, and what is
known as the civilization of the ancient Orient itself is based on such a n intricate mixture.
In spite of this, however, the characteristics of each sphere of culture, centred respectively
round the ox and the horse, were retained in the mixed culture which was derived fromthem. This is what we have endeavoured to show in the rest of the present chapter.
233) Bachofen, SS. 26, 258, 417, 38-39, etc.

56

Figurines of theprimitive AllmotherThe spiral, theserpent and themoon

THE KAPPA LEGEND

ideas and symbols of fertility and growth to form a group of religio-mythological concepts, we must not overlook the possibility that the source of theseconcepts lies far beyond Hahn's interpretation of the facts, in some palaeolithic
sphere of culture which existed before agriculture and cattle-breeding, andcontained in it germs which were later to develop into plant-growing culture.
From this point of view, the nude figure of a woman holding a horn-likevessel in her hand belonging to the middle Aurignacian culture, discovered at
Laussel in Dordogne, and the rectangular piece of mammoth tusk carved
on one side with the figures of three serpents and on the other side with apeculiar spiral ornament, discovered by Gerasimov among the remains of
Aurignacian culture at Malta near Irkutsk in Siberia (Fig.
are thought
to furnish us with valuable clues to the mentality of the people of the Old
Stone Age. T o consider the former as the oldest figure so far discovered ofa goddess holding in her hand a crescent-shaped cup made of the horn of awild ox-akind of cornucopia-cannot be far wrong in view of many examples showing the close relationship between the earth-goddess and the ox
to be found later among the remains of the agricultural culture in the Neolithic
Orient. T h e figure has a further importance i n that it has served to enlighten
us on the religious significance of over two dozens of so-called " Venuses "of the Aurignacian culture-statuettes
and bas-reliefs of nude women withexaggerated sexual characteristics-foundover a wide area stretching fromSouthern France to Russia.235) As for the piece of mammoth tusk discovered
a t Malta, the spiral ornament carved on it, particularly, as in this case, thatof two spirals taking opposite directions and facing each other in the form ofan S, is shown to have been distributed all over the world from the Palaeolithic
Age to the beginning of historic times as a symbol of the waxing and waningof the moon, and the wave-like serpents carved on the back are also importantin that serpents as creatures most closely connected with the moon appear
almost in every lunar mythology of theWhat is more, the fact that
11 female figurines like those of the European Aurignacian culture, and almost
identical with those discovered at Brassempouy in France, should havebeen found together with the mammoth
would seem to confirm themagico-religious significance of the spiral ornament just mentioned. I n a word,
it appears to us permissible to think that, even among the hunting and gathering
peoples of the Palaeolithic Age, their anxious concern for their own lives andthe prolificness of their progeny, and the desire for the abundance and fertilityof animals and plants which they hunted or gathered, had caused them toconnect the unending death and rebirth of all natural phenomena with the
234)
235)
236)
237)

Salmony, 1931, S. 2, Tafel I, 4, 5 ; Hentze, p. 84, Fig. 59,j60; Han~';r, Tof 5 . 1 ~1. .
Menghin, S. 148; ~ a v . r ; A r , . C 5 - I 5 6 .
Hentze, Ch. 2-4.
Salmony, 1931, S. 3-4, Tafel I1 ; Burkitk, p. 119, Fig. 4, Nos. 6-7 ; Hentze, p. 84.

-

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

57

perpetual waxing and waning of the moon, and that in this way, the idea of
seeking for magic powers to induce fertility among their own kind and among
animals in the moon as a symbol of maternity already existed in germ in theirprimitive minds.23s)
When the germs of a plant-growing culture latent in the plant-gathering The Mother Eartheconomy supported by females developed into the earliest primitive hoe-agriculture, the characteristics of lunar mythology already mentioned took complete
and definite shape, while at the same time new elements were added to them.
The most important of these was the idea of the fertility of the Mother Earth,and it was then that the ideas of the moon, the female principle, the earth andfertility became united at last to form a single complex.239) The present writer
would content himself here with pointing out that among the various other Lunar mythology
elements which go to make up this complex, sexual organs, fish, serpents andspirals, whether examined from the point of view of prehistoric remains, orfrom that of the ethnological distribution of these symbols, date back, together
with the belief in the moon, the female principle, and the lunar progenitor of
mankind, which form the nuclei of this mythological complex, to a periodof great antiquity, that since the beginning of the plant-growing culture at
the latest, yet new elements such as the worship of the great All-Mother, belief in the world of the dead, worship of skulls, human sacrifices and sanguine
sacrifices were added, and that popular beliefs and customs connected withdogs, bears, hares, ravens and toads, as well as various forms of religious
worship like tree-worship and shamanism, are found distributed over the
sphere of this complex, with more or less local variations.
I t is hoped that the foreging has shown with sufficient clearness thatthe religio-mythological milieu in which the ox, having become combinedwith the moon, the female principle and the earth, emerged as the animalsacred to the gods, forms what we call here the sphere of lunar mythology.
This being granted, we must next deal with the question, in what relationshipof time and space, and in what manner functionally, the ox and water-gods,
which form the principal theme of this chapter, stood to each other and tothe other elements of this mythological sphere. A part of this question has
already been answered. But the example mentioned above of a nude figurine
belonging to the Aurignacian culture does not necessarily imply that wild
238) Hentze, p. 241 (Nachwort von Herbert Kuhn). In this connection, we might point out
that many hunting and gathering peoples today possess means of reckoning the days after
the lunar calendar.-Hirschberg, 1931, S. 462-463. Neither must we forget that the word
"moon" is considered to be the oldest among words in the Indo-European languages
signifying some celestial body. Sanskrit-mas, Avesta Persian-mah, Old Prussian-mah,
Lithuanian-menu, Gothic-menu, Greek-mene,
Latin-mensis, the common root being
me. As is clear from the Sanskrit verb, 1st person singular, mami (to measure, to calculate),
the moon was " that which measured."-Hentze, p. 241 (Nachwort von H. Kuhn).
239) ibid., pp. 241-242 (Nachwort von H. Kuhn).

58

Fertility andox-worship

T H E KAPPA LEGEhTD

oxen were at that period made objects of religious worship as they later cameto be in the Orient. Neither did the area in which oxen were held to be sacredanimals spread over the whole sphere of lunar mythology. I t had as its centre
the southern regions of the Old Continent, stretching towards North and East
Africa on the west, and towards East Asia and Indonesia on the east, and thefact seems to show that the worship of the ox as the symbol of fertility andgeneration only made its appearance in the lunar mythological sphere of culture
along the southern borders of the Old Continent, after the development ofagriculture, and possibly after the domesticated ox had come to be bound up
integrally with agriculture. The relics of the oldest known forms of oxworship, which were given at the end of the last chapter, must be the productsof this kind of cultural environment, and this relationship between the ox andthe lunar mythology, constantly adding to itself new elements, continued on
to the world of ancient civilization. The Babylonian moon-god Sin, or Nannaru, was commonly given the epithet of " the Young Bull," and he was represented with two great horns.240)The cow was used as a symbol of the greatearth-mother Ishtar (Astarte, Ashtart, Ashtoreth, etc.) of the Semites, thedaughter of the god Anu and the moon-goddess, and there are records which~ ~ ) great goddess
lead one to believe that the goddess was c ~ w - h e a d e d . ~ The
Isis of the Egyptians was also sometimes represented with the head or thehorns of a cow, would assume the form of a cow, and the cow was sacred toher.242) I n Greek mythology, the goddess Hera who combined in herself
the three elements of the cow, the moon and the earth-mother, and 10, who,changed into a cow by Hera, crossed the Bosphorus (" cow crossing ") in that
form, must both be considered in their relation to the Egyptian I s i ~ . ~ ~ ~ )Heracles passed the sea upon the neck of the " c ~ w - m o o n , " ~and~ ~while)themoon, clouds, the dawn anc! the sky were all represented as the beneficent
cow of abundance by the ancient Indo-European~,~~5)
both Indra and Odin
were said to be descended from such a
Milk was yielded constantly
by the cow kept in the celestial city of Varuqa in the Riimiiyana, whence themoon with its white light and the ambrosia and nectar emerged.247) The
animal sacred to the god &a, girdled with serpents and wearing a necklaceof skulls, and connected with linga-worship and sanguine sacrifice, was thebull Nandi.248) I n the cosmogony of the ancient Persians also, the bull was
240)
241)
242)
243)
244)
245)
246)
247)
248)

Ebeling, S. 165 b.
Sayce, p. 888.
Miiller, pp. 37, 99, 116; Edwardes and Spence, p. 93.
Elworthy, 1900, p. 14; Elworthy, 1895, p. 183.
Gubernatis, vol. 1, p. 273.
ibid., pp. 3 4 .
ibid., p. 224.
ibid., p. 69, note 4.
Edwardes and Spence, p. 160.

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

59

one of the first things to be created. When Ahrman killed this primitive bull,
55 species of grain and 12 species of medical plants grew forth from the earth," owing to the vegetable principle proceeding from every limb of the ox, andtheir splendour and strength were the seminal energy of the ox," while its
sperm was carried to the abode of the moon, and purified by the light of themoon, produced an ox and a cow, and after them 282 species of each kind upon
the earth.249) The epithet always used in regard to the moon in the Avesta is
gaokithra, " having the seed of the b ~ l l . " ~ 5 ~I t) is clear that a fertility concept
lies at the bottom of all these ideas. The animal chosen to draw the sacredcart of Nerthus, the goddess of fertility-terra mater, the earth-motherworshipped by a portion of the ancient Germans, as recorded by Tacitus,
was a COW.^^^)
Secondly, we see something like the same condition of things as in the The moon andcase of the ox, in the relationship of water or water-gods to the other elements waterin the sphere of lunar mythology. The association of water with the moon,
however, differs from the former case in this that it seems to go back to aperiod of the greatest antiquity, as is evidenced by the fact that in the floodlegend, which is common to various tribes that are found scattered today overpoints in this globe at the widest possible distance from each other, and who
are thought to preserve amongst them the most primitive forms of culture,
it is always the moon which is supposed to have caused these floods. Thus,
it was the god Puluga, who possesses many of the characteristics of a moongod, that brought down in the Andaman version a great flood as a punishment
to mankind.252) The Yagans of Tierra del Fuego at the southernmost tipof the South American Continent also have a legend of the moon causing aflood.253) In the flood legend of the Kurnai who inhabit the southeasternregions of Australia, animals of all kinds attempt to make a gigantic frog that
had absorbed into itself all the water in the world vomit back the water by
dancing comic dances before it, and the serpent succeeding by its writhings
to do so, the water pouring out from the frog causes a great flood in which
nearly the whole of mankind is de~troyed.~54)The frog is a symbol of themoon, and other legends in which floods are caused by the moon are foundamong the primitive peoples of Au~tralia.~55)In legends of a great many of
the American Indian tribes, the raven, the whale, the coyote, and particularly,
the great rabbit Manabozho, which animals are believed by one or the other
249)
250)
251)
252)
253)
254)
255)

Bundahish, ch. X, 1-3: West (tr.), pp. 31-32.
<end-Avesta, Mdh Z'asht, Sfrizah, I , 12 : Darmesteter (tr.), pp. 88-91, 8.
Tacitus, Germania, 40: Hutton (tr.), p. 331.
UdG, Bd. 3, 1931, S. 109, cf. S. 85.
ibid., S. 109, cf. S. 85; Bd. 1, 1926, S. 392 Anm. 1.
ibid., Bd. 1, 1926, S. 393-394.
Hentze, p. 50 note 186.

60

The rain COW

THE KAPPS LEGENDof these tribes as well as by many other peoples of the world to be seen in themoon, play an important part in the causing of floods,256)while the idea thatrain and thunder are caused by the moon is found among the Eskimos, Bushmen, and certain tribes along the coast of Peru."6a) Traces of the connection
between lunar mythology and flood-legends are also to be found among peoplesof a higher culture, as may be seen in the Chinese legends of the Emperor
Yu and the wise minister I-~in.~5') I t remains a question, therefore, to what
extent, in the case of the tribes of the lowest stage of culture like the Andamanese, the Yagans and the Kurnai, these legends which are found distributed
all over the world are really native to them, and to what extent they have beenborrowed from later cultures, a question which is yet to be determined together
with that of the interpretation of these legends themselves. But as we havealready pointed out, it is possible to discover the elements of a lunar mythology in the culture of hunters and gatherers of the Palaeolithic Age, and we
propose to continue the discussion of this subject by quoting the words ofa Bushman of South Africa, which show with what anxiety the benefits of rain
are awaited, even in the simplest forms of the plant-gathering mode of livingI n a cave on a small hill on the south bank of the Caledon River in Orange
Free State, there is a rock-painting which the Bushmen explain as " She-rain
with the rainbow over her " (Fig. 11).258) I t is shaped like an ox, and therainbow, a band coloured yellow above and red below, stretches over its
whole body. I n rock-paintings copied by George William Stow during the
70's of the last century, there are besides this one many figures of animals
whicht he Bushmen call " rain bulls " or " rain cows " (Fig. 12).259) T h e
Bushmen have only one word for rain and water in their language, and thefollowing account given by one of them about these animals has much in i tthat is of interest to us :" My mother told me that people pull out the water cow and lead her overtheir place, that the rain may fall at their place, in order that the wild-onion
leaves may sprout out there. If the rain does not fall, they will die. Therefore the medicine men shall go and kill the water cow at the place to which
they go to stay near the wild-onion leaves, so that they can dig out and eat
the wild-onions. If the rain did not fall, they would not see the wild-onion
leaves, for these are bulbs which they dig out and eat; they are the Bushmen's
food. Therefore they beg the medicine men to make rain fall for them. Thisis the reason why the medicine man works for them. T h e water's people
walk about, they charm the water, they make it rain, so that the mothers may256) Riem, S. 181 (at.
He&se, p. a5).
256a) Koppers, 1936, S. 376.
257) Hentze, pp. 5-52; Granet, tome 1, pp. 416 ff.
258) Stow and Bleek, pl. 34.
259) ibid., pi. 67 a ; cf. S. 18, 32, 41, 42, 58.

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

61

dig and feed themselves. They sling a thong over the water cow's horns,
they lead her out and make her walk, they kill her on the way. They cut her
u p so that the rain may fall where they have killed her. The rain does fall;they bring the rain by means of the water cow's flesh. The rain falh behindthem as they go home, it follows them; the people who asked for the rain*
really see the rain clouds."260)
We see in the artlessness of this narrative the eagerness with which theplant-gathering peoples await the coming of rain. T h e Bushmen learned ofdomesticated oxen from the Bantus of the north, an event of not very great
antiquity. They live by hunting, as well as on bulbs which form their principal means of subsistence, and which their women dig up with sticks inserted) have already shown that in this type
into round stones for ~ e i g h t . ~ 6 *Weof plant-gathering economy lie latent the gerrns of a plant-growing form ofexistence. But once men enter the stage in which they assure their food supply
by tilling the soil, their interest in rain and drought can only become moreurgent, as a matter of life and death to them. It is surely possible to thinkthen that in this way, the belief in the magical powers of water over the fertility of the earth now made its appearance as an important element in the lunar
mythological complex, in addition to other magico-religious concepts of sexual
nature having for their objects the fertility and propagation of man himself
and the animals he hunted. Thus, on the one hand, the powers of the rainmaker were vastly increased socially, and on the other hand, in the world of
mythology, beliefs concerning the association of rain or water with the moon,acquiring a special meaning, came to hold sway across the ages in the livesof the agricultural peoples. The idea of the speckled surface of the mow, being,
and thethe figure of a man carrying pitchers of water (usually by means of a pole), ~ h moonand legends explaining this idea, are found distributed over a wide area, from water of life
Northern Europe, Germany, Ireland, across Siberia to the Northwest Indiansin North America on the one hand, and among the Ainu, the Okinawans andin New Zealand on the other hand,262)while N. Nevskii has recorded a legendin Miyako-jima concerning the water of life and water of death which showsconnections with the moon-legend just mentioned, having to do with men
and serpents, and explaining the origin of the custom of drawing water fromthe well on the dawn of the first festival of the year and all having this waterof rejuvenescence poured over them.263) The meaning of such phrases as" the ochimizu (the water of rejuvenescence) which the moon has," as recordedin the ManyGshzi, and the nature of the Japanese belief in the ecakamizu (water260) ibid., pl. 34, Explanation by a Bushran.
261) ibid., p. xxiii, Introduction by Dorothea F. Bleek ; Hirschberg 1939, S . 366.
262) Ishida, 1950, pp. 2-10; Nevskii, pp. 218-220; Batchelor, pp. 67-68; Harva, 1938, S.
185-186 ; Coxwell, pp. 134, 158,280-281 ; Wolf, S. 56 ; Swanton, pp. 450-452 ; Alexander,
p. 257 ; Westerveh, pp. 170-171.
263) Nevskii, pp. 635-639.

62

The horse andthe moon

H~~~~~of the sun

T H E KAPPA LEGENDof rejuvenescence) which has existed since the Heian period have only been
made clear as a result of such comparative
In the case of peoples
who developed agriculture by means of irrigation from great rivers, it is easy
to understand from what has already been written the nature of the process
by which the idea of regarding rivers as sacred combined with the ancient lunar
mythology, the flood-legend, and the fertility-rites of sexual nature to produce
its own particular form of legends and rites. Even from the rough description
given above, it is clear that the two elements of oxen and water had to become
associated with each other through lunar mythology and the various beliefs
concerning fertility. T h e rain cow of the Bushmen already mentioned isan example of this, about which one may say that the ox must have been regarded as a symbol of fertility among the tribes of the north, before oxen cameinto the lives of the Bushmen. We propose to give in this chapter, from thepoint of view stated above, examples of the association of oxen with water,or water-gods, but before proceeding to do so, we would like to say afew words
more concerning the relationship between horses and the lunar mythology.
We have seen in Chapter I examples in which the horse appeared inconjunction with water, water-spirits, or water-gods, as well as with the earth,
the world of the dead, fertility-concepts, and other elements of what we havenamed in the present chapter the lunar mythology. T h e idea of the horse
carrying to the world of the dead or of spirits the dead (and sometimes theliving), shamans, and disease demons, is found widely distributed in the worldof Shamanism of the Asiatic continent and the popular beliefs of the IndoEuropean peoples,265)and has been made the object of studies from the earliest
days. In Nordic mythology, the moon-goddess Mani on her chariot drawn
by the swift-footed steed Alsvider flees forever across the skies pursued by
the two wolves Skoll and Hati.266) But side by side with such concepts ofa lunar mythological character, the idea for example of celestial horses drawing
the chariot of the sun is to be found in the mythologies of Babylonia, India,
Greece, Scandinavia and China,267)and the bronze model of a chariot witha bronze horse and carrying the disk of the sun plated with gold has been discovered at Trundholm in Denmark.268) T h e custom of sacrificing horses tothe sun-god existed among the Jews, Persians, Scythians, Massagetaes, Spartans,~ ~ we) have no
Armenians, and the people of the island of R h o d e ~ . ~But
proof whatever that the horse, ever since its domestication, bore the same264) Many6sh6, X I I I , 3245 ; Orikuchi, 1929, pp. 150-169 ; Ishida, 1950, pp. 1-10.
265) Suiyiian-ching t'ung-chih, M&ng-tsu, pp. 92, 97-98; Minakata, 1918, p. 181 ; Karutz, S.
130-131; Negelein, 1901-1902, Rd. 11, S. 414-419, Bd. 12, S. 377-380.
266) Howey, pp. 126-127.
267) Izushi, pp. 188-195, 222-224 (notes).
268) Berthellson, S. 451 b-452 b, Tafel 76 ; MacCulloch, 1930, pp. 198-199, pl. 25.
269) Izushi, pp. 189-192, 222-223.

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

63

close relationship to lunar and solar mythology as the ox did to the lunar
mythological complex.
As we have already pointed out, the horse, coming from the north, madeits appearance in the world of the pre-Aryan civilization which stretched fromthe Eastern Mediterranean to India, and began to play the important part it
did in it, at a much later date than the ox. The well-known relic of the horsesacrifices of the later Neolithic Age, of a flint-dagger left embedded in theskull of a pony, was discovered at Schonen in Scandinavia, but this does notdate back to a period earlier than 2400 B.C.,270)and it has been ascertained fromrock-paintings of the Bronze Age that even in Scandinavia, where the horse
has been universally used in agriculture, oxen were first employed to draw theplough.271) For these reasons, we are inclined to seek for the place of originof horse-rearing among the steppes of Inner Asia. W. Schmidt assumed theexistence of a nomadic and patriarchal sphere of culture which for long pursued Worship of the sky
its own particular line of development in the isolation of these steppes. This
sphere of culture had cattle-breeding for its economic basis, and sociallyand politically, was patriarchal and military in character. In the field of
religion, the form of cult which may be said to be truly its own must be
its monotheistic worship of heaven.272) The lack of material in the shape ofprehistoric remains makes it impossible to sift the question as thoroughly asin the case of the religious significance of the ox, but if it is true that the horse
was domesticated and developed into what it became in the nomadic cultureof the steppes, ceremonies which bear no relationship to other cultures, suchas the king of the Hsiung-nu sacrificing a white horse to heaven on the top
and the custom surviving untilof a mountain, as recorded in the Han-~hu,27~)
recent times of consecrating horses to the god of hea~en,~74)
must be regarded
as preserving the original form in which the horse first made its entry into
the religious lives of men. The idea of celestial horses, and that of gods
descending vertically from the sky mounted on horses, which appear in laterages, must also have their origin in this nomadic culture. But when thenomadic peoples with their horses commenced their exodus into the agricultural
regions to the east, west and south, the contact, over-lapping and mixing ofdifferent cultures which must have been going on for a long time already, now
received a further impetus. Especially, with the appearance and diffusion
270) R1. d. Vorg., Bd 9, Tafel 95 a ; Amschler, 1934, S. 298-299.
271) Thurnwald, 1929, S. 345-355; RE. d. Vorg., Bd I, Tafel 3 a.
272) Schmidt und Koppers, S. 102 ; Koppers, 1935, S. 16-17 ; cf. UdG, 111. Teil, Die Religioncn der Hir&nuoEkcr (Bde. 7, 8, 9), 1940-1949; Schmidt, 1942.
pt. 2.
273) Ch'ien Han-shu, 94, Hsiung-nu-chuan ($lJ&.(Q:),274) Cf. relevant passages in: Gahs. S. 217-232 ; Koppers, 1936 ; Bleichsteiner, 1936, S. 414 ff.
Attention is further drawn to the fact that, while Shamanism is closely connected withsanguine sacrifices, the shamans take no part in the bloodless sacrifices that are practised
at the same time by the nomadic peoples of Asia.-Gahs, loc. cit.; Menghin, S. 518.

64

The replacing of
the ox with the
horse

Poseidon as earthgod and god of
agriculture

The corn-spirit
and the horse

THE KAPPA LEGENDof horses in the agricultural world of the ancient Orient, in which, as we haveshown chronologically, the ox had come to occupy more or less the central
position in the religious life of the people, the two cultures of the north andthe south, of the horse and the ox, while retaining their individual characteristics, gradually began to combine together and form a single culture. I nconsequence, in the domain of myth and rituals also, the horse was sometimes
seen to take a share in the part played until then solely by the ox, or to replace
the latter altogether. At the same time, the central position originally occupiedby the cow, as in the case of the cow sacred to the goddess Isis, would be takenover by the bull, or the element of sky-worship would begin to preponderate
in the lunar-mythological complex, both of which phenomena may be regarded
as forming a part of the same process outlined. Professor Koppers seems toconsider the solarization of the lunar mythology which took place in the historyof the ancient Orient also in relation to thisThe transformationof the bull-god Poseidon into a horse-god, or the strange phenomenon of thetwo existing side by side, both of which facts have been discussed by Miss
Harrison, may be best understood in this light. Furthermore, the culture
itself of the Indo-European peoples would seem to have for its basis the two
cultures referred to, northern and southern, cattle-breeding and agricultural,and it is from this culture historical and ethnological point of view that thepresent writer wishes once more to consider the principal subject of this treatise.
The first point to be discussed is the character of the water-god Poseidon
to which reference has been made in the last chapter. As has already been
pointed out, it was natural that the god Poseidon of the ancient culture of thenautical peoples of the Mediterranean should have become the god of the ocean,of sailors and of fishermen. But it is doubtful whether this foreign god whocame to Mt. Olympus in the form of a bull or a horse from Crete and North
Africa, had always been a sea-god. I t was into the fresh-water spring of Dione
near Genethlium that the Argives of old threw horses, bitted and bridled,
in honour of Poseidon. Onchestus, " the bright grove of Poseidon," wherechariots drawn by young horses were offered to Poseidon the King, was inno other place than Boeotia, far removed from the sea. Guided by these
doubts, we cannot help coming across aspects of Poseidon, the sea-god,bull-god and horse-god, which are eminently those of an earth-god and a godof the world of the dead, an agricultural god and a fertility-god.
Sir J. Frazer in his monumental work, The Golden Bough, has enumerated and discussed the popular beliefs in Europe of the corn-spirit taking
the form of a mare, and the rites for invoking this spirit at harvest time.276)
This corn-spirit may be traced back to Demeter, the " corn-mother," thegoddess of agriculture who was worshipped at Phigaleia in Arcadia. I t was275) Koppers, 1936, S. 372-395.
276) GB, pt. 5, vol. 1, pp. 292-294.

CHAPTFR I1 Oxen and Water-gods

65

a goddess with the head and manes of a horse, and according to the legend,
she took this form and hid herself in a cave in Phigaleia to escape from thepursuit by Poseidon. This caused the fruits of the earth to wither, and thepeople were faced with starvation, when the god Pan took on himself to appease
the goddess and succeeded in bringing her back, upon which the people ofPhigaleia honoured her by putting u p her image in the cave to commemorate
her return to the fruitful fields.277) I n Roman mythology, Neptunus pursues
Ceres, the Corn-Mother, who searches over the earth for her daughter
Proserpina whom Pluto, the King of Hades, carried away to his dominions, Ceres
in her flight changed herself into a mare, and Neptunus caught up with her
and had his will of her in the guise of a stallion, out of which union was born
Arion the divine horse. a legend which coincides in detail with a Greek one
quoted in the last chapter. I n the Odyssey, when Telemachus arrived at
Pylos on the coast of the western Peloponessus, the people of the coast " madeto the blue-haired Shaker of the Earth oblation, slaying coal-black bulls to
T h e priestess Athene who accompanied Telemachus at once offereda prayer to the king of the ocean saying, " Hearken thou, Poseidon, Girdlerof the Earth, nor grudge our work to end according to our
When
Theseus begs Poseidon to kill Hippolytus by sending the sea-bull out of the
waves, the words of his curse were, " Poseidon, reverencing my prayers, shallslay and speed him unto Hades' hall~."~80)Poseidon who had once ruled
over the whole land, had shown his bride Amymone the water-springs of Lerne
and when the sovereignty of the land was adjudged to Hera, he in wrath caused
the springs to dry u p and made Argos " very thir~ty."~sl)The water-god
Poseidon who appears in these words and legends is a being somewhat removed from the sea. We find evidence both in Homer and Athenaeus thatthe bull was the proper animal to sacrifice to P o ~ e i d o n , and~ ~ ~if,) as Miss
Harrison argues, the bull-god Poseidon was a later form of the Cretan Minotaur,
and if the origin of the sacred bulls who filled the palace at Cnossus can betraced back to the Egyptian culture of the Nile, then we are surely justified inthinking that the primary character of the god was that of the god of the nether
regions and the world of the dead, with much in him that pertains to an agricultural god. Here then must be the answer to the riddle of Poseidon seatedon the back of a bull and holding in his hand a great blossoming bough. T h esacred bull and the religio-mythological ritual attached to it which we findforming the basic element in the ancient cultures of Crete and Egypt, belong
277)
278)
279)
280)
281)
282)

ibid., vol. 1, pp. 35-91; vol. 2, p. 21; Pausanias, VIII, 42.1: Frazer, 1913, vol. 1, p.)>g.
Homer, The Odyssey, 111, 5-7: Murray (tr.), vol. 2, p. 69.
ibid., 111, 55-56: Murray (tr.), vol. 1, p. 73.
Euripides, Hippolytus, 895-896: Way (tr.), p. 233.
Pausanias, 11, 15, 5 : Frazer, 1913, vol. 1, p. 93; Harrison, p. 51.
Harrison, p. 51; Athenaeus, VI, 261: Gulick (tr.), vol. 3, pp. 145-147.

66

THE KAPPA LEGENDby their character almost without a doubt to an agricultural culture, and theWater and the ox

Courtship of awater-godworld of lunar mythology into which some elements of a solar.mythology havebeen introduced, while at the same time, once the great king of the nether
regions betakes himself to the sea, it is easily conceivable that he should
extend his dominions and become the lord of the ocean.2S3)
Although the sea has no direct connections with agriculture, water itself
is the source of life to agricultural people. Water is a mystic force in that it
controls the growth of plants and the increase of flocks. That being the case,
we can find many examples besides that of Poseidon, of an ox, which occupies
a central position in agricultural ritual as the symbol of fertility, becoming
associated with water-gods. Already in predynastic Egypt the goddess MehtuCret (" the great flood ") sprang from the combination of the idea that the sky
is a great cow with the idea that the sky is the water of a great river or a continuation of the ocean. The goddess was the cow of the skies, the expressionof the primeval fertility of the female principle, and the female personificationof watery matter which formed the substance out of which the world proceeded.284) The Greek river-god Acheloos is usually represented in the formof a bull with a human head, from which grew horns that were supposed tohave the power of bringing fertility to animals and plants. When this god
competed with Heracles for the love of the maiden Deianeira, he is said to haveturned himself first into a serpent, and then into a bull, and gave every proofof his powers of metarnorph0sis.~85) Sophocles makes Deianeira exclaim:
For my first wooer was a river god,
Acheloos, who in triple form appeared
T o sue my father Oeneus for my hand,
Now as a bull, now as a sinuous snake
With glittering coils, and now in bulk a man
With front of ox, while from his shaggy beard
Runnels of fountain-water spouted forth.2a6)
I t is a fact worthy of notice that the " sinuous snake " occupies a position
equal in importance to that of the ox in the agricultural, matriarchal, and lunar
mythological complex. Water-gods most commonly take the form of serpentsin South Africa and Australia, while in India and Eastern Asia, as has alreadybeen pointed out, imagination has turned these serpents into dragons. But
whether in the form of dragons and serpents, or of oxen and horses, whereinlies the meaning of water-gods seeking the love of human maidens ? I t issaid that the Trojan maidens before marriage bathed in the sacred riverscamander and prayed to the river to take their virginity,287)and the custom
283)
285)
286)
287)

Steller, p. 1634.
284) Mercer, p. 712 ; Miiller, p. 39.
Ovid, Metamorphoses, IX, 62-86: Miller, vol. 2, pp. 7-9; Frazer, 1918, vol. 2, p. 413.
Sophocles, Trachiniae, 9-15: Storr (tr.), p. 259; Harrison, p. 30.
GB, pt. 1, vol. 2, p. 162.

