Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳) (artist 11/15/1797 – 03/05/1861)
Izumo no Imaro (出雲伊麿) stabs a wani (sea-monster - 鰐)
ca 1834 – 1835
9.25 in x 14 in (Overall dimensions) color woodblock print
Signed: Ichiyūsai Kuniyoshi ga
一勇斎国芳画
Cersor's seal: kiwame
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Kuniyoshi Project
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg
Muzeum Sztuki i Techniki Japońskiej Manggha, Krakow
Lyon Collection - Kuniyoshi's triptych of Asahina Yoshihide fighting crocodiles at Kotsubo
Lyon Collection - Kuniyoshi's triptych of Asahina's struggle Kotsubo with a greater focus and the hero and the sea creatures One day a young woman was walking along the seashore when she was suddenly attacked by a particularly ferocious wani. This was said to happen on the 13th day of the 7th month of the 7th year of the emperor Tenmu or 674. Imaro buried what was left of his daughter on the shore where he screamed and stomped railing at the gods in the heavens. This is what he did for quite a while, until he collapsed in exhaustion. After that he sharpened his arrows and honed his dagger. He was determined to kill the wani that killed her.
He prayed to all of the gods, the gods of the heavens, the gods of the earth and the gods of the seas to help him get his vengeance. One source in translations says: "You fifteen million heavenly gods, you fifteen million earthly gods, you 399 shrines worshipped in this land, and all you deities of the sea, may you watch over me in peace. But I beg you, you gods, support my desire to avenge the injustice that has befallen my daughter. Let me feel the divine nature of the gods." While imploring the gods to help and protect him a large group of 100 wani began swimming toward him, including the guilty monster. They circled Imaro in tighter and tighter circles until at last he was able to fight with and slay that one particular wani he sought to kill. When that happened all of the other wani disappeared.
After killing the wani he began to cut it to pieces when he found his daughter's leg. This confirmed that he got the right culprit.
The sources
The source of this story is from the Izumo Fudoki (出雲風土記), one of the oldest extant written records in Japan. "The original manuscript of the Izumo Fudoki is lost. The oldest manuscript is from the end of the sixteenth century." It is also one of the dullest reads one can find in early Japanese literature according to Donald Keene. In his Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century on page 63 he says: "The Izumo Fudoki is not a book for browsing. With the exception of two or three legends, notably the account of how the god Yatsukamizu Omizuno added various islands and promontories to the territory of Izumo by tugging (kunihiki) to him with the aid of a rope, the work consists of brief accounts of villages, mountains, rivers, islands and other geographical features, often with a folk etymology for each place name."
This is curious because it raises the question of how Kuniyoshi came to illustrate this particular episode. Was it his idea or was it suggested to him by one of his extremely literate friends or acquaintances? As far we know, there are no published images of this scene prior to this one. However, it definitely has affinities with two other compositions by Kuniyoshi of a later folk hero, Asahina Yoshihide, who was said to get the most of 'crocodiles' in an extreme act of bravery. Of course, those two scenes were created in the 1840s, thus making this print the earlier template. (See the links to those two Kuniyoshi triptychs in the links above.)
Another source is Records of Wind and Earth: A Translation of Fudoki with Introduction and Commentaries by Michiko Y. Aoki, the Association for Asian Studies, 1997, pages 83-84.
What is a fudoki?
Keene wrote: "In 713, the year after the Kojiki was presented to the court, various provinces were commanded to compile fudoki (gazetteers) which would include old tales, records of places, and descriptions of the crops, mineral resources, topography, and wildlife of each region. The fudoki were written mainly in Chinese, though some passages are in the mixed Sino-Japanese style typical of the Kojiki, and poems are phonetically transcribed. Only five of the gazetteers compiled in response to this imperial command have been preserved more or less intact, but some forty others exist in fragments. The most complete is the Izumo Fudoki, prepared between 713 and 733 by a group of scholars headed by Miyake no Omi Kanatari."
****
In the Izumo Fudoki the exact definition of the term wani (和爾 or 和邇) is not clear. Some sources believe it is meant to be a small shark. In 1998 Akira Asayama spent twenty pages trying to figure it out and finally settled on 'sea-monster'.
****
Izumo no Imaro in mid-sea plunges his sword into the neck of a sea-monster which is about to take him in it's jaws. A very rare design with gauffrage and hand-applied gofun. Robinson: S1c.9.
****
This print is trimmed considerably. There is no publisher's mark visible, but it was probably produced by Yamaguchiya Tōbei (Marks 591). All of the copies we have seen are cropped awkwardly to some degree at the upper right with the title cartouche.
****
One Japanese language web site noted on how hairy Izumo no Imaro's body is. We agree.
****
Illustrated in color in Kuniyoshi: Japanese master of imagined worlds by Iwakiri Yuriko with Amy Reigle Newland, Hotei Publishing, 2013, p. 41, pl. 17.
****
We have added an image of a surimono by Hokkei showing Oniwakamaru slaying a giant carp that ate his mother. When he sliced the fish open he found evidence proving that this is how his mother died.
This is not dissimilar to the earlier 8th century story of Imaro slaying the wani that had devoured his daughter. When Imaro finally cuts the monster open he finds a part of his daughter's leg as proof. The Oniwakamaru tale is not as old as the one of Imaro, but the similarities are unmistakable.
warrior prints (musha-e - 武者絵) (genre)
Yamaguchiya Tōbei (山口屋藤兵衛) (publisher)
Yūrei-zu (幽霊図 - ghosts demons monsters and spirits) (genre)