page_title: Kitsunebi
section_title: In Ōji Inari
hierarchical_section_title: Kitsunebi / Legends by area / In Ōji Inari
caption_attribution_description: 100 Views Of Edo - 118. Fox Fires on New Year's Eve at the Garment Nettle Tree at Oji; "Fox Fires on New Year's Eve at the Garment Nettle Tree at Oji, a woodblock print by Hiroshige from his "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo" series."
context_page_description: Kitsunebi is an atmospheric ghost light told about in legends all across Japan outside Okinawa Prefecture. They are also called "hitobosu", "hitomoshi", and "rinka".
context_section_description: Ōji Inari of Ōji, Kita, Tokyo, is known to be the head of Inari Ōkami, it is also a famous place for kitsunebi.
  Formerly, the area around Ōji was all a rural zone, and on the roadside there was a big enoki tree. Every year, on the night of Ōmisoka, the foxes of Kanhasshū (all of the Kantō region) would gather below the tree, put on uniforms, call on their ranks, and visit the palace of Ōji Inari. As the kitsunebi that can be seen on this occasion was quite a spectacle, it is said that the peasants around the area would count their numbers and used that to predict a good or bad harvest for next year.
  From this, enoki trees are also called "shōzoku enoki" (装束榎, "costume enoki"), and it became a well known place, and even became a subject in Hiroshige's work One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. The tree withered away in the Meiji period, but a small shrine called the "Shōzoku Inari Jinja" remains next to the former second Ōji tram stop (now in front of the "horibun" intersection point), and the area was previously called Enokimachi (榎町, "enoki town"). As this area was part of a larger development plan, in 1993, on the evening of the annual Ōmisoka, an event was held called the "Ōji Kitsune's Procession".
caption: "Kitsunebi on New Year's Night under the Enoki Tree near Ōji" in the One Hundred Famous Views of Edo by Hiroshige. Each fox has a kitsunebi floating close to their face.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "460", "Image ImageLength": "700", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2012:05:11 22:19:03", "Image ExifOffset": "232", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "382", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6276", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "447", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "662"}