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

67

existed in Syria and various parts of India, of barren women bathing in thoserivers that were supposed to be inhabited by river-spirits in the hope of conceiving children.28s) These facts would seem to show that stories of water-gods
also arose from the magical rites of agricultural
seeking union with virgins28Q)
peoples who sought help from the fertilizing powers of rivers, springs and rain.
The Japanese Miwayama-type legend in which gigantic serpents inhabiting deep
pools change themselves into beautiful youths and nightly visit human maidens
is distributed over a very wide area, while legends of the Perseus and An- Sacrifice of virgins
dromeda type where heroes rescue virgins offered in sacrifice to dragons andserpents, of which the Japanese legend of Susa-no-o and Kushiinada-himeis another example, might indicate the actual existence in the past of a custom
of offering human sacrifices as a part of fertility rite. Legends of this typeare found in Babylonia and in Greece, from the Japanese islands and Annamin the east to Scandinavia, Scotland and nearly the whole of Europe in thewest, as well as among the Negroes and Kabyles of Africa, and among American
Indians and the Eskimos,290)and the extent of its distribution suggests its
antiquity. Human sacrifices were in fact ofFered to river-gods, to the River
Nile in Egypt, to the Ganges in India, and to the River Tiber in Rome besides
other places,291)and it is equally clear that they were in the nature of a fertility
rite. The Indian water-god Varuna, who gave a thousand white steeds tothe father of the bride at the marriage feast of the sage Richika, was regarded
as the god of fertility in marriage, and the words, " king of the world of water,
who curbs the wicked, who made a road in the heavens to receive the raysof the sun, etc." were used in prayers addressed to him. Human sacrifices
were offered to this god also, as we read in the tale of Aunahiepa, and it is said
that this gave rise to the custom in later times of sacrificing infants to the rivergoddess Ganga at the mouth of the r i ~ e r . ~ gNeither~)
should the story of theCretan Minotaur demanding a tribute every seven years of Athenian youths
and maidens be regarded simply as a dramatization of the enmity roused in
the hearts of the Athenians by the historical facts of the heavy burden laidby King Minos on tributary cities like Athens and Megara along the coastof the Mediterranean, but as containing vestiges in it of some religious ritualof bygone ages. The ball of thread given by Ariadne to Theseus before hisentry into the labyrinth reminds us of the story of the thread which Ikutamayori-hime passed by means of a needle through the hem of the gown wornby the Japanese serpent-god, Miwa-no-omono-nushi, who visited her every
night, and we must not forget that, in the Mediterranean culture of the period,
288)
289)
290)
281)
292)

ibid., pp. 159-161.
ibid., pp. 150-154.
ibid., pp. 155 ff. ; MacCulloch, 1920, p. 408; James, p. 708.
Mercer, p. 710.
Crooke, 1920, p. 717 ; Gubernatis, vol. 1, pp. 69-71.

68

O x e n and horses
Offeredwatergods

Horse-headed
agicultural
gods

THE KAPPA LEGENDthe bull often represented the god of water, and that the bull-headed Minotaur
may be taken to be the forerunner of Poseidon.
If such is the case, it would seem to us that the custom of sacrificing oxen
to water-gods which we find widely spread along the coast of the Mediterranean
in ancient times had the character originally of an agricultural fertility rite.
Then what of horses ? According to Homer, a bull each was offered to
Poseidon and the spirit of the sacred River Alpheus by being thrown into thewaters of the river,393)but into " the fair stream and whirling silver waves "of the River Scamander, the ravisher of maidens, " single-hoofed horses "were cast alive besides many oxen.294) I n later ages, as we read in Tacitus,
when the Roman general Vitellius came with his army to the banks of the River
Euphrates, he sacrificed pigs, rams and bulls in the river after the Roman
manner to appease the river-god, while Tiridates slew a horse for the sameT h e story of Pompey causing magnificent war-horses to be throwninto the sea in thanksgiving for a victory is well-known. The interpretation
given to these sacrifices may have differed with the times, but for reasons alreadystated, we are led to conclude that they were the result of the horse, which hadcome into the ancient Mediterranean sphert of culture from the north ata later period than the ox, being assimilated into this agricultural culture andbecoming the symbol of fertility and growth, side by side with, or replacing
the ox. T h e horse-headed Demeter, the Corn-Mother, and the harvest
festivals of European peasants of which the festivals held in her honour furnish
us with an early instance, are examples of the horse being regarded in sucha light by the agricultural population, and the idea has been early suggested
by W. Mannhardt and others that the sacrifice of the October horse in ancient
Rome may have been in reality a symbolic representation of the mythicalkilling of the horse-shaped corn-spirit, and its subseq~entre~urrection.~96)
T h e god Mars to whom this horse was sacrificed, was the god of fields andharvests as well as being the god of war,297)and the head of the horse that had
been sacrificed was cut off and garlanded with a string of loaves to symbolize
the Spirit of the Corn, while the blood was used later for fumigating cattle
in the spring. T h e grotesque head of the horse made the object of a heated
contest between the inhabitants of two wards, the Sacred Way and the Subura
and if the former ward won, in the earliest days of Rome, the head was fastenedon a wall of the King's House, whereas if the latter did, it was the Mamilian
Tower that was adorned with the t r ~ p h y . ~ ~ TS h) e custom of hanging horses'
293)
294)
295)
296)
297)
298)

Homer, The Iliad, X I , 726-729: Murray (tr.), vol. 1, p. 535.
ibid., X X I , 130-132: Murray ( t r . ) , vol. 2, pp. 417-419.
Tacitus, Annales, 37: Murphy ( t r . ) , p. 275.
Mannhardt, S. 160, 163 8. (eit. by kppem, W, 6. 'W4).-i5L.
.Ovid, Fasti: Frazer, Appendix, pp. 397-399; Eitrem, S. 20 (cit. b y Koppers, 1936, S. 289).
Ovid, Fasti: Frazer, Aflendix, pp. 413-416; Koppers, 1936, S. 290 ; Hewq, pp. H)S-IlfL

CHAPTER I1 O x e ~a n d Water-gods

69

heads at the entrance of farmhouses as a kind of charm still remains in certain
districts at the present day, and such heads were commonly seen in the 8 u
region in Japan until quite recently299) (Cf. Fig. 20). Many images of Oshirasama, who is variously worshipped as the patron god of abundant harvests,of silk-worms, of children, of those stricken with diseases of the eye and soon, by the people of'the Kant6 and T6hoku districts ih Japan, are futnishedwith horses' heads (Fig. 9).300) Moreover, other examples such as the legendof a girl uniting herself with a horse and together with the horse's head or
hide flying through the air, which explains the origin of this particular god,301)
Thomas, p. 519. Mr. Sasaki Kizen records his memories of this custom as practised in
his native village in Rikuchfi province in Northeastern Honshfi as follows:-" Of course,
this was not confined to my village, but there was a cusrom i n the old days afcuttingoff theheads of horses that had died and hanging them on poles set up outside the entrances ofhouses. When I was a boy, a third, or even perhaps half of the fifty houses in my village
had these poles before them. Before some houses, three or four of such horses' skulls washedmany times over by the rain looked up at the sky through hollow eyes and showed their teeth
ranged along the upper jaws. I n my house, too, three such skulls lay on the stone wall until
one or two years ago. One can easily imagine that in my grandfather's time, in my greatgrandfather's, and in times still further back, every house had such horses' heads before it.'*-Sasaki, 1931, p. 21; SatB, pp. 248-249; Yanagita, 1914, pp. 87-188 (ed. 1912, 240241). In Europe, in the northwestern part of Germany, Wales, Russia, the Tyrols, Raetia,
Spain and elsewhere, one often sees two sculptured heads of horses jutting out cross-wisefrom the summit of gables of farmhouses.-Petersen (cit. in Folklore, vol. 11, p. 322, pls. I-V,
p. 437-pl. VI). The present writer does not think that these customs found in Japan are
directly connected with the Southern European belief in corn-spirits and horses' heads. As
with the .Japanese belief in Oshira-sama given in the next note, such Japanese customs as
hanging horses' skulls outside farmhouses seem to contain elements in them which differ considerably in origin from the Southern European belief in question. We have only referredto these customs as showing how the horse, brought by the nomadic peoples, came into andbecame a part of the lives of the agricultural peoples.
300) Oshirasama-zuroku, pl. 43. Cf. pls. 18,26,33,36,37. A detailed bibliography on the Oshirasama is given in pp. 127-141 of the same work.
301) Yanagita, 1935, pp. 55-56, 181-182. The following is a typical story from the Tino Monogntari, told to the author by Mrs. DaidB Hide of Tsuchi-buchi village, Kamihei-gun, Rikuchfi province (age over 80) : " Once there lived a poor farmer who had lost his wife, but hada beautiful daughter. They kept a horse, and the daughter so loved the horse that at night
she went to sleep in the stable and she and the horse came to mate. One night, her father
found this out, and the next day, he took out the horse without letting his daughter knowof it and killed it by hanging it by its neck on a mulberry tree. That night, his daughter
found the horse gone, and learning what had happened from him, went in alarm and sorrowto the mulberry tree and began to cry, clinging to the neck of the dead horse. Her fatherlon to
saw this and grew angry, and cut OKthe horse's head with a n axe, when the g ~ rleapt
the horse's head and ascended to heaven. This is the origin of the god Oshira-sama, andhis image is made out of the mulberry tree on which the horse was hanged, etc."-Yanagita,
1935, p. 55.
I t is clear that this story sp~ingsfrom the same source as that recorded in the Sou-sunchi, 14, in which we read, " The horse's skin suddenly rose up and enveloped the woman,and carried her away . . After several days, the woman and the horse's skin were foundamong the branches of a great tree, but all had turned into silkworms, which were weaving
For this reason, the tree came to be called the mulberry tree,
cocoons on the branches.
etc." But it is an interesting question whether this is an instance of the spreading of legends
through books, or the legend was brought to Japan before, or independently of the comingof books, for instance through the importation of the art of sericulture.

299)

.

..

70

THE KAPPA LEGENDthe custom of throwing images of Oshira-sama into rivers and w e l l ~ , ~ O
the~)Emburi dance of peasants of the TBhoku district in which the dancers wear
great caps shaped like horses' heads and execute horse-like movements atthe time of the raking of r i c e - f i e l d ~ , ~the~ ~belief)that the god Oshira-samagoes up into the sky at the beginning of each winter, carrying with him theseeds of cereals which he brings back to earth in March of the following ~ e a r , ~ 0 4 )the custom of the makko-tsunagi (" tethering of horses ") in the T h o area of
RikuchQ province whereby images of horses are hung on branches together withstraw wrappings containing rice-cake, which are said to travel to Izumo province to meet the coming of the ripening of cereals,305)that of carrying figures ofhorses' heads ham-koma (" spring colt ") in January,306)the practice of bringing
out white horses and striking them onthe occasion of the Hakuba-sechie (" whitehorse ceremonial ") at the Japanese court in old times,307)the pilgrimage to theInari shrine dedicated to Kura-ina-tama-no-kami, the god of rice, on the first
Day of the Horse in February according to the lunar calendar,308)and the custom
302) Sasaki, 1931 a, pp. 156-157.
303) ibid., p. 158. Mr. Sasaki says that he saw an Emburi dance at Hachinohe in Aomori prefecture in February 1931, and became aware for the first time that the eboshi-hat worn by
Oshira-sama was derived from the shape of a horse's head.
304) ibid., p. 158. For this reason, there is a custom of bringing out a mill-stone into the garden
on the dawn of the day of the god's coming, and making noises in it with a pestle. This issaid to be done to call down the god.
305) ibid., p. 158. " In the old days, it was usual to make images of horses about ? feet longwith straw, and to take them, together with straw-wrappers containing shitogi (roughly
kneaded rice-cakes), to trees growing near wells and rivers or the sluices of one's rice-fields,
and hang them on the branches. In recent times, it became rare to see horses made ofstraw, paper folded four times or six times in the form of horses being substituted, and thesewere pierced with spits and hung at the places named. Whether made of straw or paper,
the rice-cakes were smeared on the horses' mouths. These horses were alsooffered to ubusuna-gami, the Local deities of the place. The horses were supposed to travel to Izumo province to greet the coming of the ripening of corn. The earlier the horses were hung thebetter, for the agricultural gods of the families who were late in hanging their horses were
supposed to come back late, and so everyone vied with each other in going out to hang thehorses at dawn. When we were boys, we used to collect these horses on our way back fromschool, and see who collected the most. We showed off those we collected which had shapesthat differed from others, aqd tried to guess which family had hung out which horse. The
boys of the present day also seem to indulge in this pastime."
306) Tsunoda, vol. 2, nos. 11-12, pp. 681-684, 730-731 ; vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 26-28 ; Hirase, pp.
108-1 10.
307) This custom is still to be found today in certain districts, and it is said that a t the Shiroumamatsuri ("white horse festival ") held each year on the night of Jan. 7th at the Kashima shrinein Hitachi province, and the first festival of the year held on Jan. 13th according to the lunar
calendar a t Kuon-ji temple on Mt. Minobe, horses are still beaten on the buttock.-Deguchi, p. 10. For the meaning of this custom of striking horses, cf. Deguchi, p. 11 ff. andpassages on the " whipping oxen " in this chapter, p. 107.
308) Deguchi, p. 17 ; Minakata, 1918, p. 181.

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

71of bringing out black horses,309)or cutting off horses' heads and throwing theminto rivers, when praying for rain,310)all show that in Japan, horses, and moreparticularly, their heads, possessed the qualities of an agricultural god. The
circumstances which gave rise to the horse-headed Kcshin-image and theworship of Bat6-Kwannon (" horse-headed Avalokiteivala ")311) are not clear,but it is worthy of particular notice that Kodapen (Kodadeo, Ghordeo), the godof horses worshipped by the Gonds in Central India, is represented by stanes
set up on the boundaries of villages, arrd besides presiding over the villages
as their patron god, also has something of the character of a c~rn-spirit.~lz)
There are also scholars like Miss Harrison who would Lave it that it is possible
to see in the famous Trojan horse the relics of a wooden horse originally usedin some fertility rite and forming part of the paraphernalia for a resurrection
ceremony or the magical rite of a sacred marriage, when one compares the
Trojan horse with the hobby-horse-thesymbol of fertility-which still
survives in the village tradition and customs of Europe, or the wooden cow
of Crete which Daedalus hollowed out and placed on wheels, covering it withcow hide, and in which he put Pasiphae to please Ariadne.313' From all this,309) Nakayama, p. 67 (cites Seiyd-gorei-ikyd, Higashikasugai-gun-shi, Engishiki, 3.)310) In Inano village, Kawabe-gun, Settsu province, the inhabitants cut off a horse's head andthrow it into the waterfall Mizo-taki at the source of the River Namase, when praying forrain. The horse must be white with black markings. At this ceremony, a book of prayer
for rain preserved in the village is read, and then the horse's head is cut off and thrown into
the waterfall, after which the inhabitants return to the village without looking back. The
man chosen to cut off the head wears the ceremonious dress, kami-shimo, and performs his
task on a rock. In some years, the man only makes a semblance of cutting off the horse's
head, and after wounding the horse slightly on the neck, the blood is smeared on the rock,after which the inhabitants return to the village. One such ceremony was held in 1883, andmuch rain fell while the villagers were on their way back.-Nakayama, p. 67.
31 1) Examples of KBshin-images with horses' heads are quite common in the neighbourhood ofTokyo. Bath-Kwannon is the Japanese version for Hayagriva VidyZrSja and there mustcertainly be some connection between these two. A similar relationship may exist between
our BatB-Kwannon and some older popular belie&. We read in the Kwannon-reijd-ki
6, that the presiding deity of Matsuo-ji temple in Wakasa province, near the boundary between this province and Tango, is BatB-Kwa~on,and the origin of the temple is
as follows: A fisherman of KB-no-ura put out to sea carrying a n image of BatB-Kwannon
1 sun 8 bu (about 2 ins.) long, and me ta storm, but was able to reach the shore guided by
the neighing of a white horse. So the fisherman carved another image of BatB-Kwannonout of wood thrown upon the beach, and built a temple in which to enshrine it, and eversince then, someone among his descendants, who must always be .quint eyed, is chosen to
take care of the temple. The image has three faces and two arms, coloured red, and represented as in anger, with the head of a white horse on top of the faces. (From the material
collected by Mr. Yanagita).
312) The stone on the outskirts of the village representing a horse-god is worshipped a t the beginning of the rainy season. Only men join in the worship, women being exclud&,Crooke, 1912, p. 8 a. " When a field is sown, the field-god, Kodopen, said to represent the
god of the kodo millet (Paspalum snobiculatum), but more probably a hill-god, is propitiatql."-Crooke, 1913,pL313a. Cf.Crooke, 1926, p.351; Minakata, 1918,p. 181.
313) Harrison, pp. 43-46' Cf. Apollodorus, 111. 1, 4: Frazer (tr.),.vol. 1. P. 305.

%a%),

(as

72

hlorth and SouthTHE KAPPA LEGEND

then, the significance of the cornucopia held in the left hand of Epona, theCeltic goddess of water and of horses (Fig. S), has, we think, become muchclearer.
T h e sacrifice of horses practised from ancient times by the peoples ofthe steppes of Inner Asia in the north, was by its nature a bloodless sacrificeoffered to heaven and differed greatly both in form and content from the sacrifices, such as have been just described, in usage among the agricultural peoplesof the south. We naturally find many elements in the ox-rearing customsof the area stretching from the southern half of the Eurasian continent to East
Africa that owe their origin to the nomadic culture of Inner Asia,314)but as
we haye already pointed out, the sacrifice of oxen and horses to water-gods,
or rather, the association of these animals with water-gods, has a strongly" southern " character, and in the opinipn of the present writer, it indicatesthat the process which began primarily with the ox was later extended to thehorse. But as is usual with all such secondary complexes, there is much also
in these customs and legends which possesses a " northern " quality having
its origin in the nomadic culture, and other qualities belonging to culturesof still other orders. T h e question of the sacrifice of horses in its entirety,
which would require a book by itself to be fully discussed, cannot be dealt withhere. But to give only one example having to do with water-gods, thecasting
into the sea of a yoke of four horses at the annual festival of the sun-god in
Rhodes, where the people followed a religion of Semitic 0rigin,~l5)indicatesa culture different from that seen in the sacrifice of oxen in the agriculturaland lunar mythological world. T h e idea of regarding the horse as the animalsacred to the sun-god is particularly prominent in the religion of the S e m i t e ~ , ~ l ~ )while we have already given some examples showing that the association insome form or other of the horse with the sun was widespread among- the beliefsof the Indo-Europeans.
We have perhaps been tarrying too long by the coasts of the Mediterraneanof the ancient world. But it is not that we have been lured into doing so by
the poetic charm in which its myths and legends abound, washed as we mightsay by the blue waves of the Mediterranean. If we have stayed too long, it
was because the remains and legends of the ancient world preserved in theseregions are comparatively rich in clues to the solution of the questions raisedin this essay. But we must now take leave of this fascinating world and particularly of Poseidon, the great water-god, the one who " moves in a kind of rollings p l e n d o u r . ' Y e shall retrace our steps, and in examining the relationshipof oxen (and horses) to the water-spirits and water-monsters of European
folklore, i t is hoped that the conclusions arrived at from the foregoing study314) Flor, S. 16-24.
315) Smith, p. 293.
316) I1 Kings, XIII, 11.

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

73of the ancient Mediterranean culture will be further confirmed.
Beginning in the north, we shall first give a glance at the Slavic peoples. The Slavs
There is a water-spirit living in the depths of rivers and marshes called Vodyanik The water-man
or Dedugka Vodyanoi (" water-grandfather ") in Russia, Vodnik in Bohemia,
Vodeni M o i (" water-man ") in Yugoslavia, Topielec (" drowner ") in Poland
and so on. H e usually appears as a bald-headed old man and lives mostly
at the bottom of the water near a mill, where h e keeps numerous herds of oxen,
horses, sheep and pigs which he drives up to land every night to graze. I t
is said that he is sometimes seen seated on the mill-wheel, combing his longgreen hair. This old man possesses great strength in the water, but hasnone at all when on dry land. H e likes to ride on a sheat-fish, or saddles horses.
bulls or cows and rides them until they fall down dead in the marshes. Whatever happens in the world of water is his doing, and although he helps thefishermen and sailors when in good humour, he will overturn boats, tear the
spikes out of mill-wheels, and cause mills to be flooded by the rising watersof rivers when he is irritated. T o avoid such mishaps, millers must burysome living thing like a cow, sheep, or even a man in the foundations of theirmills. T h e ald man also appears often at markets. If he pays a high pricefor corn, it is a sign that the harvest is going to be bad, and if a low price, thecrop will certainly be a good one. H e marries water-nymphs and girls who
have been drowned. When the waters of rivers and lakes overflow theirbanks, men know that he is getting drunk at his marriage-feast. During thewinter, he usually remains underwater in his dwelling, and when he wakes
up with the coming of spring, he is hungry and irritable, breaks the ice, stirsu p the waves and frightens the fish. T o appease him, a horse smeared withhoney is sacrificed, and being impatient for it, he causes the water to heaveand howls dismally for three days. I n Ukraine, the head of a horse used to
be buried in a dyke so that it would not be destroyed by the V ~ d y a n i k . ~ ~ ' )Although of a different origin perhaps from this water-man, a spirit in theform of a gigantic bull is said to inhabit each of the large lakes in Yugoslavia,
and people make offerings of coins to them before washing sheep in theselakes.318) There are also legends among the Western Slavic Wends (Sorbes)of how the water-spirit Nix draws cows into the water each day at midday.319'
T h e facts enumerated above show to what extent the water-spirit, regarded ~ h ,~ , , = h
as the god of fertility, has became associated with agriculture and oxen andhorses, so as to leave even today vestiges of some ancient agricultural ritual in
the popular beliefs of the Slavic peoples. We may add here that the legendof the Slavic water-spirit, together with that of the water-horse Rusalka,
spread to the Turks in the basin of the Volga, and t o the far Siberian tribes
317)
318)

Mhchal, pp. 270-271.
Bolivka, S. 318.

319) Panzer, S. 132.

74

T H E KAPPA L E G E N D

also through the Russians. The Yakuts in particular have much in theirfolklore that is of purely Russian origin. They believe that the water-spirits
come on land between New Year's Eve and the Twelfth Night and wander
along the roads with many children who are carried on the backs of oxen. At
that time, the people gather together at cross-roads, openings in the ice, andnear deserted huts to listen to the noise the spirits make, and foretell fromit the things that will happen during the year. The Yenissei-Ostyaks andother fishing tribes of Northern Siberia believe in the existence of a spirit who
presides over rivers, lakes and marshes, and make offerings to it at the beginning of the fishing season in spring, while the Yakuts in the past are said tohave sacrificed a black bull to their water-spirit, Ukulan Tojon, through theshamans.320)
The Finno-Ugric
If we turn our attention next to the water-festivals of the Finno-Ugricpeoples
peoples in Northern Europe who are either surrounded or in actual contact
with the Slavs, we find the agricultural character of their festivals equally pronounced. For instance, in Russian Ingermanland, the head, hoofs and entrails
water-festivals,
oxen and horses
of a cow that had been slaughtered for the occasion were thrown into the water,
at the peasant festival held on St. Peter's or St. Elias' day. Other examples
are reported in which not only the head and entrails but a whole he-goat
was cast into a river, or the head of an ox first thrown into a lake as aredemption-offering and then afterwards the carcass. According to the
inhabitants of those regions, the object of this practice was to ward off
death by drowning, and according to same others, to prevent any misfortune
overtaking the cattle, but it is hardly possible that a ceremony of this sort held
regularly every year at a fixed period should have been started to guard against
accidental mishaps like drowning. St. Elias, on whose day the ceremony was
held, was regarded as the god of wind, rain and thunder, and Uno Holmberg
is of the opinion that the original significance of a ceremony which was at firsta magical fertility rite must have become forgotten in the course of age~.~al)
The custom of sprinkling water on oxen, horses and sheep when first turningthem out to pasture in the spring is to be found everywhere in Finland,3")and indicates a belief in the magical powers of water as the source of fertility.
The custom of bringing the bride on the second day after marriage to someplace where there is water, and a relation of the bridegroom, or the bride andbridegroom themselves overturning the first pitcher of water drawn is derived
from the same idea. This custom is to be found mainly in Eastern Finland
among the Cheremiss, Esthonians, Karelians, Ingrians, and Votians, and since
it coincides in every detail with the practice in Eastern Russia, it is thought
to be of Slav 0rigin.~~3)The Votyaks, Mordvins, and the Baltic Finns sacri320) Holmberg, 1927 a, pp. 469170.
321) Holmberg, 1913, S. 229-230.
322) ibid., S. 232.

323) ibid., S. 230.

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

75

ficed a black animal, generally a sheep or a black bull, not only to the earth
but also to the " Water-Mother," chiefly to obtain fruitful rains. T h e
Cheremiss sprinkle water on one another at such ~ e r e m o n i e s . ~ ~The4 ) Votyaks
and the Mordvins, like the Russians earlier, hold a great festival at which they
throw horses into the water when the ice begins to break in the spring. At
an Ostyak festival which Holmberg witnessed in 1911 at the River Buy, atributary of the Kama, a young foal was first killed and cooked by the river,then the people knelt down facing the river and the officiating priest began
reading a long prayer begging prosperity from the river. Meanwhile the bones,
hide, and other parts of the carcass were thrown into the river together withthe animal's new halter, the blood having been already flowing into the riverthrough a ditch dug in the dyke. T h e kind of animal to be sacrificed waschanged every year, so that if it was a brown foal one year, it would be a blackbull the next.325) According to Castrkn, the Ostyaks of Obdorsk, when fishing
was bad on the River Obi, sometimes sacrificed a reindeer by sinking it in
the river with a stone hung on its neck.326) This, however, is not to be taken
as the authentic form of sacrificing reindeer, and is probably an imitation of
the sacrifice of oxen and horses in practice among the agriculturual peoples.
Examples of water-spirits appearing in the form of horses, or luring horses Master of the water
into the water, have already been given. But these spirits, like the great Poseidon, also assume the form of oxen, and lure oxen as well as horses into thewater. Viit-oza (" water master ") dreaded by the Cheremiss dwells in such
waters as do not dry up during the hot season. H e usually appears as an oldman, but can turn himself also into a horse or a bullock. H e likes to lure
human beings, but when he fails, he captures cattle and carries them away
into the water.327) When the Nakk, the water-spirit of the Esthonians, wishes
to entice cattle into the water, he turns himself into an animal and mixes withthem on their pasture ground, and then, when returning to the water, entices
the other animals to follow him.32s)
T h e idea of water-spirits keeping herds of magnificent cattle in under- o x e n kept bywater pastures, as in the case of the Russian Vodyanik, is prevalent also among water-spirits
the Finns who live along the shores of the Baltic. One finds such legends
as that in the diocese of Uuras, a man once saw a herd of beautiful cows comeout of Lake Uuras and land on an island in the lake, but disappear again into
the water when the man approached them, or that in the diocese of Kiirsten
on the bay of Bothnia, great herds of the " cows of the Nakk " appear nightly
on the shore and graze there from sundown until dawn of the next
324)
325)
326)
327)
328)
329)

Holmberg, 1927 a, p. 212.
ibid., pp. 2 14-215, pl. XXI, p. 200.
Holmberg, 1913, S. 56-57.
Holmberg, 1927 a, p. 199.
i b i d , p. 203.
Holmberg, 1913, S. 209.

76

Oxen o f the earthand the Oxeno f wells

T H E KAPPA LEGEND

Sometimes, after these oxen have been led back at dawn into the water by thewater-spirit who owns them, it happens that just one animal is left behind. If
a man circles the animal once or three times with a piece of iron in his hand,it can no longer return to the water. I t becomes a part of the human world,
and the water-spirit can only howl from the water, vainly searching for thelost animal. If it is a cow, one has only to caress her and be gentle to her,or even just recognize her for what she is, to make her one's own.330) T orear such a water-cow with a herd of ordinary cattle, her first milk must be
offered to the spirit of the earth. Her blood, when she is slaughtered, mustalso be offered to the earth. In some regions, when milking such a watercow, the first three spouts are spilled on the ground while one recitesthe words," One for the earth, one for the water, one for those who dwell in the air ! "331)
At the extremity of the peninsula of Kurland to the south, where are the villagesof the Livonians now reduced to a population of a little over 1,000, one finds,
besides legends of the Nakk in the form of a horse and of sea-horses, stories
of a sea-maiden, sometimes called " Virgin Mary," who tends blue sea-oxenby the shore and drives them back into the sea before the eyes of humanwatchers, and how one cow which lagged behind left her progeny in Kurland,
and an abundance of other such legends.332)
According to the Finns of Scandinavia, great herds of cattle owned byan earth-spirit called Maahiaiset ( ' I the underground one ") also come outof the earth and disappear into it again, but if a man throws anything madeof iron at them, they can be easily caught. A similar story is told about the" COWS of Manalaiset (' the dead ') " in Northern Finland and Russian Karelia.333) I n general, one sees again in these legends and popular beliefs, theconjunction of the earth, water, the nether regions and the ox that is peculiar to
the religious concepts of most agricultural peoples. But as the idea of waterspirits keeping herds of cattle is confined to the Baltic Finns among the Finnish
peoples, and the cows being beautiful animals giving an abundant supply ofmilk, the possibility of men capturing them by going round them and othersuch factors have much in common with the beliefs of the Nordic peoples,
it is thought that the idea must have been imported among these Baltic Finns
by the latter.334) Among the Finns of Nyland, there is a legend of a watermonster called Kaivoharka (" the bull of the well ") who lives at the bottomof wells, and the story of how he will draw anyone who comes near into thewell is used to frighten children. Whether this is a variation of the Nakk
legend, or derived from the story of the oxen kept by water-spirits is not clear,
330)
331)
332)
333)
334)

ibid., S. 209-210; Holmberg 1927 a, p. 205.
Holmberg, 1913, S. 210-211.
Loorits, p. 42.
Holmberg, 1913, S. 21 1.
ibid S. 2 11.

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

77

but there are similar monsters in the folklore of the Germanic peoples, and it
is probable that it originated with them.335)
I t is best therefore that we should examine once more the forms of the The Germanic
water-monsters in Germanic folklore. In Northern Germany, there is a peoples
legend of a variegated bull which came out of the sea everyday to give a dinner The water-bull
to a shepherd, and even a clean shirt on Sundays, a legend which is widely
spread with its several ~ariants.3~6)Near Scheuen in Niedersachsen, there
is a marsh called Taufe from which a wild bull sometimes appears to covercows grazing. There is no doubt that this story has something in common
with the idea of grazing horses by the water-side to obtain fine horses which
had been mentioned early jn this paper, and as we have observed in connection
with the water-stallion seen by Sindbad the sailor, legends of this' type might
be a reminiscence of herding customs once actually in existence. I t is also
said that, when a storm rises over this marsh, a great horse with gigantic hoofs
rises out of the
I n Eastern Germany, the water-man often appears
in the form of a white calf, and goes about limping while uttering pitiful cries.
This is a sign that someone will be drowned. I t is also said to appear in theform of a black calf with a horse's head and long ears. In Swabia, there isa water-spirit which has the form of a white cow. In Switzerland, there lives
a water-monster with the belly of a great cow, whose thousand shining eyes
are all fixed on one point. When this monster rolls out of the water, it destroys
everything within its reach.338) I n Switzerland there is also a legend of two
oxen appearing out of a lake and fighting with each other,339)and in England
too there are many legends of oxen who live in lakes, and of the water-spirit
Nix, or a water-giant, appearing in the form of oxen. This is supposed tocause diseases and death to COWS.^^^) T h e mediaeval legend of how Meroveus
was born of the union of a bull which appeared on the sea-shore with the sleeping queen341)clearly belongs to the same category, and it is said that there isalso a similar legend in Spain. T h e Scotch water-horse kelpie sometimes ~ h Celts,
appears on land in the form of a bull, and then it is called a w a t e r - b ~ l l . ~ ~ ~ )We often find the water-bull in the folklore of other Celtic peoples including
the inhabitants of the Isle of Man,343)and in this way, we can see that the idea
335)
336)
337)
338)
339)
340)
341)

ibid., S. 211-212.
Kuhn und Schwartz, S. 501 +at. by Gubernatis, 4 . 2 , p. ?24)A1zm, i 5 b - 1 5 7 .
Grimm, 1876, Bd 1, S. 406.
Panzer, S. 132.
ibid., S. 132.
Wirth, S. 482.
Simrock, S. 437, 469 (1887, S. 417, 448) ; Wirth, S. 482 ; Gubernatis, voI. I, p. 223;
Grimm, 1903, Nr. 424
by Pan=, S; 432j.
342) Grimm, 1876, Bd 3, Nachtr., S. 142. For examples of water-oxen in Europe, see theHandworterbuch des deut~chenAberglaubens, Bd 8, S . 482 already cited, while a detailed bibliography on the subject is given in p. 484 of the same work.
343) Rhys, pp. 284-285 ; Peacock, p. 569 ; Crooke, 1896, vol. 1, p. 44-45.

