page_title: Japanese macaque
section_title: Cultural depictions
hierarchical_section_title: Japanese macaque / Relationship with humans / Cultural depictions
context_page_description: The Japanese macaque, also known as the snow monkey, is a terrestrial Old World monkey species that is native to Japan. They get their name "snow monkey" because some live in areas where snow covers the ground for months each year – no other non-human primate is more northern-living, nor lives in a colder climate. Individuals have brownish grey fur, pinkish-red faces, and short tails. Two subspecies are known.
  In Japan, the species is known as Nihonzaru to distinguish it from other primates, but the Japanese macaque is very familiar in Japan, so when Japanese people simply say saru, they usually have in mind the Japanese macaque.
context_section_description: The Japanese macaque (snow monkey) has featured prominently in the religion, folklore, and art of Japan, as well as in proverbs and idiomatic expressions in the Japanese language.  In Shinto belief, mythical beasts known as raijū sometimes appeared as monkeys and kept Raijin, the god of lightning, company.  The "three wise monkeys", which warn people to "see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil", are carved in relief over the door of the famous Tōshō-gū shrine in Nikkō.  The Japanese macaque is a feature of several fairy tales, such as the tale of Momotarō and the fable about The Crab and the Monkey.  As the monkey is part of the Chinese zodiac, which has been used for centuries in Japan, the creature was sometimes portrayed in paintings of the Edo period as a tangible metaphor for a particular year.  The 19th-century artist and samurai Watanabe Kazan created a painting of a macaque. During the Edo period, numerous clasps for kimono or tobacco pouches (collectively called netsuke) were carved in the shape of macaques.
  Spoken references to macaques abound in the history of Japan.  Originating from before his rise to power, the famed samurai Toyotomi Hideyoshi was compared to a monkey in appearance and nicknamed Kozaru ("Little Monkey").  In modern Japanese culture, because monkeys are considered to indulge their libido openly and frequently (much the same way as rabbits are thought to in some Western cultures), a man who is preoccupied with sex might be compared to or metaphorically referred to as a monkey, as might a romantically involved couple who are exceptionally amorous.
caption: "Monkeys in a plum tree", Mori Sosen, 1808.
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