The Guiding Jizo

 

People of every era, I suspect, tend to believe that their experiences are new and unique. But this often isn't the case. It particularly isn't the case when it comes to natural disasters in a county as natural disaster prone as Japan. 

This animated clip, from the great, great series Manga Nippon Mukashibanashi (Animated Japanese Fairy Tales), was produced in the 1970s. The fairy tale upon which it is based is hundreds of years old.

In it, a young mother and child from the island of Kessenuma Oshima happen across a statue called the michibiki jizo -- the guiding bodhisattva. According to local legend, the soul of a person that is about to die appears before this particular jizo the day before they pass away. The mother and child are shocked to see a whole parade of spirits appear before the statue -- male and female, old and young. 

When they return home, the father laughs it off as a figment of their imaginations. But the very next day, when the family is fishing at the seashore, the tide pulls out and doesn't come back in. Minutes later, a massive tsunami wipes out the entire town as the mother, son, and father watch escape to a hilltop. They are the only survivors. 

Given the fact that Kessenuma is in the headlines today for the very same reason, there is no doubt that this "fairy tale" is based on a true story. It's particularly haunting in light of the ancient stone markers that dot the Japanese coastline warning of tsunami from times of old, a literal message to future generations from ancestors long since shuffled off this mortal coil.

History repeats. In this era of science and technology it is tempting to brush off myth and legend as superstition. Sometimes, however, they're more than just stories.

Comments

[Durf]

Fantastic find! I'm downloading it now to reencode and watch on the phone during my train ride home.

[Pat11]

Wow. Which makes me wonder how many nuclear waste facilities will be forgotten within 200 years.

[MattAlt]

Exactly. Years ago, I recall reading about a proposal to design nuclear waste facilities so as to appear forbidding and dangerous in a way that transcended language and culture. The reasoning being that when you have waste material with a half-life of 20,000+ years, you need to plan for changes in languages, civilizations, etc, etc.

That these stone markers are only a few hundred years old, and written in language modern day Japanese can still understand, just goes to show how difficult it is to convey a sense of danger across the ages.

[Leonardo Boiko]

I NEED a source of those stone markers with better pictures & text transcriptions!

[Msgeek93]

Animation-wise this looks very much like a lot of shorts that came out of the National Film Board of Canada during the '70s. It's a beautiful story though. It seems to me that Jizo is a legendary figure who protects Japan's most vulnerable people. And certainly, in times of natural disaster, everyone is vulnerable.

[Ceaddam]

It's like I just fell into a big pile of stupid.
Look, I'll try to pull ya'll out, but I don't think I can.
1)"...based on a true story," As in there being a shrine to the dead? Yes, that's probably true and not surprising. As in seeing dead people? You're a superstitious whackaloon.
2) "...tempting to brush off myth and legend as superstition," again, what? That people in Japan know that a tsunami can wipe out an entire village? Hey, "tsunami," is a Japanese word. What's there to brush off? Is it possible that only one family could survive a tsunami? Absolutely. How many would have died without the tsunami warning sirens? Even with the warning, they had very little time. As for ghosts and spirits? Ok, not even the Japanese actually believe that. Only whackaloons and small children believe in that.
3) Pat11-why are you laboring under the delusion that the Japanese do not understand the dangers of a tsunami? Have you been under a rock? THEY have an early warning system. THEY have tsunami sirens. THEY absolutely know what's what. They didn't dawdle and stand around like the ignorant peasants during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Nope, the Japanese ran for their lives and barely had time to escape.

[MattAlt]

"Based on a true story" referred to the fact of a prior tsunami, not the fantastical elements of the story. This is a fairy tale, not a documentary.

[MattAlt]

"I NEED a source of those stone markers with better pictures & text transcriptions!"

There's a clear photo of one here on this blog:
http://ukoncha.air-nifty.com/blog/2011/03/post-c202.html

[The CronoLink]

You just reminded of when Tolkien once told C.S. Lewis that, though fairy tales may be fiction, "they are not lies."