+.

78

The Semites
wellw

The bull whichbears the " sea "Persians

THE KAPPA LEGEND

connecting oxen with water-spirits, side by side with that connecting horses
with water-spirits, has spread among the Germanic, the Slavic, the Celtic, andin fact, nearly the entire European peoples, extending as far as the various
peoples of Finno-Ugric origin.
Taking leave of Europe and turning back once more to Asia, there is aplace of pilgrimage called " Oxen's well," Ain al-bacar, at Acre on the west
coast of Syria. This was visited by the Jews, the Christians and the Mohammedans for the reason that the oxen Adam ploughed with came out of theThis mediaeval legend of the Semites which connects the priginof agriculture with sacred water and oxen must have its source in the cultureof the ancient Orient. Ox-worship did not originate with the ancient Semites,
to whom it seems to have been transmitted-by way of Sumeria to Babylon,
and from the Hittites to Northern Syria,345)and there is extant a Babylonian
hymn written in both the Sumerian and Semitic languages addressed to
the great bull, the offspring of the storm-god Zu, " t h e supreme bullthat treadest the holy pasturage.. . planting the corn and making the field
luxuriant," in which it is said that the mouth of the great basin of water,-" sea " or " the deep,"-which
stands in the court of a Babylonian temple,
lies between the ears of the bull. I11 the same hymn occur the words " thetwelve gods of copper," so that this " sea " must have been of the same sortas the " sea " of Solomon's temple of which we read in Kings that " it stoodupon twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, and three looking toward
the west, and three Booking toward the south, and three loolring toward theeast; and the sea was set above upon them, and all their hinder parts were
inward."346) There is an ancient Jewish story of a king of the deep sea who
had the form of a three-headed bull, and the idea which occurs in the ArabianNights of a bull which stands up in the middle of the ocean bearing the worldon itself is thought to have been carried with the spread of Islam in later ages
to Egypt, to Eastern Russia, and the Turks of Central Asia, and then on to
the Volga Finns and the various tribes of the Caucasus.347)
We have already mentioned the fact that in the culture of the ancientIndo-European peoples, there was a mingling of " southern " elements
centred round the bull with " northern " elements founded on the horse.
Taking this culture as such with them, these peoples advanced eastwards to
the Iranian plateau, to the PunjZb, and to the fertile plains watered by theGanges, and in following their march, we should like to start with two
incidents recorded by Herodotus. T h e first has to do with the arrival of the
Persian army led by Cyrus on the banks of the River Gyndes, a tributary of
344)
345)
346)
347)

Smith, p. 183, note 1.
Sayce, pp. 888-889.
ibid., p. 888; I Kings, VII, 25.
Harva, 1938, S. 30-32.

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

79

the River Tigris, on their way to attack Babylon. Cyrus was about to orderhis great army to cross the river, when " one of the sacred white horses ac- White horses andcompanying his march, full of spirit and high mettle, walked into the water, river-gods
and tried to cross by himself; but the current seized him, swept him alongwith it, and drowned him in its depth. Cyrus, enraged at the insolence ofthe river, threatened so to break its strength that in future even women shouldcross it easily without wetting their knees. Accordingly he put off for a time
his attack on Babylon, and, dividing his army into two parts, he marked out
by ropes one hundred and eighty trenches on each side of the Gyndes, leading
off from it in all directions, and setting his army to dig, some on one side,ofthe river, some on the other, he accomplished his threat by the aid of so greata number of hands, but not without losing thereby the whole summer season.
Having, however, thus wreaked his vengeance on the Gyndes, by dispersing
it through three hundred and sixty channels, Cyrus, with the first approachof the ensuing spring, marched forward against Babylon."348) The number
360 corresponds to the number of days in a solar year. That is to say, we
find expressed in this legend, besides the idea of river-gods seeking white horses
such as we have already seen in old Chinese records, the idea of the white horse
as an animal sacred to the sun-god which is common to the ancient Semites
and Indo-Europeans. T h e second incident is concerned with the expedition into Greece of Xerxes, the grandson of Cyrus. When the vast armyof Xerxes came to the River Strymon in Trachea, the Magi accompanying
the army sacrificed white horses to make the stream favourable. " After propitiating the stream by these and many other magical ceremonies, the Persians
crossed the Strymon, by bridges made before their arrival, at a place called
T h e Nine Ways, whiich was in the territory of the Edonians. And when theylearnt that the name of the place was T h e Nine Ways, they took nine of the
youths of the land and as many of their maidens, and buried them alive on
the spot. Burying alive is a Persian custom."349) I t is worthy of noticethat we find recorded here, besides the sacrifice of white horses to propitiate
river-gods, sacrifices consisting in the burying alive of boys and girls by thebank of a river, a form of fertility rite wide practised among ancient agricultural peoples. These two examples have to do with white horses and rivergods. Then how does the case stand with the oxen ? Plutarch relates that Sacrifice of cows
the ancient Persians sacrificed sacred cows by the banks of the Euphrates" On the other side of the river, there was a certain number of kine consecrated
to Diana Persica, whom the barbarous people inhabiting beyond the river of
Euphrates, do reverence and honour above all the other gods: and these kine
they employ to none other use, but only to sacrifice them unto this goddess.
They wander all about the country where they will, without any manner of348) Herodotus, I, 189-190: Rawlinson (tr.), vol. 1, pp. 310-31 1.
349) ibid., VII, 113-1 14: Rawlinson (tr.), vol. 4, p. 94.

80

Distribution of thewater-horse legend
and the Iranianpeoples

Sacred urine ofoxen

T H E KAPPA L E G E N D

tying, or shackling otherwise, having only the mark of the goddess, which isa lamp printed upon their bodies, and they are not easy to be taken when one
would have them, but with great ado." But when the Roman general Lucius
Licinius Lucullus was advancing with his army against Tigranes, the king ofArmenia, and had completed the crossing of the Euphrates, " one of these
consecrated kine . . . came to offer herself upon a rock which they suppose ishallowed or dedicated unto their goddess, bowing down her head, and stretching out her neck, like those that are tied short, as if she had come even of purpose
to present herself to Lucullus, to be sacrificed as she was. And besides her,
he sacrificed a bull also unto the river Euphrates, in token of thanks for his
safe passage 0ver."~50)-We have already argued, from an analysis of the structure of ancient Oriental culture, that these sacrifices of oxen and horses toriver-gods must have been derived from the sacrifice of oxen having the character of a fertility rite connected with agriculture. Among the Iranian peoples,
the relationship between water and horses is particularly prominent, and beginning with the goddess AnZhita and the Scythian horse-charm in the form ofa golden fish which have been mentioned in the last chapter, such other examples as the legend of horses that sweat blood of Ta-yiian and Tokhara,
the Dapple of Ch'inghai which was obtained by turning loose a Persian mareinto Ch'inghai (Kuku-nor), the water-horse in the river which neighed inanswer to the bronze horse in the Zoroastrian temple in the River Oxus, allthese have some connection with the Iranian peoples. If we further take into
consideration the story of the sea-stallions in the Arabian Nights, and thelegends of water-horses belonging to the Islamic sphere of culture to be foundin Kashmir, Kurdistan and Armenia, we cannot help thinking that a portion
at least of these legends was carried to the east and west of the Eurasian continent by the equestrian peoples of Iranian origin.
But we must neither forget that the ox occupied in the Zoroastrian religion
a position equal in importance to that which it held in the Hindu. We havealready mentioned the legend of the moon " that contained the seed of thebull." There is a hymn in the Avesta which says: " Hail, bounteous bull !
Hail to thee, beneficent bull ! Hail to thee, who makest increase ! Hail tothee, who makest growth ! Hail to thee, who dost bestow his part upon therighteous faithful, and wilt bestow it on the faithful yet unborn ! "35l)
T h e urine of the cow was used in religious ceremonies of purification,
at which it was drunk or used for washing one's face, and the Avesta gives aformula to be recited on taking the ~ o w - u r i n e . ~ A~ ~variant)of the legend
given in the last chapter of the divine horse which lived in a cave on the south350) Plutarch: North (tr.), vol. 5, pp. 229-230.
351) <end-Avesta, Vendida^d,X X I , 1 : Darmesteter (tr.) pt. 1, p. 231.
352) <end-Avesta, Khordah-Avesta, 111: Bleek (tr.) pt. 3, p. 3 ; Gubernatis, vol. 1, pp. 95, 99.
80-8 1.

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

81side of Mt. Po-li in Tokhara, recorded in Chinese works of the T'ang andSung periods, and according to which the urine of the horse is supposed tohave been constantly flowing out of a hole in a wall of stone,353)may havesome connection with such ideas.
T h e custom of using the excrement and urine of oxen as a means of purifi- India
cation is thought to have spread from the Hindu to the Persians, but it cannot Pre-Aryan culture
have been derived from the religious ideas of the Aryan peoples themselves.
As we have already stated, the ethnological and archaeological knowledge
we possess today permits us to follow the development of a culture which existed in a zone extending from India to the Mediterranean long before thecoming of the Aryans. T h e culture of the Dravidian peoples who, as the preAryan inhabitants of India, laid the foundations of ancient Indian civilization,or the far older Indus civilization which yet seems to be closely related to theformer, are both parts of this pre-Aryan culture, and as far as we can ascertain
through the Atharvaveda which is said to reflect the popular beliefs of these
pre-Aryan peoples, or the excavations at Mohenjo-Daro and HarappZ whichtell us of the Indus civilization of fifteen or sixteen centuries before the Aryan
invasion, this culture, although from the point of view of ethnology it wasmade up, strictly speaking, of a variety of primitive cultures, had a strongly
agricultural and matriarchal character. T h e Earth-Mother, trees, oxen,serpents and sexual organs were worshipped, and polyandry and bloody
human sacrifices seem to have been practised. T h e people learned early torear oxen and made these animals the centre of their religious life, but they
were unacquainted with horses, which is the reason given for their having been
easily conquered, in spite of the comparatively high level of their culture, by
the Aryan new-comers who went to battle with war-horses and chariots.354)
T h e Aryans already possessed, prior to their invasion of India, a culture which
combined & - l x e d i . ~ g wkh a g ~ i s u l @ ew d the horse with the ox. But
the idea of considering the ox as something sacred in the manner of the ancient
Brahmans and the modern Hindus, to the extent of regarding the urine andexcrement of oxen as the ambrosial food, must be founded on a religious conception of an agricultural character having to do with fertility rites, which
was held by the pre-Aryan inhabitants of India in common with the peoples
belonging to the ancient Oriental and Mediterranean sphere of culture. This
agricultural and matriarchal culture which was dominant in pre-Aryan India
must have been extended to the Tibetan plateau in the north, and in the eastmust have been in contact with the agricultural and ox-rearing culture of
the area extending as far as Southern China from the Indo-Chinese peninsula.
T h e important part played today by oxen and water-buffaloes in the agriculturalrites of tribal societies with marked matriarchal characteristics in Assam and353) T'ai-ping-kuang-chi, 435 ; cf. note 45.
354) Kimura, pp. 339-354 ,361, 383.

82

Sacrifices to theflood demon

Baffalo demon

T H E KAPPA L E G E N D

Indonesia, will probably have to be studied in relation to the migration of theAustronesians, who spread southward from their home in the Asiatic continent
to the islands in the Southern Pacific, long before the comiilg of Hinduism.355)
Furnished with the cultural data given in the foregoing pages, if we now
turn our steps towards India and return for the last time to China and East
Asia, we shall have advanced a step further towards the solution of the problems
the clues to which we first gained in our examination of the structure of theancient Mediterranean and Oriental culture.
We shall first begin by glancing over the folklore which may have beenpreserved for thousands of years among the vast population of India.
" In the Punjlb, when a village is in danger of floods, the headman makes
an offering of a cocoa-nut and a rupee to the flood demon. As in many otherplaces the cocoa-nut represents the head of a human victim, which in olden
times was the proper offering. . . Some people throw seven handfuls of boiled
wheat and sugar into the stream and distribute the remainder among the personspresent. Some take a male buffalo, a horse, or a ram, and after boring tht:
right ear of the victim, throw it into the water. If the victim be a horse, it
should be saddled before it is offered. A short time ago, when the town andtemples at Hardwlr were in imminent danger during the Gohna flood, theBrahmans poured vessels of milk, rice and flowers into the waters of Mother
Ganges and prayed to her to spare them."356)
T h e object of the sacrifice to the water-demon in the passage quoted,
just as in the case of Wang Tsun of the Han dynasty in China who sunk a whitehorse in the Yellow River to appease the water-god, is to avert the disasterof a flood, but if we examine the nature of the offerings, it is difficult not to
notice that the ceremony has the character of an agricultural ritual. In
Mirzapur on the banks of the Ganges, there is a famous water-hole called
Barewa. I t is said that a herdsman once brought some buffaloes to grazeby it and the water of Barewa was incensed by this and swallowed up boththe herdsman and the cattle. T h e drowned buffaloes then turned into a
dangerous demon called BhainBZsura (" buffalo demon ") who tookup hisabodein the pool with the Nlga and the Nlgin, so that today no one can fish in thepool without first appeasing the devil with the offering of a fowl, eggs, anda goat.357) This demon also became deified as a corn-spirit, and it is necessary to propitiate him when the grain has come into ear.358) T h e buffalo is
worshipped together with Yama, the god of death, as his vzhana (vehicle),so that pious Hindus do not use it for ploughing and carting.359) T h e legend355) Heine-Geldern, 1932, S. 543-6 19.
356) Crooke, 1896, vol. 1, 46.
357) ibid., p. 44.
358) Marshall, vol. 1, p. 72.
359) Crooke, 1926, p. 366.

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

83of the slaying of the death demon, Asura Mahisa, which had the form ofa buffalo, by Devi (Durgl), the wife of the god kiva, may explain the sacrificeof buffaloes often offered to this Mother-Goddess in place of the human sacrifices of ancient times.360) T h e Gaddi shepherds in the Punjlb offer food,water or sheep made of flour to the Batal w a t e r - s p i r i t ~ ,the
~ ~ ~Khasis)of Assamoffer a goat to the river-goddess before casting their nets,362)and the Kaivarta
fishermen of Bengal throw a live kid into the water at the ceremony for guarding
their nets.363) These are the rites perfomed by herdsmen and fishermen
to propitiate water-gods, and oxen and horses have no part in them, the animals
sacrificed being confined to small horned animals like sheep and goats. They
are probably later imitations of the sacrifice of oxen and horses.
We have already referred to the relationship between horses and the Vanqa in thewater-god Varuna. This god who was originally the god of the celestial world ASvamedha
first appears as the lord of water in the P ~ r i i n a s ,and
~ ~ ~the) linking of his namewith the Aivamedha, the sacrifice of the horse, which was practised fromthe age of the Rgveda also seems to be a secondary ~ombination.~65)But
we cannot overlook the fact that this national ceremony, the nature of which
is preserved for us in detail in the classical literature of India, has characteristics
which show its close relationship with the world of lunar mythology and the
mythology of the nether regions, and all that has to do with fertility rites,
and Varuna also seems to be invoked in the capacity of such a type of deity.
At the beginning of this ceremony, at the moment the horse chosen for sacrificeis led into the pond for cleansing, a black " four-eyed dog " (a dog with aspot above, or at the side of, each eye) is knocked down dead by a pariah andthe words, " Those who would do harm to the horse, may Varurpa crush them ! "are chanted. Then the dog's carcass is thrown at the foot of the horse standing
in the water. Four-eyed dogs often appear in the beliefs of the Indo-European
peoples as a dog of the god of the nether regions.366) After this, the horse is lerloose towards the northeast for a year, and when it is strangled together withhundreds of other animals after going through various preparations, the firstwife of the king who presides over the ceremony takes her place by the sideof the horse, and the priest spreads a cloth over them. This represents thesexual act, and during this time, the priest and the women exchange ribald
pleasantries.367) When the moment has come for the final ablutions, the kingenters the water with the queen and chants a hymn of praise to the god Varuca,
Keith, 1917, pl. 1, Frontispiece; Marshall, p. 72, note.
Crooke, 1921, p. 718.
Gurdon, pp. 114, 115.
Crooke, 1921, p. 718.
Dowson, p. 338.
Keith, 1925, p. 346 +it.. by K w , M, W 344). V J ~ .A ,Koppers, 1936, S. 341.
ibid., S. 297-298, 345.

,p .

-3+l

84

The horse andthe mysteries of
Mrtyu-PrajnpatiASvamedhaAditi

T H E KAPPA LEGEND

saying, " Praised be Varuna ! T h e bonds of Varuna have been severed !"and " a man of the Atori clan, white, with yellow eyes, and wrinkles on his
face " is immersed up to the mouth in water, while the blood of the horse thathas been sacrificed is poured on his head.368) I n this way, those who follow
him and the king who is presiding over the ceremony are purified of theirsins. T h e " white-skinned and yellow-eyed " old man who may be comparedto the Jewish scapegoat, while being a symbol of Varuna himself, is considered as having perhaps some significance that has to do with the lunar
mythology, since the Atori clan is frequently associated with gold.369). In thisconnection, we should also remember the story of SunahSepa in which humansacrifice is offered to Varuna.
But the question goes beyond Varuna. T h e being round which themysteries of Aivamedha centre is Prajzpati as the creator of the universe.
He is, in his original form, Mrtyu-Death-andwhile he creates all things,
he devours everything that he creates. H e writhes, sings, and sweats
in order to create, and thus the horse i n d the Aivamedha are born. I t
is PrajZpati himself who offers sacrifice in the Aivamedha, and the horsesacrificed is no other than the universe. All things are contained in the
AS~amedha.~~O)
Such are the mysteries of the Mrtyu-Prajiipati-ASvamedhaas interpreted pantheistically in the White Yajurveda, and such an exampleof the horse occupying the central position in a cosmogonic complex of thiskind is not to be found among other Indo-European peoples. But what is ofparticular interest to us in connection with the questions with which we are
dealing is the fact that Mytu-Prajiipati is considered at the same time as being
Aditi.371) Aditi is the goddess of cows, or of the earth, and usually closely
related with the moon-goddess h e r ~ e l f . ~ ?Prajiipati~)
is also said to be a bull.
" T h e great bull is Prajiipati! " " T h e bull is the Prajiipati (lord of creatures
or generation) ! "373) And often the cow which is the mother of the earth isrepresented on a pendant worn by Prajiipati the creator in his guise of a
Here again we might see, as we did in our examination of theMediterranean culture, a reminiscence of a previous civilization inIndia before the coming of the Aryans.
T h e mysteries themselves
and their cosmogonic content must be of ancient origin. But it ispessible that the appearance of the horse in the ceremony, and the foregoing
philosophic interpretation of Mytu-PrajZpati, date from a comparatively late
368)
369)
370)
371)
372)
373)

ibid., S . 298, 342.
ibid., S. 344.
ibid., S. 324.
ibid, S . 324.
ibid., S. 362.
ibid., S. 337; Satupatha-Br5hma~a;IV, 4, 2, 14: Eggeling, 1885 (SBE, vol. 26), p. 360; V,
2, 5, 17: Eggeling, 1894 (SBE, vol. 41), p. 58.
374) Held, p. 74 A&. by -,El%, S. 3 4 3CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

85

period. Moreover, the priest of the Aivamedha whispers in the right earof the horse, " Thou art strong by thy mother," and to the carver he says," Bless its (the horse's) mother! Bless its father! " naming its mother first,
while, when the ceremony has reached its climax, the women begin lamenting
and calling to the horse just sacrificed, " Mother! Little mother! Dear little
mother! There is now no one to lead me!-The little mother over there! "375)
All this establishes beyond a doubt that in a zone covering pre-Aryan The ~ a r t h - ~ o t h e r
and pre-Semitic India, Iran, Southwestern Asia and the Mediterranean, and oxen
there existed a matriarchal, vegetable, and agricultural religious complex ofgreat vitality, closely connected with the moon, oxen, water and the worldof the dead, and centred round the idea of the Earth-Mother, Magna Mater.
M . Jean Przyluski affirms that the Aryans in India were in contact since before
the age of the Vedas with the peoples who were worshippers of this EarthMother,376)but however that may be, it is, as we have already seen, the agreed
opinion of all who study cultural history today, that before the appearance ofthe horse in the sphere of culture presided over by the Earth-Mother, the animal
which was held to be inseparable from her was the ox. Since that is the case,
it is permissible to surmise that the process by which the horse, appearing outof the sphere of culture with strong patriarchal tendencies of the nomads of the
steppes, established itself in the world of the Earth-Mother, forming connections
with the moon, water, and the world of the dead in great national ceremonies likethe Aivamedha or in the rites and beliefs of the common people, consisted
quite simply in replacing the ox in the religious position it occupied prior
to the coming of the horse.
But before we return once more, in the wake of the sacred bull, to East Gods of thunderAsia, there is left still one more problem which we must take this opportunity and rain, and Oxen
to clarify. I t is the question of the relation of oxen and horses to the gods and horsesof rain and thunder. According to the Vedic idea, both the horse and thebull were that which pours out and that which makes fruitful. The horse of
Indra, the god of thunder and rain,-and even the chariot they drew,-possessed thisThis fact is of particular importance in pursuing the
problem before us. We read in the Aitareya BrZhmana that the ancientkings of India performed the ceremony of the sacrifice to Indra of thestallion,378) and there is a hymn in the Rgveda in which Indra appears
on h o r ~ e b a c k . ~ ~Alls ) scho~hrsare agreed that this god used to be oneof those to whom the sacrifice of the Aivamedha was offered.380) But the
375)
376)
377)
378)
379)
380)

Koppers, 1936, S. 362.
Przyluski, 1934, p. 430by, .)4936, S. %2+
Pgueda SanhitZ, V, 36, 5 ; VIII, 13, 31 : Wilson (tr.) vol. 3, p. 293; vol. 4, p. 276.
Aitareya Brihma?a, VIII, 2 1 ff. : Keith (tr.), 1920, pp. 336 ff. ; Koppers, 1936, S. 337.
Rgueda Sanhiti, I , 183: Wilson (tr.), vo1. 2, p. 122.
Koppers, 1936, S. 337.

86

THE KAPPA LEGEND

Indra- dad type of commonest symbol of Indra, the god of thunder and rain, is the bull, and thethunder-god

Moon, thunderand raindeed for which he is known is his striking with thunder the evil dragon Vytra,
who had pent u p all the water in the world in a cave, and causing the water
to flow back to the sea again. We find the same two characteristics in the god
Verethraghna-later Mithra-who is the Iranian equivalent to Indra in the
Avesta, and also in the thunder-gods Adad (Hadad, Rammsn) and T e h b
in Southwestern Asia and Asia Min0r.~8l) I n connection with theformation andessential character of the god of thunder and rain, Prof. F.
Kern has pointed out that, while the god is in a certain sense a projectionof the god of the sky worshipped by the nomads, he is also in anothersense the prqduct of an agricultural society, and Kern argued that a nomadicagricultural mixed culture was best fitted for the formation of such a d e i t ~ . ~ s ~ )We can see indeed from such other cases also as Jehovah of the Israelites
wreaking his anger on the whole land of Egypt by sending down thunderand hai1,383) and Zeus striking with lightning Phaeton driving the chariot of
the sun, and killing by the same means the hero Iasion enamoured of the~ ~ ~the) idea of the god of the sky easily leads to that ofgoddess D e m e t e ~ - ,thatthe god of thunder and lightning, but at the same time, it must not be forgottenthat thunder and rain stand in close relationship to agriculture, and are
therefore apt to become associated with the moon. On this account, Prof.
Koppers, augmenting the theory advanced by Kern, has mentioned examplesof the idea that thunder, lightning and rain are all caused by the moon occurring
among the Eskimos, Bushmen, and certain tribes along the coast of Peru, andmade it clear that the thunder-god possesses at the same time the characteristics~ ~proof)of the existence in the thunder-god Indra ofof the m ~ o n - g o d . ~In
elements belonging to the lunar mythology, Koppers enumerates such factors
as the legendary repetition of the slaying of the demon dragon Vrt5 being interpreted as a symbol of the waxing and waning of the moon, and soma, thedrink of gods, which is regarded as something having a connection with, or theibid., S. 338, 367, 378-379; Gubernatis, vol. 2, pp. 391-394. Of special interest is thefact that Verethraghna sometimes assumes the form of a bull.-Koppers, 1936, S. 338, Anm.
80. Adad is the Western Semitic name of the Sumerian god ISkur. The god has also
other names such as Mir, Mirmer, Iluwer, Mur, meaning the giver of storms, and Ramman," the roarer."
Teiub is the Hittite name for the same god. The god, while being fearedon the one hand as the destroyer of cities and plains, was also worshipped as a fertility god
who gave water to the fields. His symbol was a trident or an axe, and he was represented
as a bull lying down, or with the horns of a bull, or riding on a bull.-Ebeling, 1924, S. 17
a, b ; Unger, S. 440 a ; Langdon, 1931, p. 47.
382) Kern, S . 179.
383) Exodus, IX, 23, 24.
384) Fox, pp. 244, 226 ; cf. pp. 53, 90, 264, 280; Apollodorus: Frazer (tr.), vol. 2, pp. 388394, Appendix 11; ibid., 111, 11, 1: Frazer (tr.), vol. 2, p. 35.
385) Koppers, 1936, S. 376.
381)

CHAPTER I1Oxen and Water-gods

87same thing as the moon, the bull which is supposed to be the animal of themoon, the death-spirits Maruts that live in the moon, and water which is
inseparable from the moon, all being closely associated with Indra, and further
gives such evidence as the similarity between Indra and Heracles, in whom wefind many characteristics pertaining to the lunar mythology, and the absencein Indra of solar mythological as well as ethical element~.~86)As for the bull
being connected with the thunder-god, we see examples of it in Mesopotamia, The thunder-god
Palestine, Asia Minor (the Hittites), and Syria, besides in India and Iran as m u t e d on the
we have already pointed out, and the thunder-god was represented mounted
on a bull as far back as in the third millenium B.C. in Ur.387) I t is interesting
to compare this figure of the thunder-god mounted on a bull with the Indra on
horseback of later ages. T h e idea of gods riding animals is only possible when
men have learned to ride themselves. So that, somewhere in Southwestern
Asia, where the thunder-god was worshipped in the form of a bull, or represented with a bull following at his heels, men must have come into contact
with the equestrian peoples of Inner Asia, and inspired by them, conceived
the idea of placing on the back of a bull the thunder-god who was so closely
associated with the bull.388) And in India, we might say that a step forward
was taken, when they represented their bull-god Indra on the back of a horse.389)
Here too we see an instance of the Indo-European peoples, who brought thehorse into the sphere of ox-cult, substituting the bull with the horse.
T h e area of distribution of the Indra-Adad type of the thunder-god in theancient Orient extended from Asia Minor and Mesopotamia at its centre to
Syria and Palestine, but there does not seem to have been any contact withthe cultures of ancient Egypt and Crete.390) And since the worship of the god
spread eastward to Iran and India, and we find traces of his influence westwards in the Greek Heracles and Thor of the Nordic mythology, it is to be
surmised that this god has his origin in the ancient Tauris culture of Asia
Minor and the Caucasus, and that his worship then spread to the primitive
Indo-European peoples.391)
T h e thunder-god associated with the bull was also commonly worship- The thunder-god as
ped as the god of fertility. T h e thunderbolt sent by Indra of the Rgveda, the god of fertility
which penetrated the clouds and made the cow fruitful, took the formof a phallus.392) I n the same way, the axe of Thor, the Indra of the Nordic
mythology, seems to have figured in nuptial ceremonies as a symbol of fecundiibid., S. 339-340.
ibid., S. 378-379, Anm. 29; cf. note 217.
ibid., S. 380 ; cf. Ebeling, 1928 a, S. 439 a ; Unger, 1926, S. 440 a.
ibid., S. 380-381 ; 379, Anm. 29.
ibid., S. 376.
ibid., S. 376, 377, Anm. 25.
Gubernatis, vol. 1, pp. 224-225.

88

Susa-no-o-nomikoto

THE KAPPA LEGEND

another ancient Indian god of thunder and rain, was likenedt ~ . ~ 9 3Parjanya,)
to the bull, as the embodiment of the power which controlled the growth ofplants, the increase of cattle, fecundity in women, and similar manifestations.39*)
T h e Esthonian peasants used to pray for an abundant harvest and beneficent rain by sacrificing an ox to their thunder-god Taara.395) T h e Slavs also
sacrificed oxen to their thunder-god P e r ~ n . ~ S ~ )I t is also probable to find a projection of these Indra-like qualities of agod of thunder and rain associated with the moon, the ox, and water, in the
mythology of the agricultural peoples of Eastern Asia. The process by which
the god of thunder, as the god who brings on showers, becomes at the same time
the god of water and agriculture, is to be seen in the etymology of such Japanesewords for lightning as ina-zuma (" rice-wife ") and ina-bikari (" ricelight "), in such Japanese customs as that of surrounding with a row of green
bamboos hung with shime-nazca (sacred straw festoon) a piece of rice-fieldstruck by lightning, and sanctifying it as the spot where the thunder-god
descended,397)and in such Japanese legends as that of the thunder-god falling
down from the sky and being turned into a boy, and giving water to ricefields in return for his having been rescued by men,39s)and the Japanese havein their Susa-no-o-no-mikoto a perfect example of the Indra-Adad type of393) The giant Thrymr stole and hid Mjolnir, the hammer of Thor, and asked Freyja to marryhim. Thor took on the form of Freyja and came to the house of the unsuspecting Thrymr,
who brought out Mjolnir and placed it on his bride's knees, and so the entire race of giants
was killed by Thor. This Nordic legend indicates that the thunder-god Thor was originallya fertility-god, and we might mention in this connection, that there was a cusom in districts
along the coast of the Baltic formerly belonging to Russia, of placing an axe under the bridal
bed that sturdy children might be born of the marriage. In Sweden, there was discovereda crude rock-picture of a man and a woman lying down and a man beside them holding
aloft an ax?.-Bing, S. 242, Abb. 10 Taf. 15 ; cf. Abb. 5, Taf. 15. A similar picture is engraved on a funeral tablet discovered in Semferopol in Southern Russia.-Tallgren, 1926,
p. 49, Fig. 36 B, No. 6.
394) GB, pt. 1, vol. 2, p. 368 ; Rgveda Sanhitz, V , 83: Wilson (tr.), vol. 3, pp. 373-374.
395) GB, pt. 1, vol. 2, p. 366; Grimm, 1875, Bd. 1, S. 146.
396) GB, pt. 1, vol. 2, p. 365; MLchal, pp. 295, 296.
397) Yanagita, 1940 a, p. 108.
398) ibid., pp. 107-108. In Chapter 2 of the Shirin SaiyGsh6 (A.D. 1266),. there occurs thefollowing passage: " According to the story preserved by old people, Tatsu-ta was the place
where the thunder-god once fell and could not ascend to heaven again. He was changed
into a boy, and a farmer adopted him as his child. There was a drought over the land a t
the time, and no rain fell in the neighbouring villages, but a shower came down at intervals
over the farmer's fields so that the rice grew and ripened, and the farmer harvested as muchrice as he wanted. The boy asked the farmer sometime afterwards for permission to leave
him, and turning himself into a little dragon, ascended to heaven, whence the name Tatsu-ta(" dragon-field ") which came to be give nto the place."-p.
16. In the story of the saintShin-yc of Echigo province, who bound up the thunder and built a tower, given in Chapter
12 of the Konjaku-monogatari-shd, water gushes forth from a hole which the thunder-childmakes in a rock.

