[japanese Culture] Japanese Fairy Tale

Japanese Folktale/日本(にほん)おとぎ話（ばなし） (nihonn-otogi-banashi）


Japanese old faith in animism




The Tale of Bamboo Cutter / Princess Kaguya Yasuhiro Mori (やすひろ もり/泰博 森)

Japanese old faith in animism


Animistic Faith; Old Japanese people espoused and feared anything great or abnormal in their life.




Worship of Kami (かみ) which are local and can be regarded as the spiritual being/spirit or genius of a particular place: Strong admire to nature and animal.




But, still there are some different interpretations of definitions of かみ.

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Japanese Fairly Tales


So many Japanese Fairly Tales had been influenced by the animism.




Animals or statues turn into human being; to return favours from human, or to revenge their grudges against human.

The Tale of Bamboo Cutter / Princess Kaguya（かぐや-ひめ） 

Japanese oldest folktale



Author and date of made are unknown

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Main Characters  The bamboo cutter, Okina; Taketori-noOkina (たけとりのおき な/竹取の翁) 



Kaguya (かぐや)



Mikado (みかど/帝)



A bamboo cutter, Okina found a baby, whose size is just about 9 cm, inside a bamboo.



Okina and his wife named her Kaguya (かぐ や）, and raised her.



Kaguya grew so quickly. Within 3 months, she became a beautiful woman.

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5 noblemen made advances to Kaguya, however, she never married. Even Japanese Emperor proposed to her, but he was also rejected.

Suddenly, around mid-August, Kaguya was grieving, and crying all the time.  Kaguya confessed that she had to go back to her original country; the Moon. 

Because of my fate in a previous incarnation, I had to be born into the Earth. But, embassy of the Moon is coming on 15th August. I really do not want to return to the Moon, but I have no choice.

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Kaguya left Medicine to become immortal to Emperor.



However, after Kaguya’s leaving, Okina and Ouna fell in sickness. Moreover, Emperor ordered his guards to throw away the medicine into the highest mountain.



Immortal (fushi/ふし/不死) be came the name of Mount. Ｆｕｊｉ (ふじ/富士) today.

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TODAY’s KAGUYA




Today, the machine of Japanese Aerospace Exploring Agency (JAXA) which is around the Moon for research of the origin of the lunar origin and evolution, and to develop the technology for the future lunar exploration is named KAGUYA after the real Kaguya and her story.

Conclusion


Japanese used to have strong faith in animism, which later became Shinto




Such an animism influenced quite a lot of Japanese folktales.




The tale of bamboo cutter/ Princess Kaguya has etymology of Mt. Fuji, though there are another theory of etymology of Mt. Fuji.

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