Iwana-bozu

The Edo-period miscellany Sōzan Chomon Kishū by Miyoshi Sōzan (Kaei 3 / 1850), Book Five, contains the story "On a Monk Who Was an Iwana in Disguise." A fisherman in Ena District of Mino Province is preparing to poison a deep pool when an unfamiliar monk arrives and admonishes him against taking life. The fisherman offers a meal of millet and the monk departs. When a great char is later taken from the pool and cut open, the millet from the meal is found in its belly. Realizing that the iwana had assumed monastic form to plead for the pool, the village ceases the practice of poison fishing. Variant accounts have been collected in Gifu (Gujō, Takayama), Shimane, and other regions.

The episode proceeds through the preparation for poison fishing, the appearance of the monk, the precept against killing, the offering, the catch, the discovery of the meal in the fish's belly, and the cessation of the practice.

Ena District of Mino Province (modern Nakatsugawa, Gifu Prefecture) is the setting of the Sōzan Chomon Kishū entry. Twentieth-century folklore surveys have collected related cases in Gujō and Takayama (Gifu) and elsewhere.

Miyoshi Sōzan, Sōzan Chomon Kishū, Book Five (Kaei 3 / 1850). Hayashi Kaiichi, "Folk Customs of Atagi, Ushidō Village, Gujō District, Mino Province," Minzokugaku Kenkyū 3.4 (1937). Hayashi Kaiichi, "Folk Customs of Sugoroku, Kamitakara Village, Yoshiki District, Hida Province," Minzokugaku Kenkyū 8.3 (1943).