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

89thunder-god in Eastern Asia. This god who slew the serpent, Yamata-noorochi, at the source of the River Hi and rescued Kushi-inada-hirne, while being
the god of thunder-storms who shook the mountains and rivers, had also muchin common with the moon-god Tsuki-yomi, and in addition to being the godof the Japanese nether regions, Sokotsu-ne-no-kuni, had also marked characteristics of an agricultural god. Further, as the god " who ruled over the plainsof the sea," there are many points about him which remind us of the unruly
foreign god Poseidon. We may argue from this that it was not mere coincidence which caused him to be regarded in later ages as the Japanese counterpartof the Ox-headed King of Gods, Gozu-tenn6, and perhaps it is even possiblethat the god of thunder, Kitano-Tenjin, mounted on a bull, has an origin goingback far beyond Sugawara-no-Michizane, the historical personage of the 9th
century who is supposed posthumously to have taken the form of this deity
The fact that the god Omono-nushi (Okuni-nushi, Ona-muchi), the son rh~nder-godsin
of Susa-no-o-no-mikoto, appears as a serpent-god in the Miwa~amatype the f o m of serpentslegend, indicates that Susa-no-o-no-mikoto probably possessed the characteristics of a serpent-god as well as those of a bull-god, and in all Japanese beliefs
concerning thunder-gods, they seem to have had originally the form of serpents. When Chiisakobe-no-Sugaru captured the thunder on Mt. Mimoro
and presented it to the Emperor YGryaku, it is said to have been shaped likea great serpent, and that "its eyes glowed,"399)and when the priest D6j6,
begot by the thunder-god, was born, a serpent was coiled twice round hishead with the serpent's head and tail hanging down towards the back of thechild.40°) In the story of Mt. Kurefushi in Hitachi-Fudoki, the god who visited
his human paramour nightly seems also to have been a thunder-god withthe form of a serpent, and the little serpent born to the god tried to shock
its uncle to death and ascend to heaven.401) In this connection, Mr. Yanagita
is of the opinion that the Japanese words like okan-dachi meaning thunder, andyzi-dachi, a violent shower of rain (dachi<tatsu), probably signify the descentof the god of heaven on a piece of ground that has been purified for his reception, that the word tatsu (v. to stand, appear; n. dragon), as in omokage
ni tatsu (to seem to appear before one's eyes), yume-makura ni tatsu (to appear
in one's dream), and tsui-tachi (the first day of a month), had originally themeaning of a god making his appearance, and that unless this view is taken, it
would be difficult to account for the legend of thunder falling in the place, told
in explanation of the name Tatsu-ta in Yamato pr0vince,3~8)or the Japanesereading of the Chinese character~ ) China also, China and her(lung, dragon) as t a t ~ u . ~ OIn
it is the serpent-shaped dragon lung, the water-god, who raises thunder-storms, border regions
399)
400)
401)
402)

Nihongi, 14: vol. 2, p. 224 ; Yanagita, 1940 a, pp. 110-1 11.
Ry$zki, pt. I, 3 ; Yanagita, 1940 a, p. 110.
Fudoki, p. 72.
Yanagita, 1940 a, p. 114, note 6 ; 1940 b, pp. 1-2 ; cf. note 396.

THE KAPPA LEGEND

90

Thunder and thedragonWicked dragons
destroyed bythundermakes the wind rise, and causes the clouds to form, just as in the case of Japanese dragons. I n the Shan-hai-ching there occurs the passage, " The thundergod dwells in the Thunder Marsh. H e has the form of a dragon with a human
head, and strikes on his belly as though it were a drum,"403)which shows usthat the thunder-god was early associated with the dragon in the minds of
the Chinese. I t is said that on the Lung-t'ai-t'ou (@@@ "dragon raising hishead "), which falls on the 2nd day of the 2nd month of the lunar calendar, thewarmth of the sun envelops the earth, and the dragon who has been lying
under cover during the winter raises his head,404)and we also find it recordedthat the dragon is kindred to the thunder, and that he ascends to heaven incompany with thunder and ligI~tning.~Os)At the same time, the pearl heldin the claws of the dragon is taken to be the thunder in the midst of clouds,
or again, the moon hidden by
T h e dragon is of the same nature~ 8 )as one of the most exalted
as the clouds and rain,407)rides on c l o ~ d s , ~andof heavenly gods, is called T'ien-i ( E L )and T'ai-in (k@).409) On the other
hand, although of the same nature as the thunder, a dragon that has become
degenerate may be destroyed by thunder and lightning (or an axe). We findin Ch'ingwritten concerning the legend of the temple Hui-li-ssu (sfin+)chiang-hsien
Kiangsi province, that, " Old men tell us, there wasa rock in the river which had the sinuous form of a dragon, complete withhead, claws, and scales. A priest named Shan-chou (SB)lived in the Huili-ssu, and divining that the dragon did evil, one day brought thunder andshattered the rock."410) " Hai-yin ( g E P ) was a priest of the temple Hui-li-ss~.
I t is said that there was a stone dragon by the river, sinuous and of immense
size, with every scale in place. l'his stone dragon did mischief in company
with a wooden dragon carved in ancient times that was in the temple. So
the priest hammered a copper nail into the wooden dragon, and having read
aloud some sutras, brought thunder with which he struck the stone dragon.
One evening, it thundered, and the dragon was shattered to piece~."~'~a)I t is interesting to note the similarity of motif between these stories andthe Indra-Adad type of legends dealing with the slaying of evil dragons. T h ethunder and lightning of Indra transformed themselves without difficulties
into the axe of Rammln (Adad) and the hammer of Thor. The water-god
General Yang-ssu
of Ch'ang-sha (&@) cut down with an axe Wu-i-lung(%a,%),(*sa)(smx@); Huai-nun-trii, 4, Chui-hsing-hsiin (Bg31l).
403) Shun-hai-ching, 13, Hai-nel-tung-ching404) Ten-ching sui shih-chi, Jap. tr. p. 43, note 2.
405) Lung-hzng, 6, Lung-hsii-p'ien (BEE).
406) Visser, pp. 103, 106.
407) Lung-hing, 16, Lan-lung-b'ien (ELSE); 14, Hun-win-b'ien408) Han-fei-tric, 17 ; Lung-hgng, 6, Lung-hsu-b'ien.
409) Huai-nun-t~6, 3, T'ien:win-hsiin (xx3(I).
3; Huang Chih-kang, p. 77.
410) Kiangsi t'ung-chih, 1732, 161, Tsa-chi410a) Ch'ing-chiang-hsien-chih, 28, Tsa-chih (@,&); Kiangsi t'ung-chih, 1880, 179, Hsien-chihB),2; Huang Chih-kang, p. 77.

(sm).

($$?jz),CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

93($gg@),
a dragon ~ a t e r - g o d , and~ ~ ~~rh-lang-chiin)(I@=), a water-god
dwelling by the Yangtse River, also fought with an evil dragon on horseback armed with an axe.412) For this reason, the image of this god enshrinedby the river shows him wearing a golden armour, holding an axe in his hand,
and treading underfoot a chiao-dragon. This is the form in which General
Yang-ssu is usually represented.413) Moreover, the dragon which dominates
the moon and the heavens through its power over wind, rain, clouds andthunder, and grants by the same means the prayers of farmers for abundant
harvests that follow a beneficent rain, in its turn becomes associated, on fallingfrom the heavens to earth, with the ox. I n legends of struggles with chiaochiao-dragon
dragons about which we shall speak later, the dragons usually appear in the in the form of oxenform of oxen. T h e chiao-dragon is a species of dragon which, having left
its abode in the sky, lives at the bottom of rivers. I t is shaped like a serpent,and is said to cry in a manner resembling the lowing of oxen.414) T h e facts
give an added interest to the legend of thunder falling in ancient times ona farmhouse in Po-chou (&J+])
in Ailhui province, and how, on having urine
thrown at it, it lost the power to return to the sky and " lowedlike an
Weshall give later an example of oxen in the water causing the wind to rise, andrain. T h e legends already referred to of the inhabitants of a village in E-meihsien casting a fine horse into the water, thereby causing much rain and thunder,and of the messenger of a river-god mounted on a white horse with red mane,followed by abundant rain wherever he goes, may be explained by the association of the horse with the dragon, but in China, too, the first animal whichbecame connected with river-gods rnay have been the ox. At any rate, it isclear that a complex connecting the moon above with the waters of rivers onearth below through the medium of thunder, rain, wind, and clouds on one
hand, and chiao-dragons, horses, and oxen on the other, possesses pre-eminently an agricultural and lunar mythological character.
T h e foregoing is the first step on our way back to the world of Eastern origin of theAsia. T h e chronology relating to the domestication of the ox and the horse domestication of
in Eastern Asia may not be ascertained with such exactitude as in the case Oxen and horsesof the ancient Mediterranean, Egypt, Southwestern Asia and India. Students
of prehistoric archaeology in China and Japan do not appear to have paid muchattention in the past to this important problem in the history of mankind. In
reference to the numerous bones of oxen discovered among- remains of theYang-shao culture in Honan, Kansu and Ch'inghai, the present writer has notbeen able to obtain any information except that J. G. Andersson considers
411)
412)
413)
414)
41 5)

Huang Chih-kang, p. 6.
ibid., p. 10.
ibid., pp. 11-12.
Eberhard, 1942, S. 401 ; Hsin-ch'i-hsreh, 17, Lung-xnu (g!&@).
Lino-chai-chih-i shih-i, Lei-kung (%&).

92

T H E KAPPA L E G E N D

about 40 of the bones of oxen found on the site of Lo-han-t'ang in Ch'inghai
province to be those of oxen that have been domesticated, and the questionis certainly among the most interesting which remain to be solved in the domain
of Chinese prehistoric research.416) I t is said that the site of Lo-han-t'ang
belongs to the early Yang-shao period which follows closely on the Ch'i-chia
period. We have already dealt with the reasons which give cogency to thetheory that the origin place of domestication of the ox lies further to the southon the Asiatic continent than that of the domestication of the horse, and we propose in the following pages to elucidate our view that the association of theox in China with traits of religion, mythology and legend of an agriculturalcharacter should be linked up with the culture of Southeastern Asia rather
than with anything further north. But the fact that the oldest remains pertaining to the domestication of the ox in China should be found on her westernborders, whereas those discovered in China proper belong to a much later
date, would seem to support the view that the introduction into China of thedomesticated ox took place through the eastern advance of a cultural wave
by way of Central Asia. On the other hand, in respect to the wild horse, thebones of the Equus sanmeniensis have been found on the site of the discovery of~ ~ ~those)of the Eyuus prjezcalskii, the ancestor of the Chithe S i n a n t h r ~ p u s ,and
nese domesticated horse, among remains belonging to the Palaeolithic Age,418)
which facts indicate the existence of the horse in China from the earliest times,
but this does not imply that any trace of its domestication has been so far
found. T h e horse was well-known to the Neolithic people in Kansu, but it
does not seem to have been domesticated at that period either.419) In contrast
to these facts, the bones of horses discovered together with those of oxen in
Ch'Gng-tzu-ai (i&TE)in Shantung, and belonging to the later Neolithic Age,lead us to think by their vast quantity that they had already been domesti~ a t e d . ~ ~ PerhapsO)the similarity in species of the bones of oxen in Ch'Gngtzu-ai to those discovered at the Yin site in An-yang may also becited in support of such a conclusion.421~Prof. Erkes has recently put
forward the novel thesis that the mild horse, known from the most ancient
times in China, became domesticated during the Neolithic Age, and thence
the product was made known to the Ural-Altaic peoples instead of the contrary,basing his arguments on the antiquity of the wild horse in China, and the factthat the Indo-Chinese languages possess a common word for the horse, andAndersson, 1934, p. 242 ; Heine-Geldern, 1932, S. 591.
Andersson, 1934, pp. 120-121.
Boule, Breuil, Licent et Teilhard de Chardin, pp. 45-46, pl. X, Fig. 8.
Andersson, 1925, p. 17, Fig. 5 a, shows the picture of a horse on a piece of pottery of Hsintien period.
420) Creel, pp. 189, 191, 192-193; Li-chi, p. 91.
42 1) Creel, pp. 189, 191.

416)
417)
418)
419)

.

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

93

that at least, the nouns which stand for horse in the eastern Altaic languages-morin in Mongolian, mal in Korean etc.-seem to have been borrowed fromthe Chinese mar.422) But if the bones of horses discovered in Ch'&ng-tzu-ai
are to be taken as the earliest remains of domesticated horses in China, theperiod to which they belong, rougi~lycoincides with that of the mass transmigration of the Hyksos and the Aryans in the 2nd millenium B.C., when apowerful wave of the horse culture of Inner Asia spread towards the southern
regions of the Eurasian continent, whereas we already see traces of the domestication of the ox in the site of Lo-han-t'ang belonging to the early Yang-shao
culture which ante-dates the supposed period of the domestication of the horseby several, or perhaps more than 10 centuries. T h e present writer has pointed
out elsewhere the lack of conclusive proof in the data produced by Erkes insupport of his theory, and the abundance of documentary and ethnologicalmaterial in Chinese history which tends to confirm the opposite of what Erkes
has advanced.423) T h e question, then, of the process by which the domesticated ox and the domesticated horse made their first appearance in Chinese
culture, and that of Eastern Asia in general, must wait for further developments
in archaeological research to be satisfactorily solved. But it is none the less The OX-headedtrue that in ancient China also, the horse was employed mainly by the ruling Shen-nungclasses in war, and for transit and hunting, whereas the labours of the field
were assigned to the ox, as the animal pertaining peculiarly to the earth. The
fact that the mythical emperor Sh&n-nung ($$B
" Divine Farmer "), who
first made the plough and taught men to till the fields, is represented as oxheaded, must be a reminiscence of an old belief of the early days of agriculture.
I n regard to the relationship between oxen and horses and the world of water
which in its turn is inseparable from agriculture, if we read through the Shanhai-ching, monsters which dwel! in the water, or which cause floods or rainstorms, are nearly always described as having the form of oxen and not of horses,
and in the two examples where these monsters appear in the form of horses,
they are said to have the tails of oxen. T o quote some passages :" I n the Eastern Seas there is the mountain Liu-po-shan (%@A), 7,000 Water-horses andli from the shore. On the mountain is a beast shaped like an ox, of a blue water-oxen in thecolour, without any horns and with only one foot. When this beast goes about Shan-hai'ching
the water, the wind rises and rain comes. Its light is like that of the sun andthe moon, and its voice is like a peal of thunder. I t is called kuei @). The
emperor Huang-ti had it captured and made a drum with its skin. Whenthe drum was beaten with the bones of the thunder-beast, its sound could
be heard at a distance of 500 li, so that the whole country stood in awe of theTa-huang-tung-ching (Ax%@).
Emperor."-14" On the mountain of K'ung-sang (@$) . . . there is a beast. I t has422) Erkes, S. 27-32.
423) Ishida, 1948, pp. 46-71 gives a detailed criticism of the Erkes' theory.

T H E KAPPA LEGEND

94

the form of an ox with the markings of a tiger. Its voice sounds like a bell.
I t is called ling-ling ($.f;$f;-). . . When this beast appears, it is the sign of great
floods being caused over the country."-4Tung-shun-ching ( s h $ i ) .
" T h e river Hua-shui (@7k) has its source . . . in the mountain of Ch'iufa (%$A). . . I n the river are many water-horses. They are shaped like horses,
with limbs that are dappled, and the tails of oxen. They cry as though they
were calling someone."-3
Pei-shan-ching (;1K ~8%).
" The river Mao-shui ( E 7 k ) . . . which has its source in the mountain of
Tun-t'ou (%@) flows eastward into the marsh Ang-ts: ( L p s ) . I n the river are
many po-ma (@j?,g).They have the tails of oxen, white bodies, and, a horn
growing on their heads. They cry as though they were calling someone."3 Pei-shun-ching (AL ClJfJ$).424)
T h e fact that in such a work as the Shan-hai-ching, there are hardly any
strange beasts connected with water having the complete form of horses asin later ages, and that most of them either have the forms, or at least the tailsof oxen, constitutes one of the reasons why the present writer is inclined
to the view that, in China also, the animal which was associated with waterspirits and river-gods, in popular belief at any rate, was originally the ox. -A'L OX In the service
further proof is offered by the words ho-po p'u-niu ($Jfhfg+ "OX in the serviceof the river-prince" of the river-prince "), which also occur in the Shun-hai-ching. The passage
is as follows :" There is a country called K'un-min-kuo (BEE),whose rulers belong
who held ato the Kou (&I) family. Therc was a man calied Wang Hai (53)bird in each hand, and ate their heads. Wang Hai entrusted Yu I (+&) withthe care of ho-po p'u-niz~. Yu I killed Wang Hai, and gained possession of
p'u-niu."-14
Ta-huang-tung-thing.
We are concerned with the meaning of the words ho-po p'zi-niu. I n Kuo
P'o's commentary, we are only given the explanatioil that " ho-po p'u-niu are
all names of persons," but this does not seem to clarify tne passage. I t is424)

I n later records, the po-ma is supposed to appear out of the sea to the south of Kuangtung
province. " There is a great sea to the east of Ping-ting-hsien (qc$jg).In the sea is foundthe@-nza, which is a n anii~iallike the horse with the tail of an ox, and having a horn growing
on its head."-Kuang-chou-chi.
T o give a further example or two from the Shan-hai-ching,although it is not quite clear whether the animal lives in the water or not: " The riverP'an-shui (n537k)has its source in . . . the Yellow Mountain. I t flows westward and joins
the Red River, in which are found a great quantity of jade. There is a beast there which
has the form of a bluish-black ox with large eyes, and this beast is called a nzin (@)."-2
Hsi~han-ching" The river Yao-shui (g7k) flows here, and its waters are as clear as
crystal. A celestial being lives here, who has the form of a n ox with eight feet and two heads,
and the tail of a horse . . . Whenever he appears, there is war in the region."-loc.
cit.. Thet'ao-tu, chiao, k'ung-k'ung which live in the " Northern Seas," and which we mentioned in
Chapter 1, are the only water-monsters given in the Shan-hai-ching that are described as having
the form of horses (see p. 13). But living in the " Northern Seas " does not necessarily
mean: in the sea.

(-m.m@).

CHAPTER I1

95

Oxen and Water-gods

Mr. Lo Ch&n-yu who, in his study of the ideographs discovered at the Yinsite, has identified the p'u-niu in the Shan-hai-ching with the fu-niu (BE+) inthe Lii-shih-ch'un-ch'iu etc., the old pronunciation of both p'u and fu being thesame. T h e ho-po p'u-niu may therefore be translated as " ox in the serviceof the r i v e r - p r i n ~ e . " ~ ~I t~ )is said -that, when the King M u of the Choudynasty held a ceremony in honour of the god of the Yellow River, he caused
oxen, horses, pigs and sheep to be thrown into the river,426)but if one examines
the ideographs discovered at the Yin site, one sees that the original ideographof the character ch'kn (tx, to sink) as used in the word li-ch'kn (@tx), a kind of
sacrifice to the spirits of mountains and rivers, is constructed by placing theideograph for ox within the ideograph for water.427) So that if we go backto the Yin dypasty, it is to be surmised that the animal held sacred to the rivergod was the ox, and in consequence, the words ho-po p'u-niu in the Shan-haiching must mean the sacred ox in the service of the river-god, an expression
cspable of being interpreted as the river-god himself in the guise of an ox.
in the northwestern part of Honan province is the AII iron OX quells
I n Sh&n-chou (P$$[.I)
T'ieh-niu-miao (@+J$j), the " Temple of the Iron Ox." The iron ox worship- a river in flood
ped here is the one about which Su Tung-p'o (@&@I has written in a poem," Who, like the iron ox, can lay himself down and bear the weight of the Huangho ? " I t stands in the middle of the river to the north of the city, and it issaid that the head of the ox rested in Honan province and its tail in Hopei,
and that the Emperor Yii employed it to quell the water of the Huangho in
in Chiang-ling-hsien (fJpgj#)
T h e iron ox of Shao-chi-wa
in Hupei also stands by the temple of the god of the Yangtse River, has theshape of an ox with a single horn, is about 10 feet in height, and supposed tohave power over the waters of the river. T h e iron ox outside the east gateof the Ta-ming-hsien (A%,%)in Hopei is supposed to have inside it some
precious treasure by means of which it averts floods, and the copper ox in
I-ho-yiian
in Peking is also said to rule the waters of the lake there.
to the northeast of K'ai-fCng in Honan, and theT h e ChCn-ho-miao
So-chiang-lou ( @ a & ) to the southeast of Chiu-chiang-hsien (ftE,R)in Kiangsi have each its iron ox, and although the iron ox of Huai-ning-fu (@$,!$f)
in Anhui has become buried in the earth so that only its back is now visible,
it was originally cast in order to subdue the water-monsters dwelling in theriver.429) Such ideas as these may have taken their rise from the oxen whichwere once sacrificed to river-gods, or from the even older idea of the river-(+$zg)(@$~m)($s$Jj@),

425)
426)
427)
428)
429)

Lo Chen-yu, pt. 1 ; Kuo Mo-jo, p. 104.
Mu-t'ien-tzn-chuav, 1.
Lo Chen-yu, pt. 2, p. 16 a, b, pt. 3, p. 62 a, b.
P ' e i - w ~ n ~ u n - j i u26,
, pt. 1, niu (q).
in Hunan, Lo-yangOther iron oxen of this sort are found in Yueh-vang-hsirn (+$El%)
hsien (:&Bj%)
in Honan, Chao-i-hsien (HER)in Shensi, Han-tan-hsienin Hopei,in Shansi.-Huan Chih-kang, p. 25-27.
while there is a copper ox in Ho-hsien (SR)(@,a,%)

96

Tree-spirit in the
Ox
form
a

T H E KAPPA L E G E N D

god having the form of an oxen, and together with the belief that water-spirits
abhor iron, must date back to a period of considerable antiquity. Even of
great interest is a legend in the Sou-shtn-chi of a tree-spirit in the form of anox who had power over wind and rain, and ended by disappearing into a river.
" The Nu-t'e (%$$)shrine stood in Wu-tu Ku-tao (E$P&z).
A catalpa
tree grew over the temple, and Prince Wen of Ch'in ordered the tree to be cut
down. On men attempting to do so, a great rain-storm arose, causing the
gashes made on the tree to heal up, and after a time, it was found that axes
were no longer of avail in felling the tree. T h e prince then ordered thirty
or forty men with axes to bring down the tree, but still it could not be done.
T h e men were wearied and went home to rest, but one of them who had hurt
his foot could not walk, and so laid himself underneath the tree. Then heheard the gods of the tree say to each other, ' W e have laboured hard in ourfight today,' and one of them said, ' 0, it was nothing at all.' Another thensaid, ' If the prince of Ch'in continues to send men, what then ? ' His interlocutor answered, ' What can the prince of Ch'in do against us ? ' But anotherof the gods said, ' If [the prince of] Ch'in makes the men twine, with their hairdishevelled, a red thread round the tree, and causes them, clad in red and withashes on their heads, to cut you down, then you will be helpless.' T o this, theother could make no answer. T h e next day, the prince did as the sick man heard
the demon say he shobld, and so the men were able to cut down the tree. At
the moment it was cut down, a blue ox came out of the tree and ran into theriver FEng-shui (g7JI;). After this, an ox appeared out of the river, which theprince commanded his horsemen to slay. However, they found the ox morethan a match for them, when one of them fell from his horse, and re-mountedwith his hair undone. T h e ox was frightened at the sight of it, and sankinto the water, never daring to appear again. From this time onwards, Ch'incaused her horsemen to wear helmets garnished with ~ a k - t a i l . " ~ ~ ~ )Wu-tu Ku-tao lies in the southern extremity of Kansu province in what
used to be the territory of Ch'in in the Chan-kuo period. What is meantby Nu-t'& is not clear, but a passage in the Lieh-i-chuan says, " The shrine of
Nu-t'& stands in Wu-tu Ku-tao-hsien, and the god enshrined is that of a great
catalpa tree which used to grow in Nan-shan ($jd,)," and gives the date of theabove incident as the 27th year of the reign of Prince W&nof the Ch'in dynasty,
ending with the words, " T h e tree, on being cut down, turned itself into an
ox and entered the river F&ng-shui, so Ch'in raised a temple in its h0nour."4~1)
From this, we can see that it was a temple built in the honour of a tree-spirit
in the form of a blue ox who took refuge into the river F&ng-shui. The F&ngshui may be the same as Feng-shui-ch'iian (-&k,%) in Ch'&ng-hsien430) Sou-shin-chi, 18. In the Hsiian-chung-rhi, the same story is given as occuring under theEmperor Shih-huang of the Ch'in dynasty.
43 1) Shui-ching-chu, 14, Wei-shui (:E7k).

CH.4PTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

97(&H)in Kansu, but in the Shui-ching-chu, the river into which theblue ox entered is the Han-shui (@7k), a tributary of the river W e i - s h ~ i . ~ ~ ~ )If this is true, then the ox may have gone down the Wei-shui into the Huangho, to reappear from its waters in the days of the Later Han dynasty, for there
is a legend that in the reign of the emperor Huan-ti, when the Emperor hadgone on an excursion on the Yellow River, a blue ox rose out of the waterand kicked him. T h e people round him took fright and fled, when a brave
man grappled with the ox, drew its feet towards him with his left hand, andfinally cut off its head with his right hand, with an axe. This blue ox was thespirit of a tree ten thousand years old.433) We also come across such passages
in books as, " T h e spirit of a tree a thousand years old becomes a blue sheep,that of a tree ten thousand years old becomes a blue ox, and they often appear
among men, "434) or " A great pine, perhaps a thousand years old, grew on
a mountain, and the spirit of the pine became an
Such an idea oftree-spirits turning into oxen, and causing rain-storms or entering into thewater, reminds us very much of the Indus culture and the beliefs of ancient Single-horned oxen
India. Among the seals found at Mohenjo-Daro, there is one, shown in Fig. of the sacred tree
12, in which the pipal tree, still held sacred in India today, is represented
in a curious combination with single-horned animals which look like wild
oxen.436) Ernest Mackay interprets this as the heads and necks of a speciesof wild oxen springing from the lower part of the stem of the sacred tree, andsays that it shows the special relationship in which wild oxen, that appear sooften on remains of the Indus culture, stood to the Indian " Tree of Crea t i ~ n , " ~while~ ' ) John Marshall is of the opinion that the pipal tree is growing
out of the necks of the " unicorns " connected together, that this particularanimal was perhaps closely associated with the goddess of the pipal tree
as her vzhana (vehicle), that such an association of tree-spirits with theiranimal vzhanas occurs frequently in Hindu and Buddhist iconography, andthat it was probably traditional from pre-Aryan times.43s) Although an intervalof 3,000 years, and a distance of 2,500 miles, separate the spirit of the catalpa
tree in the form of a blue ox of Wu-tu, and the oxen sacred to the goddess of thepipal tree in the valley of the Indus, if it can be shown that the associationof oxen with tree-spirits was once a widely distributed belief over the ancient
Asiatic continent, then perhaps such a passage in the Shan-hai-ching as," There is a tree shaped like an ox, and by pulling at this, one may get a pieceof bark shaped like the string for attaching one's hat to one's head, and like
432)
433)
434)
435)
436)
437)
438)

loc. cit.
Yiian-chung-chi; H~iian-rhung-chi.
ibid.
T'ien-chung-chi, 55.
Marshall, vol. 3, pl. CXII, no. 387.
ibid., vol. 2, p. 390; Mackay, p. 74, pl. M, 3.
Marshall, vol. 1, p. 64.

98

Blue oxen in thewater

Mongolianwater-oxen

T H E KAPPA L E G E N D

a yellow serpent . . . T h e tree is called the chien (@) tree,"439)may be taken as
preserving traces of some ancient belief of this nature. T h e legend of the
Buryats of later ages concerning the hero Gesir Bogdo, and how his nine horses
into which so many birch trees had metamorphosed themselves carried nine
Shalmo Khans far out into the Yellow Sea, and there becoming birch trees
again, drowned the Khans,440)may also be a development of legends of thetype of which we have given an example, that had been transmitted to theequestrian peoples of Inner Asia.
For other examples of blue oxen in the water, there is a deep pool called
Ch'ing-niu-yuan (B+H " Blue Ox Pool ") in what was once the river
Ch'i-i-shui (7j[i3g7k), and is now the river Hu-liu-shui (@4%7k) in the northeastern part of Shansi province. This pool is said to have been so named
because a dragon lived in it and appeared from time to time on the river, having
Yiieh-wang-t'an (B5.g" Pool of the King of
the form of a blue
Yueh "), to the north of Sui-an-hsien ($gf&,q,southwest of the present Ihsing-hsien =%,%) in the southern part of Kiangsu province, is said to be
the place where a great stone bull weighing a 100 shih, which Chien-t&(&@),
the king of Yueh, obtained when he invaded the kingdom of Wu, and which
he caused 3,000 boys and girls to draw, fell into the water, men, boat and ox,
and that even now its spirit appears on the river in the form of a blue ox ona boat.442) Huan Hsuan ($%*) who lived in Nan-chun (Ea),
Hupei province,
once met an aged nobleman riding a blue ox in Ching-chou (%j+1),and struckby the form and colour of the ox, exchanged his horse for it, when, coming
to Ling-ling (%kg)in the southern part of Hunan province, the ox entered thewater and disappeared.443) These examples come mostly from regions to
the north of the Yangtseliiang, and along the Huangho also, the inhabitants even at the present day believe that the god of the Huangho, whomthey call Ta-wang, the Great King, appears in a variety of forms such as adra.gon, or an ox, or a horse, and that wherever this happens, a flood is sureto
The cries of what are supposed to be a species of frog in a lakecalled the BoshadC-nor in Ming-an Banner in Chahar, Inner Mongolia, aretaken by the inhabitants to be the bellowing of the usunai ukhur (" water-ox "),and the present writer has heard in Mongolia, that there are also tales of thiswater-ox coming up on land to mix with herds of oxen grazing about the place,or dragging men and cattle into the water, but he has had no opportunity tovisit the actual region. But these legends of water-oxen seem to be found439) Shun-hai-ching, 10, Hoi-nei-nun-chin: (.Efij$i@).
440) Curtin, pp. 130-131.
44 1 ) Shui-ching-chu, 13, Shih-shui (&@7k).
442) T'ien-chung-chi, 55.
443) Yu-ming-lu.
444) Wilhelm, S . 141.

