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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 / PrincessKaguya

Yasuhiro Mori ( やすひろ もり  / 泰博 森  )

Japanese old faith in animism

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

Worship of Kami (かみ) which are local and can beregarded 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-no-

Okina (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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Kaguya left Medicine to become immortal to Emperor.

However, after Kaguya’sleaving, Okina and Ouna fellin sickness. Moreover,Emperor ordered his guards tothrow away the medicine intothe highest mountain.

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

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TODAY’sKAGUYA

Today, the machine of Japanese AerospaceExploring Agency (JAXA)which is around the Moonfor research of the origin of the lunar origin andevolution, and to develop thetechnology for the futurelunar exploration is namedKAGUYA after the realKaguya and her story.

Conclusion

Japanese used to have strongfaith in animism, which later 

 became Shinto

Such an animism influencedquite a lot of Japanese

folktales.

The tale of bamboo cutter/Princess Kaguya hasetymology of Mt. Fuji, thoughthere are another theory of etymology of Mt. Fuji.