CHAPTER I1Oxen and Water-gods

99

sporadically among the Mongols, and Potanin reports that the Khalkha
Mongols living along the great lakes near the northern border of Outer Mongolia like Upsa-nor and Tirkhin-Tsagan believe that the lakes are inhabitedby water-oxen, called usunai argamyk, whose cries can be heard nightly.445)
Haslund also, when voyaging on Sokho-nor in 1927, heard from the Etsingol
Torguts the following extremely interesting story concerning the legendarywater cattle " sokho," which were supposed t3 live in the lake :" Where the lake of Sokho-nor now heaves there once stood a great andwealthy city. Its inhabitants lived a sinful and unrighteous life which called
forth the wrath of the gods. I n order to punish the people the angry gods
one night caused the whole city to sink into the earth, and in the hollo\v madeby this they created a lake into which they cast alkali and salt so that no people
would be able to live in its proximity. But the innocent cattle were not tosuffer for the sake of their sinful owners and the animals therefore were transformed into sokho, the water cattle, who could live and multiply on the richpastures of the lake's bed. Sometimes one could see them rise to the surfaceof the water, but always rightout in the middle of the lake. Sometimes,
when the water level was specially low, early morning hunters had seen theirtracks on the brink, and old folk could remember their parents telling them how
sixty years ago, when the lake was dried up after a very dry summer, themysterious water cattle had been seen disappearing into the interior of theearth through a hole in the bottom of the lake.
" T h e lake was ruled over by sokho and was therefore known as ' T h e
Lake of Water Cattle' and sokho were in intimate contact with the gods. Onceupon a time, many generations before, men were better than they are now,and in those times it could happen that a poor huntsman who lived
a pure life would hear at night the tree-tops whispering a mystic formula.
And if this poor huntsman on the next night led a cow to the edge of the lake
and laid himself down to sleep beside it after having cried the proper formulaout over the lake, during the night the cow would be visited by sokho and soonafterwards would become pregnant and give birth to a calf whose productivity
was equal to that of a herd of many hundred animals. But nowadays, whenpeople were less good, these miracles occurred no more."446)T h e rich pastures at the bottom of thc lake, and water-oxen which appear
by night on the shores of the lake, and cover cows so that they bear calves
endowed with extraordinary powers of propagation, are instances of a remarkable coincidence between the legends of the east and the west. T h epopular belief that when a bull which is supposed to live in the lakes begi.1~Oxen and wind
to bellow, it is a sign of storms coming, or of some other sinister event, is and rain
recorded over a wide area covering Central and Northern Asia, and it is said445) Potanin, vol. 2, p. 98.
446) Haslund, pp. 137-138.

100

Golden ox andgolden chain

THE KAPPA LEGEND

that in those regions, when the ice cracks and rises during cold nights, theinhabitants attribute it to the water-bulls breaking the ice.447) But on the other
hand, these legends we have been examining, which probably spread northwards with the northward advance of the domesticated ox, belong to a comparatively late period, and if we classify the material in ancient Chinese works
according to the place of the origin of the material, we find that, while legends
concerning divine horses in the water are found from the western and northwestern provinces of China to Central Asia, those about oxen and water preponderate in the southern and southwestern regions, where they are divided
into local types according to the area of their distribution. The legend that:" During the K'a-i-huaag ( M g ) era of the Sui dynasty, a white ox entered thevillage, which the inhabitants of the village killed and ate. T h e next day a
great rain-storm (some words here missing). . . and the ground fell in, andthe wl~olevillaqe was turned into a lake,"448)which is found in Sui-hsi-hsien(BE,$#)
in the northern part of Lei-chou peninsula in Kuangtung province,
seems, like the story of causing a thunder-storm by throwing a fine steed into
the water, to have its origin in some belief which was generally held since theage of the Shan-hai-ching. Another legend which appears to have spreadover an area covering the provinces of Kuangtung, Fukien, and Kuangsi since
about the time of the Chin dynasty, is that of a golden ox in the water tethered
by a golden chain.
" Chin-niu-t'an(&+yg" Golden Ox Pool ") lies 20 li to the northeast
and it is so deep that it may not be fathomed. Thereof Ts2ng-ch'sng (t@Qf),
is a rock about 30 ch'ih in circumference on its northern shore, and a fisherman
0nc.e saw a golden ox cbme out of the water and lie down on the rock. During
the I-hsi (%,%) era, a man living in Ts2~g-ch'sng-hsiencalled Ch'ang An ( S F )came to this pool and picked up a golden chain which he found on the rock.
I t had the thickness of a man's finger, and though he sought for its end, there
seemed to be no end to it, when suddenly, something in the water began topull at it. He tightened his grip on the chain, but the thing in the watercontinuing to pull, the chain broke, and some ch'ih of it was left in the
man's hands. This man lived to a great age. Later Chou Yun-fu(HsE)
saw the ox resting on the rock. Beside it lay a chain. Yun-fu being
naturally a brave man, went towards the ox and took hold of the chain, and on
his pulling at it, the chain broke, and in this way he obtained about 2 ch'ih of
it. H e later obtained great wealth."449)447) Holmberg, 1927 b, p. 470. We have already made reference to tlie fact that a part a tleast of the Siberian legends concerning wat-r-spirits and oxen were brought by the Russians
from Northern Europe (see pp. 73-74).
448) MadenokSji M S . (cites P'ei-lc2v-yiin-fu ?).
449) T'ai-ping-huan-yii-chi, 157, Ling-nan-tao (%@jjE),
Kuang-chou Nan-hai-hsien (Em?&%R) ; T'ai-ping-yii-lan, 900.

CHAPTER I1

101

Oxen and Water-gods" Chin-so-t'an(&7&rpI' Golden Chain Pool ") lies 30 li to the east of
the hsien(Ch'ing-yiian-hsien@&,g, Kuang-chouBjl.1). In the days of the Ch'indynasty, K'un-lun (BS)sent a rhinoceros in tribute. The rhinoceros ran into
the pool and disappeared, dragging after it its golden chain. In the time of theChin dynasty, a fisherman called Chou Chung-chii (H+$B)fished up the golden
chain, and on pulling at it, saw the rhinoceros. He tried to secure the rhinoceros, but could not, the chain broke, and so he obtained about 1 ch'ih of it."450'
The two localities named are situated respectively in the eastern andnorthern parts of Kuangtung province. The rhinoceros mentioned in thelatter legend often makes its appearance in Chinese legends concerning watergods together with the ox, and numerous examples of Japanese water-monsters
also being called sai (rhinoceros) or sai-ryzi (" rhinoceros-dragon ") in theprovinces of Shinano, o m i , Ththmi, Musashi etc. are given in the Santdrnindan-.~hzi.~~~)
Chinese legends of golden bulls in the province of Fukien,
Kuangsi etc. differ little in character from those already given," 20 li to the west of chou (Fu-chou
one comes to the Chin-so..
chiang" Golden Chain River ").
I t is written in the Min-chungchi (B+,d) that once a fishermail fished up a golden chain from the river, andsaw a golden ox rise from the water. The fisherman at once began pullingup the golden chain, but on reaching the river-bank, the ox broke the chain,and so about 2 ch'ih of it was left in the man's hands. The emperor K'angti of the Chin dynasty gave orders that a temple be built on the spot, and thegod of the temple became known as a very powerful god."452)
In Kuangsi province, there are the following legends concerning Pach'iu-hsien (eh,g),
to the north of the Hsia-chiang-hsien
and Kanhsien ($$$,%) to the south of it.
" A pool 30 li above Chin-kang (em)in Pa-ch'iu-hsien is called the Huangchin-lai (g&f&" Golden Pool"). Once a man was fishing in the pool andbrought up a golden chain which, on being pulled up, filled the boat, whena golden bull rose out of the water. I t was of a fearsome appearance, and sowere its cries, and it leapt back into the pool. The chain continued to go after
it for a long time, and then it was played out, and the man grasping its end
and pulling with all his might, obtained several ch'ih of it. Hence the name ofthe" A fisherman lived in a place 20 li to the north of Kan-hsien at the beginning of the Hsien-ho (&%) era under the Chin dynasty. One day he fished(&@aa$l.l),(@a%,),

450) T'ai-pang-huan-yu-chi, 157, Ling-nan-tao, Ch'ing-yuan-hsien (BsB).
According to the
Iyuan, the same event occured in the Chien-yuan (BZ)
era under the emperor K'ang-ti
of the Chin dynasty.
451) Yanagita, 1914, pp. 52-53 (ed. 1942, pp. 66-67).
12, Fu-chou
Min452) I'ai-ping-huan-yu-chi, 100, Chiang-nan-tung-tao
hsien (BAR).
453) Yu-mzng-lu.

(agxz),

(am),

102

Golden OX in-4nnarnT H E KAPPA LEGEND

up from the river a golden chain, and had pulled up several hundred ch'ih ofit, when something rose from the water after the chain. I t was like an ox,
and had red eyes and white horns. I t was frightened at the sight of the man,and ran away dragging the chain after it. T h e fisherman cut the chain witha sword, and so he obtained several ch'ih of it."454)This golden ox of Sou,th China seems to have gone as far south as
Annam, to appear sometimes even today on the lake Hsi-ho (ptjj$j " West
Lake ") to the west of Hanoi. I n a collection of legends translated by M ,Chdon, we read that:" There is a great lake called the West Lake to the west of Hanoi. T h elake was once a forest in which lived monsters that did harm to men. A
nobleman named Khong lo had a great bell cast on a mountain called theMountain of the Raftsman (in the province of Bit-ninh), and rang three trial
peals on it. T h e sounds echoed throughout heaven and earth, and a golden
buffalo in China hearing the bell thought it was its mother calling to it, andstarted at once for Annam. T h e road talren by the golden buffalo became
what is now the River To-lich. T h e buffalo came as far as the forest, but could
not find its mother. So the enraged creature caused such commotion thatthe forest sank into the ground and became a lake. Even today, when theweather is fine and calm, the golden buffalo is said to come up to the surfaceof the lake. T h e bell now lies at the bottom of a river called the River of theSix Heads."45s)Jean Przyluski says he heard a similar legend about the origin of theWest Lake from a Chinese who was a native of Kuangtung, according to whosestory the golden buffalo of China heard a golden bell ringing in Annam andcame as far as Tonkin, where it smelt the bell lying buried in the earth, and theground it dug up became the present West Lake. T h e Chinese had heard~)
has shown
the story in South China before coming to T 0 n k i r - 1 . ~ ~Przyluskithat there are many points in common between Annamese and South Chinese
beliefs concerning gold, and in the Malay peninsula aiso, there are legendsof tin ore moving about underneath the ground in the form of a buffalo, andTa-minx I-t'ung ming-shtng-chih (kM-B%j$#d&)(cit. by Huang Chih-kang, p. 159). \yealso find legends of this type to the north of the Yangtsekiang: " The river a t Niu-chu-chin($~%@) in Huai-nan (%T+j)
is extreme!y deep, and may not be fathomed. Once a magnificent golden bull was seen there, to which was attached a golden chain."-Yu-ming-lu.
Butwhen we come to Shantung further north, the legend loses some of its original characteristics,
and there is only a white ox to which is attached a chain: " A native of Yen-chou (BfH)
was travelling by boat, and saw a chain floating on the water. H e picked up and pulled in
500 or 600 ch'ih of it, when a white ox came up at the end of it. It differed in no way froma n ordinary ox and was beautifully shaped. The man saw that it was a divine animal andlet it go, and the ox entered the water dragging the chain after it."-T'ai-jinpyii-lan,
900.
ed., texte no. 48).
455) Przyluski, 1914, pp. 2-3 (ChCon, Recueil de cent textes annotds ct traduits,456) itid., p. 7 and note 1.

454j

zeme

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

103

the spirit of gold taking the shape.of a kijang or r ~ e - d e e r , ~so~ ' )that in regard
to the gold motif in these South Chinese legends of the golden ox and the golden
chain, their origin may be traced to Annam which is particularly rich in original
folklore on the subject of gold. But as to the main source of this group of Hsii Chh-chunlegends, all obviously belonging to the same category, and which spread over imprisons an evil
a definite area in South China at about the same period under the Chin dynasty, chiaO-dragon
it is to be sought for in the legend of Hsu ChCn-chun (SIJ$~)
imprisoning anevil chiao-dragon, which became popular all over China just about the timeof the same Chin dynasty.459) We have already pointed out the frequent
association of chiao-dragons with oxen. Hsu ChCn-chun and the chiao-dragon
fight with each other, in the course of which they both assume a number ofdifferent shapes and employ all their resources as supernatural beings, and in
the end Hsu ChCn-chiin captures the chiao-dragon, plants an iron tree by theside of a well, and attaching the dragon by an iron chain to the tree, throws
it into the bottom of the well. T h e dragon begs for mercy and asks Hsii
Ch&n-chunwhen it will be able to see the sun again, to which the latter replies,"When the iron tree blossoms, and horns grow on the heads of horses, thenI shall set you free."459) This type of legend is often found associated withiron pillars which were set up in different parts of the country as a charm against Iron pillars andmischief wrought by chiao-dragons, and sometimes Rrh-lang-chiin (:Bps)
iron chainstakes the place in these legends of Hsu Ch&n-chun. T h e iron pillar in thewell in the T'ieh-chu-kung (@@g " Iron Pillar Palace ") in Nan-ch'ang,in Chi-shui-hsien
Kiangsi, and that on the mountain Hsuan-tan-ling (cgyT&)(*;rk,g)in the same province are both said to have been employed by Hsu
ChCn-chun to hold chiao-dragons in subjection,460)while on the bankseof thein Kuan-hsien-ch'&ng (@,gifi),
Sstich'uan province, it
river Hsi-chiang
is erh-lang-chiin who is supposed to have set up an iron pillar and attacheda chiao-dragon to it by an iron chain.461) T h e iron pillar at the meeting pointof the rivers 1,an-ts'ang-chiang (M:@j-a)and Hei-hui-chiang ($$,BE),200 li
to the east of Shun-ning-fu
in Yunnan province, is supposed to havebeen set up by the Emperor Yii to mark the hai-yen (" eye of the sea "), when
he came here after successfully combating a
and although the T'iehchu-kang (@&m " Iron Pillar Hill ") on the sea-shore 2 li from the north

(ma)

457)

Skeat, pp. 250-252, 271. There is a legend of a golden kijang at Raub in Pahang on theeast coast, known for the quality of the gold produced there.
458) Huang Chih-kang, p. 157.
459) ibid., p. 51.
460) ibid., pp. 61-64.
461) ibid.,, pp. 10-1 1 The chiao-dragon knowing that further resistance is useless, begs for mercy,
and asks Erh-lang, " When shall I regain my freedom ? " to which Erh-lang replies: " When
flowers blossom on this iron tree and horses grow horns on their heads, then you will befree."
Cf. p. 16.
462) ibid., pp. 157-158 (cit. lien-nan tsa-chih A%$@'E%).

104

Chiao-dragons fear
ironFights with oxenin the water

Li Ping and theriver-god

THE KAPPA LEGEND

gate of Yen-ch'cng-hsien (@@,%) in Kiangsu province is believed by inhabitants of the district to be the pillar to which the First Emperor (Shih-huang) of
the Ch'in dynasty once tethered his horse, a passage in the Yii-ti-chi-shtng
says that " chiao-dragons abound along the shore here, and since they are
by nature timorous of iron, the pillar was set up here to hold them in subj e ~ t i o n . " ~ ~These~ ) iron pillars, like the iron oxen already mentioned, havetheir origin in the belief that iron has the power to drive away chiao-dragons
in the water, and a further examination would show that they have a connection
with a megalithic culture, a question with which we shall deal later. Whilethe chiao-dragon pursued by I-Isu Chcn-chun is said to have turned itself intoa yellow ox, seeing which Chcn-chun made a black ox, or himself became a
black o eox tngage in combat with it, other legends of fights with or between
oxen in the water are also found widely distributed in the western and southernparts of China, containing much in them that is of great interest to us. According to the Po-z~u-chihby Chang Hua of the Chin dynasty, when divine
oxen born by the waters in Chiu-ch2n ( f t g )in Northern Annam fought together,
the sea seethed, and when they fought on shore, the oxen kept by the inhabitants were very much frightened, while if there was anyone who stood in theway of these divine oxen, thunder was heard, for which reason they were called
divine.464) This detail of the thunder may have originated in the associationof oxen with thunder-gods which, as well as in those regions already mentioned,
is a feature of Southern Asiatic mythology. 111the ancient Hsin-an-hsien (fg%,%) to the east of the present K'ai-ping-hsien (8fqT,@)in Kuangtung province,
there was a water-ox which had the shape of a fish, and which came on land
to fight with oxen kept by the inhabitants. I t fought until its horns became
soft, and then it returned to the water, upon which the horns immediately
hardened again, and it would then come up once more on land.4") There isalso a legend in Huai-an-fu (P@%$f), Kiangsu province, of a cow which turned
itself into a dragon and fought with a dragon of a lake, and overcoming it,
became itself the dragon of Ta-hu, the Great Lake.4G6) Besides these examples,
the type of legend most widely distributed in China concerning fights withoxen is that in which a river-god oppresses the people by causing floods every
andyear, and a governor with the attributes of a water-god like Li Ping
Erh-lang goes into the water to fight the river-god, overcomes him, and so
frees the people from the fear of all such occurrences in the future. This typeof legend is to be found in Ssuch'uan province and the provinces of Kansu,
Shansi, Anhui etc.. while the date of the story ranges from modern folklore($a)463) ibid., p. 158 (cit. 'Yu-ti-chi-shing).
464) Po-wu-chih, 3.
465) T'ai-Ping-huan-yu-chi, 157, Liang-nan-tao, Hsin-an-hsien ( f g z k s j . In the 'Yu-yang-tsa-tsu,
pt. 2, bk. 8, the place is given as Chii-lou-hsien (@:@Is) on the northern border of Annam.
466) Huai-an-fu-chih, 1685, 1, Yii-ti-chih (g,@&),2, Hsing-yeh (EB); Visser, pp. 129-130.

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

105

to as far back as records of the Han dynasty. What is more, in these tales
it is not only the river-god who often appears in the shape of an ox, but his
antagonists like Li Ping, the governor of Shu (Ssiich'uan), also assume theform of an ox in attacking him, a fact which lends to these legends a capital
importance in their relation to the subject of this chapter. T h e oldest recordof such a legend is probably the following passage quoted in the Kua-ti-chih
as occurring in the Fkng-su-t'ung by Yin Shao of the Han dynasty.
" Chao-wang, king of Ch'in, made Li Ping the governor ~f Shu. Li
Ping drew the waters of in Ch'6ng-tu-hsien and irrigated ten thousand
ch'ing of rice-fields. T h e god of the river had a custom of taking two womenas his consorts, and Li Ping went in the guise of a woman and was married
to the god. A path led to the temple of the god, and there Li Ping offeredwine to him, filling the cup to the brim, and therewith Li Ping began upbraiding
the god in no uncertain tones. T h e god hearing this, at once disappeared.
After a while, two blue oxen were seen fighting on the bank'of the river andthen they once more entered the river. Then Li Ping called to the officials,' I am extremely tired, you must help me. The white thing on the loins of
the ox facing south is my official sash.' T h e treasurer of the province thenran his sword through the ox facing north, and the river-god died."467)
I n a book which seems to belong to the T'ang dynasty, there is a passage
which says that to commemorate the exploits of Li Ping, bull-fights were heldin spring and autumn, and a stone ox was buried in the garden of the temple
dedicated to the hero.
" Li Ping became governor of Shu-chiin. There dwelt a chiao-dragon
in those parts which caused floods every year that inundated the entire district,
Li Ping entered the water and killed the chiao-dragon.
He then turned himself into an ox, and seeing the dragon who was god of the river leap out of thewater, he overcame the god also. He then came out of the river, chose several
hundred soldiers known for their bravery, gave them strong bows and greatarrows and said to them, ' I assumed the form of an ox the last time, and thistime the river-god is sure to take that form also. I shall bind a long pieceof white silk round my body so that you will be able to recognize me, and when
you see us appear, you must kill the one who is without any such a sign.' H ethen entered the water, roaring. Soon a thunder-storm arose, of such violence
that heaven and earth became of one colour. When this had subsided a little,
two oxen were seen fighting on the shore, and a long piece of white silk could
be seen round the ox that was L i Ping. So the men sent a volley of arrows
at the other ox, and the river-god died. After this, the people of Shu never
suffered from floods. Even today, when great waves rise on the river, they
seem almost to reach the temple of L i Ping and then the water begins to retirein a body. I t is not without reason, therefore, that bull-fights are held in
467)

Kua-ti-chih, 7 ; Shih-chi, chtng-i(gs),
29, Ho-ch'ii (fiiiiE)(cit. Kua-/i-cirih).

106~ ~ 1 1 - f i g handtfertility rites

TIJE KAPPA LEGEND

the spring and autumn. There are several thousands of houses to the southof the temple dedicated to Li Ping, and although the ground by the river isextremely low, it is not necessary for the people to move at the time ofautumn floods. There is a stone ox buried in the garden of the temple. In
the 5th year of the T'ai-ho (&?+a) era in the time of the T'ang dynasty, there
was a great flood. T h e god Li Ping assuming the form of a dragon again
fought with a dragon at Kuan-k'ou (gn),and this time also wore a piece ofwhite silk so that he might be distinguished from the enemy. T h e water
began to go down, and although during this flood tso-mien (&fig) and txu-t'ung(@@) floated on the river and filled the valley, and tens of districts suffered great
danger, Western Shu alone was quite unharmed.468)
In Chapter 93 of Prof. Eberhard's book, Typen chinesischer Volksmarchen, a total of 7 examples ancient and modern, including the two cited above,4 examples from Ssiich'uan, and 1 each from Kansu, Shansi, Anhui provinces,-are given as belonging to Type No. 1 of " The fight with the river-god."
I n these examples, the river-god appears as a chiao-dragon and also as an ox
in 3 of the stories from Ssilch'uan, as a chiao-dragon only in the 4th, and as
an ox in the 3 stories from Anhui, Shansi and Kansu. In the 3 stories from
SsGch'uan, not only the river-god but his antagoist, Li Ping, the governorof Shu, also turns himself into an ox as already mentioned in his fight withthe river-god, and in the stories from Anhui and Shansi also, the image ofan ox is placed in the garden of the temple dedicated to the governor, whilebull-fights are held in his honour in the story from SsLch'uan which we havegiven. Eberhard regards this type of legend as providing an explanation of.the origin and meaning of bull-fights, and the existence of so many legendsof this kind in Ssiich'uan must have some connection with the fact that the
Miao used to have bull-fights in the past.469) We read in the Yu-yang-tsa-tsu
that in the country Kuei-tzu-kuo (&gH),the people also held bull-fights andhorse-races on New Year's Day, by which to foretel! the increase or otherwiseof sheep and horses.470) I n the bull-fights held at the present day in Chinhua-hsien (&%,%) in Chekiang and elsewhere, the peop!e divide themselves
into two parties, each party backing an ox, and the vanquished ox being eaten
afterwards,471)and as we shall explain later, the custom seems to have had
its origin in the sacrifice of oxel as a part of some fertility rite. In this connection, we might add that in the 3 stories from Ssuch'uan among the 7mentioned by Eberhard, young girls are offered in sacrifice to propitiate theriver-god, and this Perseus and Andromeda motif are held, as in examples
already mentioned, to be a reminiscence of human sacrifices having .the character
468)
469)
470)
471)

T'ai-ping-kuung-chi,291.
Eberhard, 1937, Lap. 93, S. 135-138.
ibid., S. 137 ; Yuyang-tsa-tsu, 4.
Eberhard, 1942, S. 175.

CHAPTER I1Oxen and Water-gcds

107

of a fertility rite. T h e river-god in the story from Kansu cited by Eberhard
is the spirit of the tree ten-thousand ,years old, who fled from the tree in the
shape of a blue ox into the river F&ng-shui, and it is clear that this tree-spirit Clay oxen andtoo has something of the character of a fertility-god. There is material from ta-ch'unother regions to support this interpretation. A custom observed by farmers
practically all over China in the beginning of spring is whipping coloured oxen
made of clay, and then breaking them into pieces to forecast the coming or
not of drought that year, on which day also, food and wine are offered to thee a r t h - g ~ d . ~ This~ ~ ) is called ta-ch'un ($fS"striking of spring "), pien-ch'un(@%" whipping of spring "), pien-niu (@+ " whipping oxen ") and so on,a ~ nod doubt has the magico-religious significance of sacrificing the clay oxen,
the symbols of fertility, to greet and to speed the spring's return. The customof striking cattle with sticks or the branches of certain trees that are thought
to be phallic symbols is to be found in India, Germany, Albania, Greece andother regions,473)and the Japanese custom of striking the buttocks of horses
at ShintB ceremonies, or that observed by the Japanese people from ancient
times of striking the posteriors of women with kayu-zue (sticks for stirring
gruel), kezuri-kake (half-shaved sticks), or sticks fashioned in the form ofphalluses, on 15th of January, no doubt have their origin in the same sort ofidea connected with a magical fertility rite.474) The ox has always been as- Oxen, theandsociated in China with the earth and the centre of things,475)and inseparably the tsu
bound up with the earth-god or she"
We read in a passage in the Po-zcuchih quoted in the T'ai-ping-yii-lan :" T h e Emperor received in the first month of the Chou dynasty theheads of sacrificial oxen offered to the she" and then issued the seeds forsowing.. . On the eighth the Emperor shot down black sacrificial oxen in
the suburb and prayed that the harvest be plentiful that year."476)
We can see from this importance attached to the sacrifice of oxen at theceremony of praying to the earth-god for a plentiful harvest at the beginningof the year. But the earth-god was also represented by a stone image or pillar(e).

ibid., S. 175-177; Ho-p'u-an, pt. 1, vol. 3, p. 51 (Chekiang), vol. 4, p. 39 (Fukien), vol. 7,
p. 26 (Shensi), vol. 8, pp. 5, 21 (Kuangtung), pt. 2, vol. 2, p. 20 (Shantung), vol. 6, p. 15(Hupei). This custom of whipping oxen is found over a wild area in Eastern Asia, M.
Grenard witnessing it in Kashgar and M. Diguet in Annam.-Chavannes, p. 500, note 2.
473) Gubernatis, vol. 1, pp. 224-225 ; GB, pt. 6, p. 266. Frazer gives examples in these pages
which show that the custom of striking not only cattle but human beings is found all over
the world.-pp. 254-273.
474) Deguchi, p. 12.
475) W. Eberhard, 1942, S. 178. " The Emperor wears a yellow robe, rides on a yellow horse,
adorns himself with pieces of yellow jade, and his standard is yellow also [the colour yellow
is taken from the colour of the earth]. He makes the millet and the ox his food [both themillet and the ox belong to the earth].-Huai-nan-t~t1, 5, Shih-tse^-hstin(RHIJ31I).
476) T'ai-ping-yii-lan, 532.

472)

108

THE KAPPA LEGEh'D(s),of a phallic character called tsu
and there even remains a custom today in
Yang-chou (;I:%#j)in Kiangsu province of a man and a woman carrying paper
images respectively of the male and female sexual organ round the streets at
t h e festival in honour of the she"in February and burning the images afterwards,
oxen and thethe festival being in fact called the festival of greeting the spring.477) On theother hand, we find in Assam, Nias, and other regions of Southeastern Asia
a religious complex in which the sacrifice of oxen, erecting of megaliths, andagricultural rites are combined. I n such cases, the heads and horns of oxen
are considered to wield a powerful influence over the fertility of the earth,but the tribes in Southeastern Asia who possess this megalithic culture areinvariably also head-hunters and skull-worshippers, and human heads are
believed to exercise the same sort of power over harvests as the heads of oxensacrificed to the she"at the beginning of the year. If we now connect together theseries of geographical 2nd ideological phenomena such as we have described,
it becomes possible to argue that not only the clay oxen used to propitiate
the earth-god and to greet the coming of spring in the ceremony of whipping
the spring, but the custom of having bull-fights and the legends attached tothem, also have their origin in the sacrifice of oxen in some fertility rite, andthat this in turn takes its rise from the same source as that which led to theinstitution of human sacrifices. Moreover, the rivers are in a sense a prolongation of the earth, and are also the mainstay of the lives of agricultural
peoples, so that it is not surprising that oxen, which are animals held to besacred to the earth-god, should be transformed into river-gods and demand
the sacrifice of girls to be their consorts, or that the spirit of a tree ten thousand
years old should assume the form of a blue ox and enter the water, and such
beliefs must spring from the magical power of fertility attributed to oxen justas we saw in the case of the agricultural sphere of culture of the regions extending from Southeastern Asia to the Mediterranean. Rut it has alreadybeen pointed out by Eberhard that the complex comprising the series: sacrificial oxen-bull-fights-clay
oxen-river-spirits
in the form of oxen-earthgod she"-phallic stone tsu etc., which we find among the Chinese peasantry,
is most easily linked up with the megalithic culture of Southeastern Asia,
in which we find beliefs in magical powers of human skulls and heads of oxen,
ancestor-worship, and agricultural rites associated with the megalith~.~'B)
Further ethnological and archaeological researches remain yet to be madeconcerning the characteristics of this megalithic culture. Here we must content ourselves with the pointing out of one or two more interesting points inconnection with this culture, within the limits of the subject of this essay.
T h e following strange story is recorded in various books since the time
Carp turned intoof the Chin dynasty as the legend of the miraculous rise to power of one Fan
iron
477)
478)

Eberhard, 1942, S. 178-179.
ibid., S. 173-184.

CHAPTER I1Oxen and Water-gods

109

Weil (YE%) who usurped the throne of Lin-i ($$&), a kingdom later to becomethat of Champa on the east coast of Annam:" Fan WCn was by origin a slave in Jih-nan (1E). One day, he wasgrazing sheep by a mountain stream, and caught two carp. He wished to
eat the carp by himself, and hid them. His master found this out and reprimanded him, and so Fan WCn lied and said that he had brought back twowhetstones and not fish. His master went to the place where the fish were,and found two stones instead, just as Wen told him. W&nmarvelled at this,and he found moreover that the stones had streaks of iron in it. So he tookthem into the mountain and melted them, and made out of them two swords.
H e took these swords and went to Chang (@), this being a place among themountains. H e improvised the words of a charm and said, ' Carp changed
themselves, and were made into swords. If they can cleave stones, they musthave divine power. WCn shall then rule over the country.' In the end, hecut them, and the people of the country made him king."479)
That is to say, two carp were turned into stones, and from the stones
were made two iron swords. I t is a strange legend, but perhaps it is possible
to explain even legends like these if we compare them with ethnological material
from neighbouring countries.
I n Tonkin today, there is a widespread belief that if a stone is buried Stones in the earth
long enough in the earth, its magical powers are gradually increased, so thatin the end it becomes a dangerous spirit with supernatural powers. In villagesin Tonkin, one sometimes sees small, strangely looking figures in stone ofdogs, horses, elephants, and other animals by the side of temples and in gardensof communal houses. These are supposed to have been shaped naturally by
the constant action of the energy stored in the earth, and to turn into gold
possessing the most powerful mana if they should remain buried. An inhabitant of Hai-du'o'ng province is said to have met with misfortunes on
account of having dug up a stone figure of this kind.480) There is also a story
that a farmer of Vo-song village in the canton of Gong-hai in the same province
once stole a small pig and kept it under a basket turned upside down, but it
was really gold that had been metamorphosed into a pig, and the next day,it had turned into a piece of iron.4s1) The Annamese legend of carp turning
into stone, and then into iron, must then have some connection with beliefsof this type concerning the metamorphosis of stone into metal, and the accompanying increase in magical power possessed by such stones. But there
Shu-i-chi, pt. 1. A similar passage is found in the Shui-chiirg-chu, 36, W&n-shui (a7k).
The story is also found in the Chin-shu, 97, SSZ-i-chuan(H%@j),the Lianz-shu, 54, Chu-i-chuan(33%).
but in these we only read that " he caught two carp which became iron." Theoriginal form of the legend is probably indicated in the carp turning first into stone.
480) Przyluski, 1914, pp. 3-4.
481) ibid., p. 7.
479)

110

THE KAPPA LEGEhTD

Carp, chiao-dragons, still remains the question of the carp. The Chinese have believed from oldand serpent
times that the carp as the k i ~ ofg fishes often became the messenger of dragon-

Stone oxen in thewater

water-spirits
quelled by stonerhinoceroses

kings, and it was generally regarded as being their equal. T h e golden carp
which Ch'&nKuang-jui (RZg),the father of Hsiian-chuang, rescues and lets
go into the water in the Hsi-yu-chi turns out to be a dragon-king in disg~ise.48~)
S o that, it is not strange to find the carp being confounded with chiao-dragons
which are said to rule over the fish with their 3,600 varieties, and also withserpents which are closely allied to chiao-dragons. But the serpent in Chineselegends often appears transformed into coins, or metal from which weapons
are made.483) In this way, there may also be relationship between this idea
of carp and serpents having the character of water-spirits turning into ironor some metal weapon, and the custom of throwing metal objects into the water
as a charm against chiao-dragons, the Nakk, and other water-spirits of which
we have spoken in the last chapter. T h e oxen in the water already mentioned
may also be considered as pointing to such a possibility. According to the
Ching-ckou-chi by Ch'Eng Hung-chih (&i;Lz),there were two sand-banks to thesouth of Yen-wei-chou (@@JJI.I), called Lsng (Eg) and Ch'ung (W), and thewater between these two sand-banlis abounded in strange fish. But since every
time a net was t11row11 illto the water, it became caught on something and was torn,
a diver wer.t down to investigate and saw tm-o stone oxen at the bottom whichwere causing the trouble, and so people ceased thenceforth to throw nets inthere.484' We have already given examples in Chinese folklore of people
fishing in rivers and obtaining golden chains from golden oxen, and this time
it is throwing nets from a sand-bank which become caught on stone oxen in
the water. T h e identity of these oxen is worthy of study. We read in Chineserecords that in Ssuch'uan, the governor LiPing killed a water-god who appearedout of a river in the form of an ox, and afterwards made five rhinoceroses ofstone to quell the water-spirits, one of which he sunk in the river.485) T h erhinoceros resembles the dragon in some of its aspects, and we have alreadymentioned the fact that in China and Japan, it is often confounded in its capacity482) Hsi-yu-chi, 9.
483) Eberhard, 1911, Kr. 100a, 1131; 1g42, S. 401 ; 1937, S. 229-230.
484) T'ai-Piizg-yii-lan, 990.
485) Shui-ching-chu, 33, Chizng-shui (X7Jc). Huang C!lih-kang. p. 25, cites from the Chi-ku-lu($&kg$) : " Li Ping of the C h ' h dynasty was made governor of Sliu, and he caused canals tobe dug so as to lead the water of the river into the Yangtseklang, and in this way he put a n
end to flood.;. The god of the river was angered by this, and turning himself into an ox, appeared over the water. Li Ping took a sword and entered the water, and killed the god.
He then caused five rhilloceroses to be carved out of stone and had them placed by the waterside. This hcinq done, he made a covenant with the river and said, ' I n after times, when
the water is low, i t wil! not come as far as the feet of the rhinoceroses, nor as far as the shoulders even when it is high.' The monument bearing the words of the vow is called Shih-shuipei ($!$)k@. ' ~ v a t e r . c a ~monumenth'), and is to be found at P'&ng-chou (Bj+I)."

CHAPTER I1 Oxen a n d Water-gods

111

of a water-monster with the ox. Li Ping was a hero who had changed himself into an ox to fight with a river-god, and near the site where the five stonerhinoceroses were placed, there was also the Shih-niu-m&n (ZLfiFEj " Stone
Ox Gate ") as well as the Shih-hsi-yiian (;EiE&$'" Stone Rhinoceros Pool ").
Moreover, the people of Ssiichu'an not only had these beliefs concerning oxen
in rivers, but they really seem to have sunk stone oxen in them to avert disasters
caused by water.486) In view of these facts, perhaps vge may be justified inthinking that the custom of throwing iron objects into the water as a charm
against chiao-dragons, which were supposed to abhor anything made of iron,
may have been derived originally from that of sinking stone oxen, or stonepillars, into the water. Metal objects probably took the place of stone withthe coming of the metal age, and if we take into consideration the fact that insacrificial ceremonies, the animals or human beings sacrificed often embodied
the god himself tb whom the sacrifice is made, it is possible for us to conjecturethat chiao-dragons, oxen, serpents, and other water-spirits, the beings to becharmed away, were themselves embodied in the stone or iron objects throwninto the water, while the idea of throwing these things into the water as being
held in aversion by water-gods may be a product of later ages, and if we tracethese practices back to their origin in the Stone Age, we may find that they
possessed originally a sacrificial meaning. Looking at the question in this way,
it is possible to comprehend the nature of such a legend as that of carp turning
into stone and then into iron, if we remember the close relationship between
carp and chiao-dragons. Considered from this point of view, the iron ox of
Sh&n-chou which was made to bear the waters of the Yellow River by Yii,
and the golden oxen bound by a golden chain at the bottom of the river, willboth be seen to possess origins going back to the remotest times. But if
objects of iron or other metal thrown into the water had taken the place ofstone oxen and stone rhinoceroses, the iron pillars of which we have spoken
in connection with the legend of golden oxen and golden chains may also
have been derived from the stone pillars of preceding ages. We are here again
confronted then with the problem of the megalithic culture of Southeastern
Asia. I n this culture, which was characterized by head-hunting, skull- stone pillars andworship and ox-sacrifice, and closely bound up with water and agriculture, sacrificial oxen
the stone pillars seem often to have been used to tether oxen that were to besacrificed to the ancestors and the dead,4s7)and Eberhard is of the opinion
that, not only the stone pillars of the tsu of the present day representing
both the earth-god and the phallus, but the stone tablets set up for the deadin China since the time of the Later Han dynasty bear some relationship to thismegalithic culture.48s) In this culture, the worship of the dead and the ances486) Eberhard, 1942, S. 401.
487) Heine-Geldern, 1923, S. 946.
488) Eberhard, 1942, S. 400.

112

T H E KAPPA L E G E N D

tors probably merged from the earliest times with the worship of the earth
and the god of generation, and it centred around the ox-sacrifice having the
The earth, ancescharacter of a feytility rite.489) T h e earth, the world of the dead, and sexOrgans worship also become easily associated with serpent-worship.
So that theand srrpents
serpent-shaped river-spirit of China, the chiao-dragon, may have come tohave connections with oxen in the water partly through the influence of awave of the megalithic culture. But as the megalithic culture in Southwestern China became acquainted with the use of copper or iron, special
magical powers must have come to be attributed to these superior metals,
and perhaps, just as they probably replaced the stone in serving as charms
against water-monsters, they may have given rise to the idea of copper serpents and iron chiao-dragons in the water-world also. Such conjectures mustof course seem premature in view of the scanty material at our disposal today.
But the swords which Fan Wen, the tyrant of Lin-i, made out of iron carp
were certainly possessed of the magical powers of chiao-dragons. When hesmotestones with them, it was like cleaving rushes and straw.490) I t is a
cuttingtheheads of oxen with fact of further interest to us that the Yao tribe in Southwestern China hadiron swords
a custom, when a boy was born in a family, of immersing iron of the same weightas the newborn child in poisoned water, and making a steel sword out of theiron on the child coming of age. T h e sword was worn by him for life, but
it was the custom that the young man should try the temper of the sword by
cutting off the head of an ox with one blow.491) This had the character ofa test forming part of an initiation ceremony, and the motif of cutting off thehead of an ox, as also the legend of Fan Wen, might well be derived from themegalithic culture after it had gained knowledge of the qualities of iron.
Dragon-horses cum
I n a general manner, we might say of the relationship between watercelestial horses
gods and oxen and horses dealt with in these two chapters, that whereas theuersus river-oxenidea of the water-horse is found mainly in western and northwestern China,
cum earth-oxen
and further west in Central Asia, the idea of the river-ox dominates in thesouthern and southwestern parts of China, and the regions still south of themof the Indo-Chinese peninsula. And although both ideas are closely associated489)" There is a double significance in the megaliths, at least iil those of Assam.
They haveto keep alive the names of the dead, serve as the dwelling-places of their souls, and as lastingmonuments to the religious and magical achievement4 of the dead during their lives on
earth, protect their souls from the dangers threatening them after death. But it is also necessary to perpetuate the successes and riches of the dead and the fertility of their fields andcattle, to cause these benefits to be extended to all, and to preserve the power of fertility which
was probably regarded as a faculty directly exercised by the souls of the dead. The factthat megaliths are closely associated with water must also have some connection with thissignificance of megaliths as magical means of bringing about fertility."-Heine-Geldern,
1934, S. 22.
490) Shui-ching-chu, 36, U1&n-shui.
491) M'tn-hsie?z-t'ung-k'ao, 328, Ssic-i-k'ao
5.

(mag),

CHAPTER I1 O x e n a n d Water-gods

113

with that of the dragon as a water-god, the dragon connected with the horse
is, as we may see in the " Ode to the Celestial Horse from the West " in the
Han-shu, the lung-dragon which, while being a water-spirit, is also capableof ascending to heaven and becoming its ruler, a fact which contrasts with the
dragon connected with the ox being essentially a chiao-dragon, a variety whichlurks in rivers and in the earth, and is deprived of the power of ascending toheaven. This can be easily understood when we consider that " Heaven is Heaven is representrepresented by the horse and the earth by the ox," as stated in the I-ching ed by the horse,and the earth by(Shuo-kua-chuan %$I@),
has been a fundamental conception of the Chinese the ox
from the earliest times, but we would like here to take a step further and suggest
that, while the idea of the dragon-horse cum celestial horse was for the mostpart preserved in documents by peoples or classes of northern origin whoestablished a state along the valley of the Yellow River, and thence penetrated to and became a part of the belief of the common people, the idea of riverox cum earth-ox originated in the belief and ceremonies of the agricultural
population in Central and South China, and forming for a long time apart of these folk beliefs, gradually became adopted also into the rites
performed by kings, nobles, and the gentry. This dual structure of northernelements and southern, heaven and earth, horse and ox, furnishes us with aclue to the study of the historical and cultural formpion of the Chinese people
today, and we might see the same kind of relationship between the worshipof heaven which developed into the idea of t'ien (" heaven ") propounded in
Confucianism in North China, and the cult of the earth of which Taoism, inSouth China, is an expression. Of course, this is a conjecture which has only
to do with the primitive stages of the ideas in question, and no one can denythat these two sources of folklore came, with the passing of time, to influenceand become combined with each other, both geographically and ideologically.
Already under the Chou dynasty, the King M u sacrificed oxen, horses, pigs
a ~ l dsheep in honour of the god of the Yellow River, and when we comedown to the Chin dynasty, in the country of Fu-yii (A&) further to the north,oxen were sacrificed to heaven at the commencement of a war, and its hoofs
used to foretell victory or defeat.492) I n a still later age, however, in the timeof Liao, there is a legend of the ancestors of the Ch'i-tan :" There was a god who rode on a white horse from the mountain Ma- White horse andyii-shan ( , E z h ) , floated down the river T'u-ho
towards the east. There blue ox
was a heavenly maiden who came in a carriage drawn by a blue ox from pine
forests in the plain and floated down the river Huang-ho (&@q).The tworivers met at the foot of the mountain Mu-yeh-shan ( * g h ) , and the god
and the heavenly maiden were united and eight children were born. Their
posterity multiplied and gathered power, and were divided into eight tribes."

(j-m)

114

The Abasy of the
Yakut

The JapaneseIslands

Agriculture andthe OXTHE KAPPA LEGENDFor this reason, it is said that in the ancestral temple of the Ch'i-tan weredepicted the two divine beings and their eight children, and white horses andblue oxen were also used in ceremonies held at the beginning of a war and in
spring and autumn, so that the origin of the Ch'i-tan might not be forgotten.4")
I n this interesting combination of the male ancestor riding a white horse, andthe female going in a carriage drawn by a blue ox, both horse and ox floating
down a river towards each other, we may catch a glimpse of the two cultures,
one of the horse and of northern origin, and the other of the ox and of southern
descent, mingling together while retaining their respective characteristics.
With the Yakut of Turkish origin, who emigrated much further north thanthe Ch'i-tan, a part of their spirits Abasy live in the upper world and the otherpart in the lower one, and horses are sacrificed to the former, horned cattle
to the latter. T h e Abasy also own households and cattle, but those of theupper world only keep horses, while those of the lower only keep horned cattle.
At the same time, the Ajysyt (the goddess of birth) of horses seems to be a
man-spirit, while that of horned cattle is a woman spirit. T o Uriin Ajy
Toyon, the supreme god of the Yakut, only horses are sacrificed and neverhorned cattle.494) This clearly indicates a mixture of the two cultures, andin Central and Northern Asia also, the horse and the ox retain in the sphcreof religion the characteristics peculiar to each, which they have acquired intheir respective cultural milieus.
If we now turn back to the Japanese Islands, while the process and thechronological order of the appearance of the ox and the horse as domesticatedanimals must wait for future researches in Japanese prehistory to be detzrmined, it seems at least possible to establish the fact that the first domesticated animal to become associated wlth agriculture was the ox and not thehorse, as we have done in the case of China.495) With reference to the various
popular ceremonies connected with rice-fields, the first of which is performedon the day of okoto-hajime (the first day of the year in Japan for doing thesethings), the practice of taking oxen and horses used in fields to mountainshrines seems to have been confined at first to oxen, and then spread to horses.
As uses to which horses can be put grew in number, and more hors,-s came tobe taken to mountain shrines, those shrines and temples which held the spring
festival on the day of the horse began to be chosen for the place of pilgrimage.
After the planting of rice-fields, oxen are given rest, but horses are not. Whena calf is born, its footprint is taken on wet paper and stuck at the entrance ofthe farmhouse. This is to indicate that only oxen that have been purified
according to Shinto rites are to be found there, and serves to drive away evil
spirits who might otherwise enter the place to do harm to the calf. T h e ox-493) Liao-shih, 37, Ti-li-chih (=,&),
494) Jochelson, p. 106.
495) Ikata, pp. 360-361, 278, 350.

1.

CHAPTER I1 Oxen and Water-gods

115

has always been regarded as an animal having close associations with water,and on the day of the ox during the dog-days it had to be immersed in water
even if only superficially.496) I n consequence, there are many legends in Divine oxen in theJapan of divine oxen as well as of rhinoceroses and " rhinoceros-dragons " waterin the water already referred to. Beginning with some of the older examples,when the Empress JingQ was passing the sea near Bizen province, a great
ox appeared out of the waves and tried to overturn the ship,497)and when theEmperor o j i n went to hunt in Awaji Island, a being calling itself the " Ox "of Morogata in HyQga came up out of the water wrapped in the skin of a deerwith horns.498) T h e Santd-mindan-shii gives examples of such legends from
Osaka and the provinces of osumi, Tosa, Aki, Kai, Musashi, ShimBsa, Ugo,
Rikuchii e t ~ . ~ $ $A) water-god appears mounted on the back of a river-ox( S h i m B ~ a ) , an
~ ~ox~ ) belonging to a farmer follows an underground stream ofor, as in the legends ofwater and goes about under the earth (Rik~chQ),~Ol)
the kappa trying to lure hcrses into the water, a yellow ox is drawn into thewater by a kappa (Aki),502)and there is even a legend of a water-monster resembling an ox pulling a man i ~ t othe water and drowning him (Kai).503) Examples are also given from all over Japan of such place-names as Ushiga-fuchi (" Ox-pool ") and Ushi-numa (" Ox-marsh "), and examples of
OX and thepeasant customs of praying for rain which consist in throwing the heads of ceremony of prayoxen or great straw figures of oxen into waterfalls, ponds or rivers are to be ing for rainfound in the provinces of Bungo, Harima, Kii, Suruga, Iwashiro etc. At the
Minaochi shrine at Tadasu-no-hara, where the boundaries of the three districts (gun) Nifu, Imatachi, and Nanj6 in Echizen province meet, it is said
that rain will come if a pair of oxen which live in the pond are drawn up, andthere is a custom in time of drought of the men and women of the three districts assembling and dividing themselves into two groups, one pulling at thebull and the other at the cow, the ropes being attached to rocks at the bottomof the pond.504) Of course, we cannot adequately study the significance of
these legends and customs with the material gathered in Japan as our only
Yanagita's detailed study has shown that such festivals as Ushi- ~ h Nakoshi,
festivaldata, but
no-ShBgatsu (" Ox New Year "), Ushi-no-Toshi-koshi (" Passing of the year etc.
of oxen "), Ushi-matsuri (" Ox festival "), Ushi-kagura (" Ox music anddance "), Ushi-maushi (" Ox festival "), Nakoshi-matsuri (" Passing the

m.

496)
497)
498)
499)
500)
501)
502)
503)
504)

Orikuchi, 1930, pp. 1028-1029.
Fudoki, p. 413.
ibid., p. 317.
Yanagita, 1914, p. 53-57 (ed. 1942, pp. 68-73).
ibid., p. 55-56 (p. 71).
ibid., p. 55 (p. 70).
ibid., p. 56 (p. 72).
ibid., p. 57 (p. 73).
Nakayama, pp. 67-68.

116

THE KAPPA LEGEND

summer "), GyQtB (" Ox-lantern ") Ushi-no-Gion (" Ox Gion-festival "),Ushi-no-Yabuiri (" Oxen entering the bush," annual holiday for oxen), Ushikake (" Ox-race ") etc., which for the most part consist in bathing oxen andhorses in a river, or leaving them for a day to roam at will by the side of a river,
either towards the beginning of spring or the end of summer, have at least for
their object the safeguarding of these animals against any evil that might befallthem during the year by placing them under the protection of the watergod,505'and if we compare such facts with the legends and customs to be foundin the southern half of the Eurasian continent which we have been studyingin these chapters, it will become sufficiently clear that the Japanese river-ox
belongs to the same category of ideas as that of agricultural populations ofChina and Southeastern Asia.
The riddle of the
Our long discussions in the foregoing pages have perhaps brought us akafia trying to lure little nearer to the solution of the problem posed by the legend of the kappa
into the water trying to lure horses into the water. At Shifioda in Nagaoka-gun, Tosa province, which is one of the places where the legend is preserved from old times,
horses are brought to the riverside on June 15th of each year and tethered
to stakes by long ropes. This is called the Nomaki (" Grazing in fields "),and on this day a kappa festival is held.506) Near Fukuyama in Bingo province,
it was believed that if oxen and horses were bathed in the sea or in rivers on
July 7th, it made them immune against attacks of the kappa throughout theyear.507) I n some parts of KyQshQ,the kappa are called kazca-no-tono (" lordsof the river "), and in the southern provinces of KyQshQsuch as HyQga andosumi where the kappa are the most venerated, they are called sui-jin (" watergods ").508) One of Mr. Yanagita's outstanding contributions to the etymologyof the Japanese language is the theory advanced by him that such words as
mizushi, which is used for kappa in Kaga and Noto ~rovinces,medochi in Nambu and the Ainu mintsuchi, are all derived from mizuchi, which in its turn isa variation of mizu-tsuchi meaning a divine being in the water and having noconnection originally with the Chinese ideograph & chiao or &LL ch'iu which
~~~
being
)
of the opinion thatis usually rendered into Japanese as m i z u ~ h i ,andthe kappa are water-gods who had degenerated into water-monsters, Mr. Yanagita says at the e n i of his article, " I n this reason, such instances as the kappa
festival in Tosa when horses are tethered to stakes by the waterside may probably be considered as a sort of an old-age pension paid to the mixuchi, andsuch place-names as Senzoku-no-ike (" Feet-washiilg pond ") and Umaarai-buchi (" Horse-washing pool "), as well as the name Koma-tsunagi-no505) Yanagita, 1914, pp. 84-85 (ed. 1942, pp. 107-108).
ibid., p. 86 ( 1 10).
ibid., p. 86 (p. 110).
ibid., p. 43 (p. 54), p. 81 (p. 104).
ibid., pp. 90-91 (p. 1 16).

906)
507)
508)
509)

CHAPTER I11 Monkeys and Water-gcds

117

matsu (" Horse-tethering pine "), given to certain pine trees in all parts of ourcountry and the reason for which has so far remained unknown, are most likely
the relics of yearly rites held in ancient times at which horses were offered to
the water-god, and which in course of time came to be regarded by the agricultural population simply as a means of safeguarding their horses from evil
throughout the year, the origin of the practice becoming completely forgotten.
The custom, however, of offering the heads of oxen and horses to the watergod to pray for rain was long preserved."510) I t may be difficult to find actual
instances in Japan of oxen and horses being offered yearly to the water-god,
but if we take into consideration the legends and customs in all parts of theEurasian continent discussed in these pages, it becomes no longer possible
to question Mr. Yanagita's conclusion that such Japanese customs as the
Nakoshi-matsuri and Ushi-no-yabuiri, or indeed the Japanese legend of the
kappa trying to lure horses into the water, have their origin in the sacrificeof oxen and horses to the water-god in remote ages.

CHAPTER I11
Monkeys and Water-gods
Much has been done to clear up obscurities in connection with theidentity of the kappa in the foregoing chapters, but a large number of questions still remain to be settled.
I n EtchQ province, the kappa are called game (<kame, tortoise), and there Tortoises andare many regions where they are conceived of under a form resembling that s11apping turtlesof tortoises.511) I n the same way, in Mino province, the kawarambe (kappa)
are thought to be creatures that are rather like the dochi (snapping turtle),
and are in consequence called dochi-robe in some parts of the province.512)
Sketches of kappa said to have been captured at Niigata in Echigo province,
and at Mito in Hitachi (Fig. I), show them to be monsters which crawl a b o ~ ton all fours, and resembling tortoises or snapping-turtles.513) This idea ofwater-spirits and river-gods having the form of tortoises aid snapping-turtles
is a world-wide one, which we find in places as far removed from each otheras Mongolia and Egypt,514)and the legend given in the Sou-shhchi of theprince Ching-kung of Ch'i crossing a river has something in common
with the Japanese one of the kappa trying to lure horses into the water. I n
510)
5 11)
512)
513)
514)

ibid., p. 92 (pp. 117-118).
Kqbpa-zokuden, p. 97 1.
ibid., p. 976.
Yanagita, 1914, pp. 38, 40 (ed. 1942, pp. 49, 50).
Minakata, 1916, p. 75.

118

Otters

Boy water-gods

THE KAPPA LEGEND

this legend a great snapping-turtle appears out of the river and bites the left
horse of the three drawing Ching-kung's chariot, causing the hor;e to sirlli
into the water, and Ku-chih-tzu (&.gT)
draws his sword and kills the snappingturtle, crying in a loud voice to heaven., whereupon the river begins to flow
backwards.515) According to the Pao-p'u-txzi also, the snapping-turtle casts
a spell on men and makes themI n the dialect of Saga prefecture, the kappa is called kazcasso, and thisseems to be derived from kawauso, meaning otters.j17) Similarly, with thetypical legend from Nishikawazu in Izumo province of a kappa trying to lurea horse into the water, and on its failing to do so, giving a written apology
to the owner of the horse, the kappa or enk6 which is given as the culprit in the
Unydshi becomes an otter in the modern version,51s)and in the district round
RyBtsu in Sado, the inhabitants believe that a kind of otter living in thesea known 2s umi-kaburo often deceives people and makes them lose theirlives.519) T h e belief that otters are powerfill water-spirits is another thatis distributed over a wiclc: ~ r e a as
, we may see from examples of Korean andAnnamese legends concerning such otters given in Chapter I.jZ0)
Thirdly, the idea that the kappa, as the Chinese ideographs ,ng indicate,are shaped like little boys is to be found everywhere in Japan, and the names
given thein in different regions, beginning with the most general one of kcppa
derived from kazca-ecappa (river-boy), and comprising such widely varying
examples as the kaecarambe or kaet.akoz6 of O a a r i province and the valleyof the River Tenryii, the kazca-kob6shi and kaei!ara-koxd of Ise, kazca-zcard
of Chikuzen, gdrappa of Higo, gazcara and gazcaro of Hyiiga, kamurd of
the Okinawan Islands, and, to give another set of examples, the kau-ko, kazcak6, gau-ko, or gon-go of Bizen and BitchQ, derived from the same source as
the kaeca-ko (river-child) of Izumo province, the ga-tar6 of Harima, which
belongs to the same group as the kazca-tar6 (river-boy) used in provinces round
KyBto and in some of the pr,~vincesin KyilshQ, all express the same idea.521)
There are numerous legends and folk-tales in Japan of a spirit-child appearingout of the water and doing some good to mankind, such as the myth of thelittle god Snkuna-hiko-na-gami, and well known Japanese folk-tales suchas that of Uriko-hime, of >lorno-tar6, and others preserved in remote villages
like the story of Kabu-!;ire-warashi of the 6 u region and Hana-tare-kozBsama of Higo. T h e theme of these stories, taken up in connection with the
5 15)
516)
517)
518)
519)
520)
521)

Sou-~hln-chi, 11.
Pao-F'u-tzu, Nei-p'ien
17, T'&ng-sh&(@@).
Yanagita, 1914, p. 43 (ed. 1942, p. 55).
ibid., pp. 28-29 (ed. 1942, pp. 36-37).
ibid., p. 43 (ed. 1942, p. 55).
Cf. notes 83, 84, pp. 18-19.
Yanagita, 1914, pp. 41, 39 (ed. 1942, pp. 52-53, 50) ; Kaj,ha-<okuden, pp. 971-972, 976,
977.

(a$$$),

CHAPTER I11

Monkeys and Water-gods

119question of the chiisa-ko (little child) type of legends and the more general
one of mother-and-son deities, is the subject of a new interpretation by Mr.
Yanagita of a truly international significance, and which is probably the mostsuggestive and the richest in original ideas, and most capable of being developed indefinitely in the field of comparative ethnological research, thathas been put forward by him in his studies of Japanese folklore.522) Of course,
it is beyond the scope of the present essay to venture into an examination of
the problem involved, and leaving this for some future 0ccasion,6~3)we shallcontent ourselves with saying that in Mr. Yanagita's opinion, the Japanese
kappa is no other than a degenerate survival of these spirit-children and childgods of the water-world. The RyQgQ-kozB (" Dragon Palace Boy ") who is
supposed to have appeared out of the great pond of Kurumeki in Inasa-gun,
TBtBmi province, and helped a farmer to till his field, has something incommon with the chiisa-ko whom a beautiful woman of the water-world gave
to an old man who was cutting wood, and the Nyoi-dBji whoin Tawara TBda
brought back from the Dragon Palace underneath the sea, and similar legendsof kappa helping man which exist in connection with ponds called KozB-gafilchi (" Little boy's pond ") all over Japan prove that this RyQgQ-kozB ishimself kappa and nothing else.524) Legends of divine boys coming downfrom heaven and alighting by some piece of water, and water-gods manifesting
their divine nature in their childhood, are found widely distributed from
Korea to China,525)and we also find in China water-monsters having the formof little boys which remind us of the kappa. T h e zcang-liang
which The wang-liang
is defined as a water-god in commentaries on the Tso-chuan and the Huain a n - t ~ i i is
~ ~described~)by Huai-nan-wang as having " .the form of a childaged three, of a reddish-black colour, with red eyes, long ears, and beautiful hair."527) I n the Pkn-ts'ao-kang-mu, there is the following description(mm)--- --

...--

-- .

Cf. Kaijin-sh6d6 (S$$I/J\~:" Boy Sea-gods "), Momo-tar6 no tanj6 (" The Birth of Alomotar6 "), Tanishi no ch6ja (Mg0E-B" The Rich River-snail "), Liriko Orihime ( A m @" Uriko,
the Weaver Princess ")-The
above contained in Yanagita, 1942 a ; Raishinshink6 no hensen (~$+@lql0&"3
Metamorphoses of Thunder-god Worship ") ; Matsuo^ke-i no monogatari (EE@Bo)!&~~" T h e Story of Matsu6-kenji "), Ulsubo-bune no hanashi( 5 ulyfi0-3'' The Story of the Utsubo-boat ")-contained in Yanagita, 1940 ; Issun-b&hidan" The Mannikin ")-containedin Yanagita, 1946 ; Ulsubo-bun? no C?jo ( 5ulyfi~zk" The Princess in the Utsubo-boat ")-containedin Yanagita, 1938; Sum+aki
Kogor6 ga koto m/J\.~&[j&:zg" Kogor6, the Charcoal-burner ")contained in Yanagita,
1925; Yanagita, 1520; Yanagita, 1928.
523) An outline of the author's own study of these problems is given in Ishida, 1948 a.
524) Yanagita, 1942 a, pp. 11 1 ff.
525) Mishina, pp. 159-163 ; Shu-i-chi, 1 ; Huang Chih-kang, p. 101, etc.
526) Ch'un-rh'iu Tso-~hih-chuan, 3rd year of Hsiian-kung, commentary by T u ; Huai-nun-tzir, 12,
Taoying-hj iin.
527) We read in the Shuo-wtn that: " The wang-liang are spirits of mountains and rivers. Huainan-wang says that the wang-hang have the appearance of children three years old, etc."

522)(---if-:&g$s

120
The shui-hu

THE KAPPA LEGENDof the shui-hu ( 7 k B "water-tiger "): " According to the Hsiang-mien-chi(s~&tz),there is a river called the Su-shui ($$!&) in Chung-lu-hsien (+which flows into the river Mien-shui (3iF;;k).
In this river Su-shui
is a being shaped like a child of three or five years of age, its body covered
with scales like those of a carp which no arrow may pierce. This being
appears on the sands and suns itself in autumn. Its knees resemble theclaws of tigers. I t often hides in the water with only its knees showing, andwhen children begin playing with them, it bites them. If one captures it
alive and plucks its nose, it may be made to work for a short while. This
being is called s h ~ i - h u . " ~ ~ ~ )The name shui-hu was imported into Japan and became another name forthe kappa. According to Mr. Chou Tso-j&n(FFfJj$A),there is also a legend in
his native town Shao-hsing
in Chekiang province about a water-spirit
in the form of a child called ho-shui-kuei (N7k,% " river-water demon ' 7 5 2 9 )T h e following passage also occurs in the K6-Yamato-Honz6 of Naomi Ryti,a Japanese work published in 1755, under the heading, " Sui-un (7&$.&, Chin.
shui-yiin), called in Japanese kazcaro or gazca-taro"," a passage which is givenin the work as being a quotation from the Chinese Yu-ming-lu:" The shui-yiin is also known as yun-t'ung (@a%$)and shui-ching (&$8
' water-spirit '). Its height is from 3 to 6 ch'ih, varying according to specimens. I t has ears, nose, tongue and lips, and a bowl on its head capableof holding from 3 to 5 shtng [pint] of water. I t is full of courage so long as
there is water in the bowl, but loses its fierceness if the water is spilled. T h e
Mongols call it s h u i - h ~ . " ~ ~ ~ )Mr. Okada Tatebumi, probably quoting from the K6-Yamato-Honzo",
gives this passage in his work, D6butsukai Ry6-i-shi, published in 1927, as
occurring in the Yu-ming-lz~,and points out the marked resemblance between
the shui-yiin and the kappa,531)and now Mr. Chou Tso-j&nquotes the passage
from Mr. Okada's work in one of his essays and compares the ho-shui-kueiof his birthplace with the Japanese kappa and the shui-yiin in the YZL-nzingl ~ . T~h e ~present~ ) writer has not been able to trace the particular passage
in the Yu-ming-lu of Liu I-ch'ing of the Sung dynasty, but if the author of
the K6-Yamato-HonzG really saw it in some different text of the Yu-min'q-h
imported from China into Japan, the description of the shui-yiin as having abowl on its head capable of holding from 3 to 5 pints of water, and its beinga%)

The ho-shui-kuei(@a)

The shuzyun

Bowl on the head

528)
529)
530)
531)

Pin-tc'ao-kang-mu, 42.
Chou Tso-jen, p. 218.
K6-Tamato-Honz6, 10.
Okada, pp. 41-42. Mr. Komiya Toyotaka quotes this passage from the KG-YamatoHonzB and expresses the opinion that there is perhaps an unknown text of the Tu-ming-lu in
which it occurs.-Komiya,
pp. 257-258.
532) Chou Tso-jtn, p. 218.

CHAPTER 111 Monkeys and Water-gods

121

full of courage so long as there is water in the bowl, only becoming dispi1-ited
when the water is spilled, and another passage which the author claims to bea quotation from the Hsiang-mien-tsa-chi: " Then the scales on its head
become rent and it loses its courage. T h e natives call it shui-hu . . . This is
the same as the s h ~ i - y i i n , " ~are~ ~SO) many proofs that the same sort of popularbelief as that of the Japanese kappa having a bowl on its head existed also in
China, and the words, " T h e Mongols call it shui-ching," furnish us withfurther interesting material for study in comparative ethnology. But if thisJapanese writer of the Tokugawa period had purposely added to or transformed
the original texts, in giving reins to his imagination stirred by memories of
the Japanese kappa, then, since there is the example of a great Chinese scholar
being taken in by such a piece of Japanese literary pleasantry, we are facedwith a problem of a completely different order of interest. This shows how
important it is to give all material a thorough sifting before deciding on its
authenticity, and we propose to wait far the results of further research before
expressing an opinion on this particular problem.
Lastly, we should like to take u p the question of the relationship between Monkeys
the kappa and monkeys. The area in which the kappa are called
enko or enk6 stretches from Izumo, Iwami, SuhB, Nagato and otherprovinces in the western part of ChQgoku district to the provincesof Iyo, Tosa etc. in S l ~ i k o k u , and~ ~ ~the) Chinese ideographs i&E (en-KG,
monkey) are used for the word in the UnyJshi mentioned ab0ve.5~5) Manyof the people in KyQshQ also who report that they saw kappa say that they
resembled monkeys in size and form, and even in their
There arealso many instances of water-monsters which would certainly be consideredas kappa at the present day being called kaeca-zaru (" river-monkey ") or
fuchi-zaru (" deep water monkey ") in documents of the Tokugawa period.537'
For instance, we read that in TBtBmi, wherever the kaeca-zaru made theirappearance horses died out, and that when Ara GenzaburG, a retainer of the
MBri clan, dived to the bottom of the Kama-ga-fuchi, a deep part in a rivernear Yoshida in Aki province, to chastise a fuchi-zaru that lived there and didharm to men and beasts, he first caught hold of the monster's neck and shookit, and when the water contained in a hollow on its head was spilled, Ara wasable to capture the monster without any further difficulty.538) Place-names
like Saru-ga-fuchi (" Monkey Deep ") and EnkB-fuchi (" Deep of monkeys ")are to be found all over Japan, and eight such examples from Iwami, Tosa,
533)
534)
535)
536)
537)
538)

K6-Yamato-Honz6, 10.
Yanagita, 1914, p. 48 (ed. 1942, p. 61).
ibid., pp. 28-29 (ed. 1942, p. 36).
ibid., p. 48 (ed. 1942, p. 61).
ibid., p. 49 (ed. 1942, p. 62-63).
ibid., pp. 49-50 (ed. 1942, p. 63).

122

T H E KAPPA LEGEND

Shimozuke, Musashi, Echizen and Mimasaka are given in the Santd-mind ~ n - s h z i . ~The~ ~ ) Saru-sawa-no-ike (" Monkey Pond ") in Yamato, SaruMonkeys by the
be-no-fuchi (" Monkey Deep ") in Wakasa, and Saru-ga-fuchi in Mimasaka
waterside
all have legends connected with them that have to do with water andmonkeys.540) T h e story of the monkeys of Saru-sawa-no-ike joining theirhands together and trying to catch the moon reflected in the pond from abranch of a tree, and all of them drowning in the attempt, is an instance ofstories in Buddhist texts being imported into Japan and preserved in the formof legends connected with the place-names of the country,541)but there is alsoa belief that the monkeys, u h o are the messengers of the god of the Hiyoshi
shrine, alight by the shores of Lake Biwa and examine the water, and when
it is at its purest, inform the god of the fact, so that the purification ceremonies may be performed. This idea led subsequently to the appearance ofmonkeys in ceremonies held for praising the garden of a house, with the object
mainly of extolling the quality cf the water found within the prerni~es.54~)
These facts leave no room for doubt that inonkeys which are mimals having
a natural relationship with water, and usually found living near it, plzyed
an important part in the formation of the kappa legend by being made totransfer their abode from the waterside into the water itself in the course ofages, in the imagination of men.
Monkeys are conOn the other hand, the idea also exists that monlceys are the enemies ofsidered as thethe kappa. The kappa are supposed to lose their power of movement on
enemies of the kalpa
seeing a monkey, and monkeys are believed to do anything to capture a kappa
when they see one, so that jugglers w!lo live by making monkeys do tricks are
said to cover the faces of monkeys in their keeping as a precaution when they
are crossing rivers.jU) The people of Edo also seem to have had the idea thatkeeping monkeys is an effective means of safeguarding oneself from the inischief
When a favourite page of Kat8 Kiyomasa was pdled
wrought by the
into the River Yatsilshiro by the kappa and drowned, the warrior chief madeplans for an expedition against the kappa and collected together an army ofmonkeys in his domains. This terrified the kappa, and Kusen-b8, t h e ~ h i e fof the nine thousand kappa, asked a Buddhist priest to act as intermediary,and by swearing never to do harm again to human beings, barely managed toappease the angry
But since we are concerned with popular beliefs, the enmity between the kappa and monkeys by no means preclude the
539)
540)
541)
542)
5433
544)
545)

zbid., p. 50 (ed. 1942, p. 64).
zbid., p. 51 (rd. 1942, p. 65).
Schiefner and Ralston, p. 353 (Kah-fyur, I\', f 249)
Orikuchi, 1930, p. 1030.
Yanagita, 1914, p. 48 (ed. 1942, p. 61).
ibid., p. 49 (ed. 1942, p. 62).
ibid., p. 48 (ed. 1942, pp. 61-62).

CHAPTER I11

Monkeys a n d Water-gods

123

possibility of union between these two. Sacred oxen sacrificed to water-gods
are identical with these water-gods, and chiao-dragons which pull horses into
the water become dragon-horses themselves. The superiority enjoyed bymonkeys in their fights against the kappa recorded in old documents is only
a proof of the ideological identity of these two sorts of creatures.
The question next arises, whether we may not find instances of a similar
relationship existing between monkeys and water-spirits in the folklore ofnations adjacent to Japan. So far, the present writer has only been able tofind one such an example in Chinese folklore.
" Well of Chih-ch'i ") The water-monster
There is 2 well called Chih-ch'i-chingin Hsii-i-hsien (HfleR)in the northeastern part of Anhui province. About WU Chih'ch'i
this well, the following passage occurs in the Anhui-t'ung-chih: " The well
Chih-ch'i-ching is also called Sheng-mu-ching (Ss* "Well of the Holyin the northMother "). I t is behind the temple Kuei-shan-ssu
eastern part of Hsu-i-hsien, and the great Yu imprisoned a water-god in thiswell. The well is covered by a pavilion built over it."546) This well in which
Yu imprisoned a water-god is worthy of consideration. Li Chao of the T'ang
dynasty says in his Kuo-shih-pu, quoting from the Shan-hai-ching, that, "Awater-beast caused much mischief and Yu chained it. The beast was called
Wu Chih-ch'i," and T'ao Tsung-i of the Ming dynasty, also quoting
from the Shan-hai-ching, says in his Cho-k&ng-lu that, " A water-beastcaused much mischief, and Yu chained it under the mountain Chun-shan(ph).The beast was called Wu Chih-~h'i."~~')These particular passages
cannot be found in the text now extant of the Shan-hai-ching, but a legendof Yu chaining up a water-beast would seem from these quotations tohave been included from a period of considerable antiquity in tales of his
successful struggle to control the rivers. But what is of even greaterinterest to us is the fact that since about the time of the T'ang dynasty,
legends came to be told in which this water-beast chained up by Yii appears
in a form resembling that of a monkey. The T'ai-ping-kuang-chi gives
one such legend as occurring in the Jung-mu-~hien-t'an.~~~)In A.D. 798 Li Kung-tso (Tag)of Kansu set out on a boat on the rivers
Hsiao-shui (B7R) and Hsiang-shui (@7Jc) in Honan province. On this trip he
met by chance Yang HCng (@&), who was engaged in a military expedition to
the south, and the two went ashore and lodged
in a Buddhist temple, where,
as they watched the moon rise over the river, Yang told Li the following
story: " During the Ydng-t'ai (&@) era, Li T'ang ( S E )was governor ofCh'u-chou (g$H).
About this time, there was a fisherman who went onenight to fish at the foot of the mountain Kuei-shan (&r[l), and his hook caught

(z@b#

546)
547)
548)

Anhui-t'ung-chih, 33, Yii-ti-chih
Huang Chih-kang, p. 168.
T'ai-ping-kuanz-chi, 467.

(m,&),
Shan-ch'uan (WJII); Huang Chih-kang, p. 168.

124

THE KAPPA LEGENDon something in the water and would not come up. He was a good diver,and so he went down into the water swiftly to a depth of 50 chang (500 ch'ih),and there saw a great iron chain encircling the base of the mountain. He
tried to find the end of the chain, but could not, and he informed Li T'angof the matter. T'ang ordered fifty or sixty fishermen and others who could
swim well to pull up the chain, but they were not able to, and so above fifty
oxen were collected together to lend them aid. Then the chain shook, andbegan to give way, and although it was quite calm at the time, great waves
rose u p and astonished the bystanders . . . Upon this, there appeared at theend of the chain a creature shaped like a monkey with a white head, long mane,snowy white fangs and golden claws, and it leaped up on the shore. Its height
was about 5 chang, and the way it crouched resembled a monkey. But its
eyes were closed, and not moving at all, it looked as though it was blind.
Water ran down from its eyes and nose like a stream, and the slaver from its
mouth was foul and evil-smelling, so that no one could venture near the creature. After a long while, it stretched its neck and yawned, and then suddenly
opened both its eyes. They shone like lightning, and looking round at thepeople gathered about, it showed signs of rising up in great rage. All who
were there fled, and the beast, slou~lydragging the chain and the oxen attached toit, entered the water and was never seen again. There were many men ofnote in Ch'u there, and they were all as terrified as T'ang, looking at each otherin perplexity, and not knowing what to do with such a creature. Since then,fishermen sometimes saw the place where the chain was, but no one ever
saw the beast again."In the spring of A.D. 813 Li Kung-tso visited what used to be thethekingdom of Eastern Wu, and going with Yiian Kung-hsi
governor of the region, on a boat on the Lake Tung-t'ing, he climbed themountain Pao-shan (&b)and stayed at the cell of a Taoist sage, Chou Chiaochiin (Hgs).The two went into a sacred grotto to look for writings of thesages, and obtained-the 8th book of an early text of the Yiieh-tu-ching ($$.@@),
but the ideographs being of a strange, antiquated form, and the sequence
not being clear on account of the material on which they were written being
much damaged by insects, they had great difficulties in deciphering the text.
Finally, they managed to do so, and they came upon the following passage inthe book :" Yii went three times to the mountain T'ung-pai-shan (@j$Qh)
to regulate the course of rivers. But each time a great wind rose, thunder came,and the rocks echoed and the trees groaned. The spirit of the earth watchedjealously over the rivers, that of the heavens sent forth his armies, and nothing
could be done. Yii grew angry, and summoned Kuei-lung (@%), whereupon
the spirits of T'ung-pai-shan and other mountains bent down their heads
before him and placed themselves at his orders. So Yu made Hung MCng-(%a@,),

CHAPTER I11

Monkeys and Water-gods

125

shih ( % B E ) , Chang Shang-shih (@j%jE),
Tou Lu-shih (%BE),
Li Loushih ( S S E ) capture the god of the Rivers Huai and Wo, who was named
Wu Chih-ch'i. This god was eloquent in conversation, and knew all the deeps
and shallows of the rivers Yangtsekiang and Huai-ho, and the situationof fields and marshes. He was shaped like a monkey, had a flat nose and ahigh forehead, a green body, white head, golden eyes and snowy white fangs.
His neck, when stretched, was a hundred ch'ih long, his strength exceededthat of nine elephants, and he was so agile and swift in his movements that it
was difficult to have him within sight and hearing for any length of time. Yii
turned him over to T'ung Lii
who was not able to master him, then to
Wu Mu-yu (,%$&), who was not able to master him either, and then to
KCng Ch'Cn
who mastered him. The god had been surrounded by
Huan-hoand other spirits of trees, rivers,
the spirits Ch'i-p'i (&4N),
mountains and stones for thousands of years, but KCng Ch'Cn drove them
all away, passed a great rope round the neck of the god, bored a hole in his
nose to hang a golden bell, and led him to the foot of the mountain Kuei-shanof the southern side of the River Huai. Ever since that time, the river has
flowed in peace to the sea."
What Li T'ang saw, and Yang HCng told to Li Kung-tso, therefore coincides
with what is written in the Yiieh-tu-ching, and so the water-monster withthe shape of a monkey, which dragged into the water fifty oxen during the reignof the T'ang dynasty, is supposed to be the same as the water-god Wu Chihch'i whom Yu caused to be chained up at the foot of Mount Kuei. This
legend is still preserved in the district round Hsu-i-hsien in Anhui province,
where the River Huai flows into the lake Hung-tsC-hu (#@a),and fishermen
even today are said sometimes to catch a glimpse of the chain attached to themonster at the bottom of the river.549) The legend of the golden ox in thewater attached to a golden chain given in the last chapter may also have something in common with this other legend as to its source.
The legend of Wu Chih-ch'i, the water-god shaped like a monkey, who Sung Wu-k'ung
was put in chains at the foot of Mount Kuei, may have been the prototype ofthe story in the Hsi-yu-chi, which was written much later, of the Buddha imprisoning the monkey hero Sung Wu-k'ung under the mountain Wu-hsingshan (sfih),and placing on the top of the mountain magic words written
in golden characters to bind the monkey,550)but since Sung Wu-k'ung, a stonemonkey come to life, is said to have dived into the water and explored thegrotto Shui-lien-tung (7Rg.m) in the mountain Hua-kuo-shan (SXh),andmaking himself king of the monkeys, spent his mornings on Hua-kuo-shan
and his evenings in Shui-lien-tung, passing in this way 300 years, we can say

(Se),

(m),

549) DorC, vol. 10, p. 103.
550) Hsi-yu-chi, 7 and 17.

(&a)

126

Monkeys, horses
and the kappa

THE KAPPA LEGEND

that he himself has a close relationship with water.551) As we have alreadypointed out before, the actual fact of monkeys having the habit of living in
numbers near the water was probably an element in the formation of the ideasebut since such examples areof the monkey-like kappa o f ~ a ~ a n e folklore,
only found rarely among the peoples of countries adjacent to Japan, it would
be premature to assume a direct relationship between the Japanese kappa
and the Chinese Wu Chih-ch'i. Such being the case, we should try and see
if there are not other more cogent factors which could have brought the kappa
and monkeys together, and it was Mr. Yanagita who, by looking towards thehorse and demonstrating the close relationship existing between this animal
and the kappa, and at the same time clearly showing the ties which boundhorses to monkeys (Cf. Fig. 13, 14, 15, 17), gave the final answer to the problem in his theory concerning the legend of the kappa trying to lure horses
into the water. His studies of such questions as monkeys kept in stables,
jugglers who employ monkeys, komahiki-sen or fancy coins bearing effigies ofmonkeys leading horses (Fig. 16), and the origin of the Japanese No"-farce
Utsubo-zaru (" Monkey's skin for decorating quivers "), are among the mostbrilliant contained in his Sant6-mindan-sh6, and leaving to his learned pen
all such problems connected with Japanese folklore, we propose to consider thequestion before us from the broader standpoint of comparative ethnology.
T h e ideological association of monkeys with horses is not found distributed
all over the world as in the case of the relationship between oxen and horses
and water-gods which we have studied in the last two chapters. As far as
the present writer is aware, it is confined more or less to regions in East Asia
covering Japan, China and India. Moreover, from the zoological distributionof monkeys, and the position occupied by them in the religious life of peoples,
it is more than probable that the origin of the idea is to be sought for in India,
where monkeys are found in greatest number, and which country has always
formed the centre of the religious worship of monkeys. I n fact, to give thebeliefs, tabus, magical practices and legends concerning monkeys containedin the mythology and folklore of this country would be enough to fill a volume
by itself.
T h e god Visnu of the Rgveda taking the form of kapi ("monkey ")or VrsZkapi (" Pluvial monkey ") was beheaded by Indra, and the word
Hari which is commonly used for this god not only means a monkey at thesame time,552)but in the Mahcbhcrata, it is also the name of the parent of horses
and monkeys.553) I n fact, one of the ten great incarnations of Visnu is Kalki(" White Horse "), and it is said that the Hindus expect him to appear one day
mounted on a white horse, and holding in his hand a shining sword to restore
551) ibid., 1.
552) Rgveda Sanhitd, X , 86, 5 : Wilson (tr.), vol. 6, p. 233; Gubernatis, vol. 2, pp. 99- 100.
553) Mahdbhirata, ch. L X V , 65: Dutt (tr.), vol. 1, p. 94.

CHAPTER I11

Monkeys and Water-gods

127

But in a Buddhist sdtra translated into
the world to its originalof the T'ang dynasty, directions are given for
Chinese by Pu-k'ung (6%)
painting the image of Hayagriva (" horse-headed ") VidyZrZja, the Buddhist
version of the god Visnu, in which occur the words, " T o paint the Hayagriva
VidyZrZja, his body must be the colour of fire, and he must look as thoughangered, with a nose shaped like that of monkeys etc." Although the original
Sanskrit sfitra has been lost, the translation provides us with one more evidenceof the antiquity of the relationship between horses and monkeys.555)
Gandharvas, who are regarded by some scholars as the equivalent of the Gandharvas
Greek Centaur, and whose appearance in Indian mythology date from theage of the Vedas, are semi-divine beings who are the mllsicians of the heavenly
world, preside over marriage, are fond of women, extremely jealous of theirwives, the water-spirits called Apsarases, and guard with miserly care themedicinal herbs and the drink of the gods, soma, which is found in the water.
But these characteristics have much in common with those of the ass in Indian
mythology, and a comparison with the Avesta is said to prove the identityof Gandharvas with the ass.556) At the same time, the monkey often takes
the place of the ass in Indian mythology, and Gandharvas also were sometimes
represented as monkeys.557) Moreover, these Gandharvas, who were so
closely associated with the water-world, are said to have driven the horses ofthe sun, and there was even a tribe of low caste people called Gandharvas
who sold incense and juggled, and went about dancing and making horses
and monkeys perform tricks, begging money of the people. T h e beauty of theirwomen is often said to have attracted the attention of the nobility.558)
Mr. Minakata Kumakusu says in reference to them that " T h e tribe ofGandharvas in ancient times, when begging their living by exhibiting incenseetc., often made horses dance, and it is probably for this reason that theirpatron god was given the form of a horse a n d . . . made the god of incense,music and marriage. T h e wives of such low class people often assist at
marriages in India and elsewhere even today, and the genitals of horses andasses being conspicuously exposed, they have been commonly chosen as
symbols of marital harmony and of propagation," and concerning the close
relationship between horses and monkeys he says also," This is probably a relic of low caste people like the Gandharvas, who
made horses and monkeys perform tricks, keeping these two sorts of animals
554)
555)

Edwardes and Spence, pp. 186-187.
Taish6-26ky6, vol. 19, no. 950, p. 199 a : cf. Nanj6 Catalogue, no. 1024. In a different
Chinese version of the same szitra translated by Bodhiruci (Nanj6 Catalogue, no. 532), however, these words " with a nose shaped like that of monkeys " do not occur.-ibid., no. 951,
p. 231 a.
556) Gubernatis, vol 1, pp. 53, 369, 370; 365-366, 379.
557) ibid., pp. 368, 382.
558) Minakata, 1918, p. 193.

128

Monkeys kept instablesMonkeys used tocure horses

THE KAPP-4 LEGENDin the same place for the sake of convenience."559)
T h e custom of keeping monkeys in stables to protect horses is still practisedin Northern India today, and an old proverb says, " The evil of the stable ison the monkey's head."560) T h e earliest material for the study of this custom
seems also to date back to the age of the compilation of the Buddhist sdtras,
and in the Parrot Jcitaka in the Ma-ho-stng-chih-lii (@~iij#f$@j&) translated
into Chinese by Fa-hsien (&@) and others under the Eastern Chin dynasty,
although in this case also, the original Sanskrit text has been lost, there is apassage which relates how a king once became very much attached to a babymonkey presented to him by one of his ministers, and how, although it had abeautiful fur and jumped and gambolled about while it was young, and waspetted by all, the fur became ragged as it grew up, so that no one liked it any
longer to look at it, and it learned to prick u p its ears and stretch its mouth
to frighten the children, and in the end the king tired of it, and commanded
it to be tied to one of the pillars in the stable.561)
I n one of the versions of Panchatantra, there is the following story of
how monkeys were used to cure horses that had been badly burned:
Once in ancient times, King Chandra kept a herd of monkeys for theamusement of the princes his children. T h e king of the herd was a wisemonkey, and seeing a ram enter the kitchen from time to time and annoy thecook, foresaw that one day, the cook would throw a burning brand at the ram,from which its wool would catch fire, and the ram running into the stable
would set fire to it, the horses become burnt, and all the monkeys be killed
to cure the horses' burns. He warned the other monkeys of the event, butthey would not listen to him, and so he went away by himself into the woods.
T h e event took place just as he had predicted, and the king summoned surgeons
who were well versed in the works of Szlihotra, the veterinary surgeon, andordered them to attend to the horses. They answered, " Just as the suncomes out and scatters the darkness, so all maladies of horses caused byburns are made to disappear by using the marrow of monkeys. These were
the words of our master, Siilihotra. We beg thee therefore that this remedy
be employed immediately, before the horses die." The king at once ordered
the monkeys kept for the princes to be killed, and hearing of this, the kingof the monkeys who had escaped to the woods entered into a league with a
Rzksasa that lived in a pond, and luring the king and his suite to the place,caused them all to be devoured by the R z k ~ a s a . ~ ~ ~ )There is a similar story told of Kuo P'o of the Chin dynasty, who
lived just about the time of the compilation of the Panchatantra, who
559)
560)
561)
562)

ibid., pp. 193, 196.
Crooke, vol. 2, p. 49.
Taish&~o^kyo^,vol. 22, no. 1425, p. 258 b, c.
Panchatantra, bk. V. no. 10: Benfey (tr.), 2. Theil, S. 346-352, esp. 348-349.

CHAPTEk I11 Monkeys and Water-gods

129

caused a dead horse to be resuscitated by means of a monkey. Chao Ku (BE),a general of the Eastern Chin dynasty, ig grieving over the death of his favourite
horse, when the Taoist Kuo P'o arrives and instructs him as follows:" Let twenty or thirty of your sturdiest men, each carrying a bamboo
pole, go eastward from here for thirty li, and there they will come to a hillcovered with trees in the likeness of a temple grove. When they have arrived
there, let them beat about the wood with their bamboo poles; and they shallobtain a creature which let them bring home quickly. If they succeed in
capturing this creature, the horse will at once be brought back to life. Hearing
this, fifty of the general's bravest men set out, and came to a great wooded
hill just as P'o had said, and a creature that looked like a monkey, but was
not one, ran out of the trees. The men ran after it and caught it, and brought
it back hugging it. The creature saw the dead horse from afar and struggled
to get near it, and P'o ordered the men to let it go. The creature at once ran
towards the head of the horse, and breathed into its nose, and after a while
the horse rose up and began to gallop about. The creature had disappeared,
and Chao Ku richly rewarded Kuo P ' O . " ~ ~ ~ )But the custom of keeping monkeys in stables makes its appearance Monkeys are goodin Chinese documents much later than this. According to the I-chien-chih for horses
written by Hung Mai of the Sung dynasty, Meng Kuang-wei (=%),
who went as governor to Wu-ling (E@)
in Hupei province in the 8th yearof the Ch&ng-ho ( W a ) era (A.D. 1118) during the reign of the Emperor
Hui-tsung of the Sung dynasty, was a great lover of horses, and always kept
monkeys in his stable. It seems to have been said at the time that monkeys
and horses were naturally inclined towards each other.564) I t is also said thata man obtained an ugly monkey about 2 ch'ih high in I-ling (%@), I-ch'anghsien (BE%), in Hupei province, and brought it home and kept it in his
stable, and when next year the monkey died, the horses died also.565) Thereinis another story of the Sung dynasty of one Wang, who lived in Yin
Chekiang province, and being a horse-dealer, kept a monkey. I t is said that
his wife lay asleep one summer afternoon overcome with wine, and the monkey
ravished her, from which union were born two children.566) To give one or
two more examples from the writings of the Ming dynasty, we read in the
Wu-tsa-tsu: " A man living in the capital kept a monkey in his stable, andthe monkey would jump up on the horse's back wherever it had the chance
to, and never tire of teasing the horse, plaiting its mane and clinging to its
neck. The horse never seemed to mind this at all. One day, the monkey wason the horse's back, and the horse becoming excited, broke loose from its(s)563) Sou-shtn-hou-chi, pt. 2 ; Sou-shtn-chi, 3 ; Chin-shu, 72, Kuo P'o-chuan.
564) I-chien-chih, Hsin (+),pt. 1.
565) ibid., Ting (T),pt. 9.
566) Chien-hu-chi, Jen (s),
4.

130

T H E KAPPA LEGEND

halter, and rushed out with the monkey on its back. T h e monkey seemed to
be enjoying all this extremely. T h e horse was passing under a beam, when
it suddenly reared, and the monkey was hit by the beam and its head smashed,
and it fell down dead. Those who were watching were astonished by this."567)
I n the Ch'ien-ch'iieh-chii-lei-shu edited by Ch'Cn JEn-hsi of the Ming
dynasty we read: " There is a picture in the palace Tzii-chi-kung (%$&g)
at Ch'u-chou (Ef+J)
of a monkey playing with a horse, swinging a rope. T h emonkey shakes the rope, surprising the horse, and the groom not knowing
what is the matter, whips the monkey from behind. I t is said that, monkeys
have a good effect on horses, and here the monkey is suffering for it. I havecaused the following poem in the spirit of the picture:T h e monkey gambols, the horse is surprised.
T h e groom cannot understand the friendship between monkeys
and horses.
T h e monkey is only acting according to its nature, nor can blame
be attached to the horse.
T h e intention is to avoid causing harm, and yet harm is done."56s)Monkeys driveaway diseaseT h e custom of keeping monkeys in stables from the idea that they aregood for horses seems to have had for its original motive the preservation ofhorses from disease. J . Crawfurd, an Englishman who went on an embassy
to Siam in 1812, saw two white monkeys kept in the stables where were the
king's white elephants. He asked the grooms the reason for this, as he writes
in his diary, and he was told that it was to prevent the elephants from becoming
I n Chinese documents of the Middle Ages, we often come acrossthe same statements regarding monkeys kept in stables in company with horses.
I n the Wu-tsa-tsu already mentioned, we read that " Monkeys are kept instables, so that horses may not become
and a passage in the Ptn-ts'aokang-mu says, " If those who rear horses keep these animals (monkeys) instables, it will prevent the horses from becoming
I n the I-chienchih and the Ch'i-chiieh-liao-tsa-chi,both written under the Sung dynasty,
we come across passages saying that breeders of horses in Shu often kept
monkeys in stables to maintain their horses in good health,572)and in many
books dealing with diseases of horses and other such subjects, we are told thatmonkeys drive away disease, or that the skins of monkeys have power over the
diseases of horses, or that they keep away evil and cure scabies, or that monkeys
567) Wu-tsa-tsu, 9.
568) Ch'ien-ch' ueh-chu-lei-shu, 11 1.
569) Crawfurd, p. 97 and a wood-cut on p. 103.
570) Wu-tsa-tsu, 9.
57 1 ) Pin-ts'ao-kang-mu, 51, pt. 2.
572) Cit. by Eberhard, 1942, S. 28; Ch'i-chueh-liao-tsa-chi, pt. 2.

CHAPTER I11

Monkeys and Water-gods

131

tied in stables avert evil and prevent a hundred diseases,573)a11 of which clearly
spring from the same idea as the custom of keeping monkeys in stables inIndia and Siam. Such being the case, the story in the Hsi-yu-chi of the s u n Wu-k'ung, themonkey hero Sun Wu-k'ung being given the post of keeper of the celestial keeper of the celesstables, his remaining at his post for half a month, and then, being told the tial
lowliness of his position by his colleagues, going into a great rage and returning to his mountain H u a - k u o - ~ h a n , ~ may' ~ ) not perhaps be regarded solely as
a product of the author's imagination.
Although the relationship between monkeys and horses such as we have The monkey andescribed may have its origin in India, it is interesting to note that there are cestor thematerials which lead us to suppose that the idea spread to China through Tibet, Tibetans
or at least by the medium of tribes of Tibetan origin. I n the Manibkah&bum, which is one of the oldest of Tibetan Buddhist texts, there is a legendof the founding of Tibet in which the king of the monkeys, as theincarnation of Avalokiteivara-Bodhisattva, appears in Tibet and marriesa Raksasi, and so becomes the ancestor of the Tibetans.575) T h e legend isthought to have its source in the ancient Bon religion of the Tibetans, to whicha coating of Buddhism has been added, but similar legends of monkey ancestry
are to be found among tribes of Tibetan origin, or tribes having close connections with such tribes, inhabiting the southwestern regions of China.576)
T o begin with, in the Tang-hsiang-chuan ($@5@ " History of the Tangut ")of the Sui-shu, the first official history to be written concerning the Tangut,
a Tibetan tribe living in Ch'inghai province today, there is a passage which
are descendants of the San-miao (3g).
says, " T h e Tangut Ch'iang
They are divided into the Tang-ch'ang
B ) and Pai-lang (Q @), and allconsider themselves as having sprung from monkeys,"577)which shows that thelegend given above was one which originated among the Tibetans themselves.
I n the Sou-shtn-chi, a work dating back to a far earlier period than Manibkahhbum or the Sui-shu, there occurs the following passage concerning the regionsof Ssuch'uan or Shu:
" An animal lives on a high mountain in the southwestern part of Shu, Chis-kuo or ma-hua
which resembles a monkey in appearance. I t is about 7 ch'ih in height, anddoes well all that men can do. I t is fleet of foot and pursues human beings,
and is called chia-kuo (4giB). I t is also called ma-hua (,&&), and also chiieh

(z)

(e

573) Yanagida, 1914, p. 66 (1947, p. 84).
574) Hsi-yuLchi, 4.
575) Aoki, pp. 78-80. According to the legend recorded by Koeppen, AvalokiteivaraBodhisattva, the patron saint of Tibet, turns himself into the monkey Brag ssrinpo (rockmonster) and comes to Tibet, where a female air-demon has turned herself into the shemonkey Brag ssrin mo, and the two meeting became the ancestors of the Tibetans.-Koeppen,
Bd. 2 (Die lamaische Hierarchie und Kirche), S. 44-45.
576) Aoki, pp. 80-82.
577) Sui-shu, 83, Hsi-yii-chuan (jXjf)$$i).
There is a similar passage in the Pei-shih, 96.

T H E KAPPA LEGEND132

T h e Y a n g family
and the Pai-ma-ti(@). I t looks out for young women going along the road, captures them andgoes away, without anyone knowing of it. . . I t mates with these women, andthose who do not conceive are not allowed to return to their homes all theirlives. After ten years, they come to resemble the being in appearance, become troubled in their brains and lose all desire to go home. Those women
who conceive, the animal carries in its arms to their homes, the childrenthat
are borne having a human appearance. The mothers who do not bring u p
these children die, so they all take care to do so, and when these children growup, they do not differ in any way from human beings. They all call themselves Yang (&), and so there are many in the southwestern part of Shu
today who have Yang for their surname, most of them being the descendantsof these chiao-kuo or r n a - h ~ a . " ~ ' ~ )T h e families with Yang for their surname are found not only among the
Yao tribes of Kuangsi and Hunan, the Miao tribes of Ssuch'uan and Yunnan,
and the Sung-wai Man (@#@) of Yunnan who are probably of Tibetan origin.
There is also a powerful family in the western part of Ssuch'uan province,
calling themselves the descendants of the Pai-ma T i (B,@,& "White Horse
T i "), whose surname, it is said, was Yang since the time of the T'ang dynasty
and still is t ~ d a y . ~ ~ TSh) e Ti, like the Ch'iang, are an ancient tribe of clearly
Tibetan origin, and during the days of the Former Han dynasty, there was atribe of the T i calling themselves Pai-ma (" White Horse ") among the socalled Southwestern Barbarians who occupied regions around what is now
Ch'sng-hsien (&,%) in Kansu province.580) I n the 6th year of the Yuan-ting(%A%)era (111 B.C.), during the reign of the emperor Wu-ti of that dynasty,
was set u p inthey surrendered to the Chinese and Wu-tu-chunthose parts, and it is recorded that in the 1st year of the Ti-chieh (&@j)
era(69 B.C.), under the emperor Hsiian-ti, Pai-ma Ch'iang of Wu-tu rose inrebellion,581) while it is a matter of history that the chiefs of the T i who set
in those regions fromu p and maintained the kingdom of Ch'ou-ch'ih
the end of the Han dynasty into the Liu-chao (" Six Dynasties ") called
themselves Yang.5s2) That there should be branches of the Ch'iang and
the T i of Tibetan origin who should call themselves "White Horse,"
and that there should be even today a Yang family, said to be descended
from the chia-kuo or ma-hua which resembled monkeys, tracing their origin
back to the Pai-ma T i , cannot be dismissed as so many coincidences in viewof the relationship between monkeys and horses. Furthermore, the fact of

(&@a)

(ha)

Sou-shin-chi, 12.
Eberhard, 1942, S. 28-29.
Shih-chi, 116, Hsi-nun-i-chuan; Ch'ien Hun-shu, 28, pt. 2, Ti-li-chih (i&@&),
Wu-tu-chiin; ibid., 95, Hsi-nun-i liangyiieh ch'ao-hsien-chuan (B@B@@iXrj#m).
58 1) Huayang-kuo-chih, Shu-chih (@,&).
582) Chiu T'ang-shu, 40, Ti-li-chih, 3, Lung-yu-tao (R&..); I@$-rekishi Dai-jiten, art. " Ti"and " rang-ti."

578)
579)
580)

(ma)

(E@s@)

CHAPTER I11 Monkeys and Water-gods

133

these tribes inhabiting the western part of Ssiich'uan province reminds us of
the passage in the Sou-sh2n-chi already quoted which says, " There are manyin the southwestern part of Shu (i.e. Ssfich'uan) today who have Yang fortheir surname," and the statement in the I-chien-chih that breeders of horses
in Shu often kept monkeys in stables for the protection of their horses.
I n the Yeh-jtn-chien-hua written during the reign of the Sung dynasty Y , , ~ ch'ien-tu ofthere is a story of one Yang Ch'ien-tu (+$$Tg),a native of Shu, who made his Shu
living by keeping a monkey and making him perform tricks. One day, amonkey in the stables of the palace broke loose, and ran u p the palacebuildings and we are told that Yang, by the command of the lordof Shu, used his own monkey to recapture the t r ~ a n t . 5 6 ~ )This Yang
must have been by profession something like the Japanese jugglers with their*
performing monkeys, and the story indicates that the region of Shu, the surname Yang, and the monkeys kept in stables must have been associated witheach other from ancient times. Attention might also be drawn to the factthat the word KO-jan (a$!&$), which is given in the Kuo-shih-pu as meaning avariety of monkeys, is often used as a tribal name of the Lolo whose language
is of Tibeto-Burman origin, and who live in large numbers in the southwestern part of Ssiich'uan province.584)
I n the Mongolian epic Gesir Khan, a work containing markedly Tibetan
elements, there is a story of the divine horse Kyang Geu Karkar recognizing a demon disguised as a great monkey ravaging a field at night,
and killing him with a single kick of his h0ofs.~8~)This may, or may not
be, another example of the ideological association of monkeys with horses.
One must avoid any hasty judgment in the matter, and the idea is only
suggested here as a possibility.
I t is interesting to find this relationship between monkeys and horses A jade bit carved
expressed in designs on. articles of harness and other objects. I n the Yu- in the form ofyang-tsa-tsu, following a passage about the steed Chueh-po-yu
monkeys withbeloved of the Emperor T'ai-tsung of the T'ang dynasty, and which had been arms entwined
presented to him by the king of Ku-li-kan (B$rJ@),
we read that: " I n thetreasure-house of the emperors of the Sui dynasty, there was a piece of jadecarved in the likeness of monkeys with arms entwined, the arms forming a ring,so that it could be used as a bit. T h e Emperor T'ai-tsung later went out
riding with it in company with his courtiers, but he was displeased with thedesign and broke it with his
The shape of the gem described here is not quite clear, but we can understand at least that it was intended to be used as a bit. But what is even

(&@a)

583)
584)
585)
586)

Yeh-j2n-chien-hua; Yang-yii-tu gTB,according to T'ai-ping-kuan-chi, 446.
Eberhard, 1942, S. 29.
Phalipau, p. 166.
2"u-yang-tsa-tsu, 2.

134
Monkeys onhorsebackTHE KAPPA LENGED

mare interesting is the fact that the same motif of monkeys, this time
mounted on horseback, just as in the passage in the Wu-tsa-tszc quoted
above, is found in designs of pendants of the northern Eurasian nomadic
peoples, who lived beyond regions where monkeys are to be found. T h eexample shown in Fig. 18 a was found at Minussinsk in Siberia, and has
been judged to belong to the 2nd millenium A.D.,587)but the shape of thehorse in a, as well as that shown in b,588) resembles the horse figure on thestone sculptures of the Han dynasty. T h e example shown in c comes fromYekaterinovka in European Russia and is thought to date back possibly tothe beginning of the Christian era.5s9) If that is the case, we are led to theconclusion that the composite idea of monkeys and horses must have spreadto the equestrian peoples of the north througl~Tibet or China at a very earlydate. Among the burial offerings of the T'ang dynasty, there is a figureof a monkey crouched on the saddle of aand the monkey on horseback, based on the legend of Po-loa famous connoisseur of horses,
is one of the motifs of the Koga figures made in Nagasaki prefecture, Japan,
which have a history dating back to the Bunroku era (1592-1595).591) T h e
Komagata (" Horse-shape ") shrine on the slope of Mount Onikoshi in Takizawa village, Iwate prefecture, was formerly known as the SBzen shrine, andthere are old records which show that festivals were held here on the first dayof the horse in February and May 5th in the 2nd year of the Keichi, era (A.D.
1596). T h e image of the chief deity of the shrine is a wooden figure about
1 foot high, and looks like a monkey on horseback.592) On Mt. Tsurumaki
in the province of Izu, there was a monument called Komagata, erected in
A.D. 1599, on which also a monkey was shown on hor~ebacli.5~~)
I n this way, as Mr. Yanagita so clearly demonstrates in his Santd-mindanshi, the idea of relationship between monkeys and horses, including that of
keeping monkeys in stables, was introduced into Japan at a pretty early date,and gave rise to the profession of jugglers with performing monkeys whose
original function was to come to stables to make monkeys dance there,
and to pray fcr the safety of the horses, and the motif of monkeys drawing
horses by the bridle came to figure in designs of fancy coins, in the votive
tablets put up at shrines (Fig.14, 16), and in charms for the protection of
stables (Fig. 15, 17).594) Thus, Mr. Yanagita's theory that the monkey, an(fsg),Monkeys drawing
horsesSalmony, 1933, pl. 35, no. 7, and p. 83.
Rleichsteiner, S. 52, T a t 4, Fig. 6.
Tallgren, 1932, pp. 27, 3 1, Fig. 36.
Siren, S. 28, Fig. 40 (Ostasiatiska Samlingarna, Stockholm).
Sumi, p. 272.
Yanagita, 1912, p. 602.
T a n k i Manroku, p. 492.
Yanagita, 1914, pp. 61-78 (ed. 1942, 78-100).

CONCLUSION

135

animal naturally associated with water from its habit of living near it, holding
the horse by the bridle, must have been drawn into the water by the watergod together with the horse, and having been turned into a kappa, became
one of the factors in the formation of the legend of the kappa trying to lure
horses into the water, increases in probability when we study in connection
with it the material offered by the folklore of the countries adjacent to Japan.
Also, that the idea of monkeys being the enemies of kappa, as seen in the storyof Kat6 Kiyomasa planning an expedition against Kusenb6, the chief of the
kappa, should exist side by side with the popular belief that the kappa aremonkeys, is a fact that is most suggestive, when we consider it in relation tosuch other material for study as the legends, beginning with that in the Jztaka,and found in India, China and Japan, of crocodiles, turtles and sea-dragons Crocodiles and thetrying to obtain the liver or heart of a monkey as an effective medicine either liver o'f monkeys
for their own sickness or for that of their wives, and failing in their attempts
to that end to lure monkeys into the water.595) Neither is the fact that themonkey, the protector of stables, becomes in the form of a kappa the enemy ofhorses at all incongruous, when we consider the dual qualities of good and evil
possessed by the gods in popular belief, and the character of a foreign god introduced from abroad which the monkey-god possesses in Japanese mythology,
all of which has been thoroughly discussed by Mr. Yanagita in his ~ o r k . 5 ~ 6 )CONCLUSION
I n the foregoing 3 chapters, we have given at least in rough outline the summary
cultural background to Japanese legends concerning the kappa luring horses
into the water, by examining in each chapter respectively horses, oxen andmonkeys in their relationship to water-gods. T h e question dealt with may
be summarized as follows:
Mr. Yanagita, starting from the fact that legends concerning the kappaof the type in which the kappa attempt to lure horses grazing by the waterside
into the water, and fail to do so, are to be found all over Japan, has pointed
out in his Sant6-mindan-shzi the possibility of the existence of a group of interrelated popular beliefs, which gave rise not only to these legends, but to theidea that the progeny of dragons or water-gods may be obtained by pasturing
mares by the waterside, and to the Japanese legends of such famous horses as595) JZtaka, nos. 57, 208, 342: Cowel! (ed.), vol. I, pp. 142-143, vol. 11, p. 110, vol. 111, pp.
87-88 ; Taishb<6kyt2 vol. 3, p. 19 b, c, pp. 76 b, c-77 a ; Panchatantra, bk. I V ; Fa:yuan-chulin, 54, Cha-wei-pien (%#$B),
60 ; Konjaku-monogatari-shti,Tenjiku-Shintan no Bu, 5, no. 25 ;Shaseki-shG, 5, pt. 1 ; Yanagita, 1941, pp. 4-6.
596) Yanagita, 1914, pp. 78-80 (ed. 1942, pp. 100-102).

136

T H E KAPPA L E G E N D

Ikezuki and Surusumi appearing out of, or at least from the neighbourhoodof some piece of water. I n the present essay, we have compared this Japanesematerial with similar material in the Eurasian continent in general, and attempted to trace them to their common source in the cultural history ofFine steeds obtained mankind. T h e popular beliefs and customs, for instance, founded on the ideaby the watersidethat fioe steeds may be obtained by putting mares to pasture by the waterside are by no means peculiar to Japan, nor did they originate there. Amongthe material relating to this motif recorded by the present writer in Chapter
I of this essay alone, collected from all parts of the world, there are two such
examples from Shantung, two from Shansi, four from Ssiich'uan and one
each from Kueichou, Ch'inghai and Kansu as regards China, besides examples
from Mongolia, Ta-yiian, Kashmir, Tokhara, Kurdistan and Northern Europe,
while similar legends of water-stallions are quoted from the Chinese Pieh-kuo
tung-ming-chi written under the Han dynasty and the Arabian Nights. T h efact is significant. We have sought to explain the origin of these legends atleast in part by the cattle-breeding custom actually practised in Asia of causing
the females of domesticated cattle to breed with their wild male counterparts
to obtain a sturdy progeny. But in this type of legends, it is not only that theWater-gods in the stallions live generally in the water, or that water-spirits perform the part
form of horsesof stallions, but it often happens that divine horses, or water-spirits in theform of horses, actually appear out of the water. Examples of this latter motif
alone, apart from those already given, and other numerous Chinese legends
concerning dragon-horses, are to be found over a wide area extending from the
Chinese provinces of Hopei, Shensi, Kansu, Hupei and Ssiich'uan to Annam,
and, west of these regions, from Sinkiang to Russian Turkestan, Armenia,
Georgia, and beyond these, in nearly every corner of Europe. Such a factcannot be explained by the cattle-breeding customs of the nomadic peoples
alone.
Oxen and waterT h e investigation of this problem led the present writer to that of therelationship between oxen and water. Popular beliefs and folklore associatingoxen with water are, in their case also, to be found not only in Japan but innearly the entire extent of the Eurasian continent with the exception of the
Arctic region. I n China and its neighbouring countries, for example, legendsof two oxen fighting in the water, while being most numerous in Sskh'uan,occur also in Shensi, Shansi, Anhui, Kiangsu and Kuangtung, and southwardof China in Annam. Legends of golden oxen dwelling under the water occur
in Kuangtung, Fukien and Kiangsi, and from Anhui in the north to Annamin the south, and with regard to legends of iron oxen (rarely, stone oxen or
copper oxen) employed to quell floods, we have given three examples eachfrom Honan and Hopei, and one each from Kiangsi, Anhui, Hunan, Hupei,
Ssiich'uan, Shensi and Shansi. As for water-spirits in the form of oxen wholive in the water, examples are to be found from Hunan, Hupei, Kiangsu, andCONCLUSION

the Yellow River basin to Shansi, Kansu, Mongolia, Central Asia, and evenas far as Siberia. I n Europe also, popular beliefs concerning strange oxenappearing out of the water, and water-spirits keeping beautiful herds of oxen
in pastures at the bottom of the water are the common property of nearly all
the European peoples including the Celtic, the Germanic, the Slavic, andthe Finno-Ugric peoples. The area of distribution of these legends is ofcorresponding extent.
Given these facts, we are next faced with the problem of whether horses Ox-worshipand oxen were together given the character of water-gods and water-monsters
from the beginning, or whether one of the two became associated with thewater-world first, and the idea was then extended to the other. In regard
to this problem, the history and prehistoric archaeology of the ancient preAryan cultural zone along the southern border of the Eurasian continent from
India to the Eastern Mediterranean furnished the present writer with thedecisive clues to its solution. This sphere of culture had as a common characteristic the worship of the Great Earth Mother as the symbol of fertility, while
the breeding and religious worship of oxen were also practised from prehistoric
times. Furthermore, this worship of oxen was hased on the idea of regardingthese animals as something sacred as the embodiment of the magical powerof fertility, which faat associated them with the primitive Earth Mother as
the symbol of generation, and those elements inseparable from the female
principle in religious worship, the moon and the power of fertility of the earth.
Cultural history has made it clear that this complex combining together the The moon, themoon, the earth, the female principle, oxen, and the power of fertility is founded earth, the female
in plant-growing and agriculture, and so it was natural that water, the source principle, Oxen, theof life to agricultural peoples, became associated closely in its turn with oxen, power of fertility
and water
as with the moon, the Earth Mother and so forth, in this religious complex
which might be defined ethnologically as agricultural, matriarchal and lunar
mythological. I n this way, we may reconstruct from a vast store of material
the process by which oxen, representing the primary principle of fertility andgrowth, came to be offered in sacrifice to the river-god as animals sacred towater-gods, or by which water-spirits themsevels came to assume the form ofoxen.
,
On the other hand, horses were domesticated and reared on the steppes ~ h southwardof Inner Asia, and there served in the development of a nomadic and equestri- advance of the
an culture of a different nature from that of the agricultural peoples to the horsesouth. We find traces of this northern culture infiltrating southwards into
Egypt and Mesopotamia already in the Neolithic Age, but apart from the ass,
horse-breeding itself was practised neither in the ancient Orient nor preAryan India, until long after the beginning of the so-called historic age. That
is to say, the horses were not known to the ancient Egyptians before the invasion of the Hyksos in the middle of the 18th century B.C., and the invasion

138

Oxen replaced byhorsesWestern Europe
and Eastem Asia

Oxen and
agriculture

THE KAPPA LEGENDof the PunjZb by the Aryans with their horses, as also the importation of horses
by sea into the world of the Minoan civilization in Crete, are now definitely
regarded by historians as events occurring even later, in or about 16th century
B.C. With regard to Mesopotamia alone the question is a little more complicated, but it is clear that the horse, coming from the north, became generally
known in these regions and over the whole of Southwestern Asia to play moreor less a decisive part in human life only after a similar wave of horse-rearing
peoples from Inner Asia had swept down southward about the time of theinvasion of Egypt by the Hyksos and the PunjZb by the Aryans. But long
before this, the ox was not only being reared by the agricultural peoples along
the southern border of the Eurasian continent, but temples in Egypt, Sumeria,
and Babylonia, the palace at Cnossus, and the cities of Mohenjo-Daro andHarappz were filled with sacred oxen. And as the horse advanced into thisarea and took its place in the society of men, the position hitherto occupiedby the ox, and the part played by it in religion and mythology of these regions
came gradually to be either shared, or taken over altogether by the horse. The
present writer, following the studies of Prof. Koppers, has been able to trace
the workings of this process in an analysis of the mysteries of the ABvamedha,
the ceremony of horse-sacrifice of Ancient India, and in the metamorphosis
undergone by the v6hana of Indra, the god of thunder and rain. With thebrilliant example before him set by Miss Harrison, who has so ably demonstrated the progress of Poseidon, the Greek sea-god, bull-god, and horse-god,from his beginnings as the Minotaur, the Cretan king-god, to the heights
of Mount Olympus, the present writer has also assumed that long before
Poseidon came to be regarded as a horse-god, he was worshipped in theform of a bull as an earth-god, fertility god, agricultural god, and a god of
the nether regions.
With reference to Western Europe and Eastern Asia, it is not so easy
to determine, from the results of researches in prehistoric archaeology, theorder of appearance in these regions of the ox and the horse, and the opinionsof scholars differ in this point. But, although it might be premature to assertthat here too, the domesticated horse was introduced by the exodus of nomadic
peoples from the interior of the continent, it is fairly certain that in the beginning at least, the horse was employed mainly for transport and in war, whereas
the animal first used in ploughing and which in that way became associatedwith agriculture, was not the horse but the ox, just as it happened in the regions
along the southern border of the continent. So that, for example, suchcustoms of Chinese peasants as whipping clay oxen to greet the coming ofspring, and sacrificing oxen to the earth-god she" must date back toa remote antiquity, while the belief among the peoples of Eastern
Asia which represents in the form of oxen water-gods, river-gods,
thunder-gods and chiao-dragons who exercise power over water, and theCONCLUSION

139

popular belief existing in various parts of Europe of water-spirits in the formof oxen inhabiting seas, rivers, lakes and marshes, and others keeping herdsof oxen in pastures underneath the water, must belong to an order of ideas
more primitive than that of water-spirits in the form of horses, and probably
date from a period of greater antiquity. Judging from the fact that legends
in which the horse appears in close relationship with water are frequently
found among the peoples of Iranian origin who inhabited those regions serving
one might say as the connecting point between the eastern and western partsof the Eurasian continent, in which such legends are widely distributed, thepresent writer conjectures that at least a portion of the ideas concerning waterhorses, and beliefs in which water-gods combine the characteristics of horsegods, may have been carried at a comparatively late period by peoples of Iranian origin from the Orient into the eastern and western parts of the Eurasiancontinent. I n China particularly, the group of ideas connecting together rago on-horses cum
water-horses, dragon-horses and celestial horses existed from ancient times celestial horses
chiefly in the western and northwestern parts of the country and thence further UerSUS rivrr-oxen
cum earth-oxenwest towards Central Asia, whereas that of river-oxen and earth-oxen is found
distributed from China proper towards Southwestern China and the IndoChinese peninsula, and there are grounds for thinking that legends of " wateroxen " in Mongolia, Siberia and elsewhere were carried there by the advancenorthwards of the ox from the south. We may regard this as reflecting thefact that the horse and the ox originated in two different cultural milieus, one
northern and the other southern. The present writer has advanced a stepfurther from this in surmising that the group of ideas concerning dragonhorses and celestial horses was first recorded in documents by ruling tribes
or classes of northern origin who built u p a state in the valley of the Yellow
River, whence the ideas gradually sank to the level of popular beliefs, while
those connected with river-oxen and earth-oxen sprang originally from thebeliefs and customs of the agricultural population, were long preserved insuch a form, and then adopted into national ceremonies observed by kingsand nobles.
T o summarize, the present writer is of the opinion that the close relationship between water-gods and oxen and horses, examples of which are foundin the folklores of the entire Eurasian continent, began with the central position
occupied by the ox in the fertility rites of agricultural societies, and then,with
the introduction of the horse into these agricultural regions from the steppesof Inner Asia, it either took its place by the side of the ox, or replaced it entirely, and so these horses became spirits and monsters inhabiting seas and rivers,
marshes and lakes, or came in their turn to be sacrificed to water-gods.
Whether coincidences between such legends are the result of diffusion, or
due to independent development from a common cultural basis, must be looked Continuity of theinto historically in each particular instance, but this has been beyond the human culture

T H E KAPPA L E G E N D

Monkeys

God of thunderand rainscope of the present essay. But in either case, it is possible to see throughthese phenomena how the various cultures of mankind form, both in time andspace, a continuous entity. And if we now turn back to the Japanese islands,
having as our background such a knowledge of culture historical and comparative ethnology, it will be seen that the legends concerning the kappa trying
to lure horses into the water are essentially nothing more than a particular
type of the legends dealing with the association of horses with water-spirits
which are to be found all over the Eurasian continent.
But the origin of the kappa, a water-monster peculiar to Japan, and theprocess by which these legends of their trying to lure horses into the watercame into being, contain many problems which, starting with the child watergod, the forerunner of the kappa, are capable of being pursued indefinitely
in the domain of ethnology. In the present essay, the elucidation of the natureof the kappa as a whole has been left for further research, and only the relationships between monkeys and water-gods, and between monkeys andhorses, which have a direct bearing on these legends of the kappa trying tolure horses into the water, have been dealt with in Chapter 3. The idea of theassociation of monkeys with horses, an example of which are the monkeys
kept in stables, is to be found from ancient times in all parts of Eastern Asia,
from India to China and Japan. At the same time, monkeys themselves asanimals which by nature frequent places near the water have a tendency to
be treated as water-spirits. In the Japanese islands, whereas the ox and thehorse appeared in and out of the water-world either as the incarnation of watergods, or as animals held sacred to these water-gods, just as in other regionsof the Eurasian continent, some of the Japanese water-gods, in their degenerate form, became peculiar monsters resembling monkeys, and did theirbest to lure oxen and horses, particularly horses, into the watkr. Such is
the origin of these legends of the kappa (river-child) or enk6 (monkey), awater-monster peculiar to Japanese folklore.
The above is a summary of the main subjects dealt with in this essay, butmany interesting problems of cultural history and ethnology were discussed
in connection with these subjects, some of which we give below.
1) The combination of oxen, the earth, the moon, the female principle,
water, and the world of the dead is found nearly everywhere in the agriculturalzone in the southern part of the old continent, but the worship of the god ofthunder and rain, which is closely connected with oxen and the moon, wasalso added to this lunar mythological complex, assumed a particular form, andwith the exception of a comparatively small region, spread over a vast area
stretching from Eastern Asia to Europe. A characteristic of the god common to
all the regions in which he was worshipped, is his destruction of an evil dragon,
and he is often represented as riding on an ox, and later, a horse. I n Eastern
Asia, the dragon which is a water-god, is at the same time the god of thunderCONCLUSION141

and rain, and also closely connected with oxen and horses.
2) From Southeastern Asia to the southern part of China, the sacrifice Megalithic cultureof oxen, the whipping of clay oxen in spring, bull-fights, and other such religious customs connected with oxen having the character of a fertility rite,
seem to have spread in close association with the wave of megalithic culture,
togetherwith such other customs as head-hunting and skull- and ancestorworship. Legends in Ssiich'uan concerning stone oxen and stone rhinoceroses
which hold water-spirits in subjection may have some connection with thisparticular culture.
3) Examples of the idea that water-spirits have an aversion for anything Taboo of ironmade of metal, particularly iron, are to be found nearly all over the world,from Nordic legends of the Nakk t t ~Eastern Asiatic ones about chiao-dragons
and the kappa, but Chinese legends of iron oxen quelling- floods, and settingu p iron pillars to which to chain chiao-dragons, probably indicate, together
with legends found in South China of golden chains and gclden oxen at thebottom of lakes and rivers, a prolongation into the metal age of the stone
oxen and stone pillars of the megalithic culture. So that, the idea of usingiron objects as a charm against water-gods may have sprung originally fromstone oxen employed for the same purpos?, which in their turn may havepossessed at first a sacrificial character.
Among these statements, there are some that must be regarded as premature conclusions, and there are others which only indicate the loci of the problems concerned, while leaving its development for future discussion. But
even within the scope of this restricted essay, it has been possible to point out The need of vision
the fact that much of the Japznese legends preserved from ancient times have from the standpoint
world-history
connections, not only with the neiglbouring cultures of Eastern Asia, butwith the cultures of people: living in regions far removed from Japan. So
that, in studying problems of Japanese Volkskunde, it is always possible toenhance one's apprehension of their culture historical significance by adopting
the methods of comparative ethnology. A Japanese thinker of the end of theTokugawa period has stressed the fact that the waters of the river flowing under
the Nihonbashi bridge in Edo finally merge with the River Thames in London.
I n the currents of human culture also, there are aspects resembling thestreams that flow through the ocean. If it should be possible, then, to provethat even behind such local, peculiarly Japanese phenomena as the kappa,
there lurks something which, flowing darkly along the depths of the civilization of man, connects with the sea-god Poseidion of the Mediterranean
and Nakk, the Nordic water-spirit, the importance of the contribution thiswould make towards opening u p our eyes to the continuous oneness of humanculture would be indeed incalculable.

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ESA :
FEC :
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a&,JAPANESE PERIODICALS

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Minzokugaku(" T h e Japanese Journal of Folklore and Ethnology"), 1929-1933, Tokyo.
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%!$&@wPz@?@$aAlexander, H. B., 1916, North American Mythology, M A R , vol. 10.
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s@jz

m@&

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am

@a&

mz#

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@!Jx

@!Jgz

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T~>=&)ETL

@xw

Bg

@

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-,

sgz@szzE;Ff:zz&muas-,Ezz#

Varieties of
Facsimile of a colour-printthe I(appaof the late Tokugawa period

Fig. 1 Kappa caught on the beach near Mito,
Hi tachi province (p. 11 7).

~m-,,Zuihirsu

Fig. 2 Horse and water combinedin a Permian idol (p. 27)
Tallgren, 1928, Fig. 10

Fig. 3Assyrian boat used about 700 B.C.

and depicted(P. 28).

inthe palace of Sargon
Howey, p. 148

Fig. 4 Hippocampi depicted on the wall of Min-ui near Kizil, Chinese Turkestan (p. 17).
Griinwedel, Fig. 237b

a)From a bas-relief founda t Bregenz, Tyrol.

b)

From a bronze statuettefound i n Wiltshire.

Fig. 5 Celtic horse-goddess Epona, may originally be a deity of springs or rivers,
conceived as a spirited steed (p. 36).

MacCulloch, 1918, PI. XVFig. 6 Poseidon on horseback, on a fragment of 7th
century B.C. Corinthian pottery (p. 41).
Harrison, Fig. 2

Fig. 7

Poseidon as bull-god, on a black figured

amphora in the museum a t Wiirzburg (p. 42).
EIarrison, Fig. 3

Fig. 8 Spirals and serpentsengraved on each side ofa piece of mammoth tusk,
discovered at Malta near
Irkutsk (p. 56).
Hentze, Fig. 59, 60

Fig. 9Horse-headed Oshira-sama,

Hirotavillape,

IGse-gun, Iwate prefecture( P 69).
Oshira-sawza Zurokr, PI. 43

Fig. 10

Unicorns

combinedwith a pipal tree.

A sealingfrom Mohenjo-Daro (p. 97).
Marsha!l, Val. 3,
PI. CXII, N o . 387

Fig. I I

Shr-rniri n i t h the sail]-bo\v ox-cs her.

A sock-painting

by tllr Uush~nrri, from n cavc uridcs the p e a t pt-ccipice ofI<lcin :\asvogrlkop,

Ror~xvillcDistrict, O s a n ~ rFscr Stntr (p.

60).

Stow and nleuk, 1'1. 34

Fig. 12 T h c rairr-bull, \\,ith t \ \ o sorcrrrss \rho o\\-rr it, ;i srlnkc
callctl hnt~gnumi, spottrtl.

'l'hr sllirld-lookiilg thing is s;iitl to brn \\ntrr's thing, but \vllnt t11(,> tlo rrot krio~v. A sock-painting
by tllc Uushrnrrr, froin n srriall ravr or1 tllr bnrlks of the SantlSpt-"it, Hnsutola~ltlDi\trict (11. 00).

stowand llleek, PI. (,7Fig. 13 Monkey holding a horse.

The oldest known picture in Japan representing

the association of monkeys with horses, sketched on the lower panel of a miniature
tower containing some "bones of Buddha," in the temple ShBmyB-ji, Kanazawa,
Sagami province, in A.D. 1296. Preserved in the Kanazawa Bunko (Cf. p. 126).
Photographed by Mr. KondB Kihaku. Cf. KondB, pp. 36-38

-Fig. 14 Monkey drawing a horse, carvedIn

relief o n a votive picture

dedicated in A.D. 1589 to the SannB Shrine, Hikita village, Musashi
province (Cf. p. 126).

Shimpen Mtisashi Fudokr-kG

Fig. 15 Charms to be pastccl in a stablr, issued by a shrine in I<isoprovince (Cf. p. 126).

Collection of Mr. Yanagita I<uniaFig. 16 Komahikisen or fancy coins
bearing effigips of monkeys leading horses (p. 126).
Collection of Mr. Nukui GinjirB

Fig. 17 A charm to be pasted ina stable, issued by thr 0,;hikoshrine, I!arima province (Cf. p.

126).
Mr. Yarnanaka Emi's collectionof Shinto a n d Buddhist charms

Fig. 18 Moilkeys mountrd on horseback found in designs ofnorthern Eurasian nomadic peoples (p. 134)a)Pendant drop from Minussinsk, Siberia.
Later than 10th century A.D.
Salrnony, 1933, PI. XXV, No. 5nh)Pcndant drop.

Site unknv\\n. Collcc -tion of Mr. Exncr, Vicnna.
Bleichsteiner, 1939, Taf. I\', Fig. 0

F I ~19. Knpfla from tile rlLer C h ~ k u g o c a l m . K\ u:-hl~

Fig. 20 Skul! s1111posec1to be t h a t of thefamous stetd S ~ ~ r t ~ s u r nh ui .n g on apillar in ti:? iioiise of t h e family
Kumagai, Izamitar?i \ i!lnge. S u r n g a
province, said to i,rc,tect tlle iiousefrom fire, and 1ie;il o r tarne sicko r too higli-spiritrd Iiorses \\.l~eil
tethercc: to t h e piliar ( Cf. 11. 6') ).