Sanuki Tanuki Legend

The Sanuki tanuki legend is the Kagawa core of the Shikoku tanuki cycle. Its most famous figures are the bald tanuki of Yashima and Tasaburo-danuki, enshrined as the guardian of Yashima-ji. Tasaburo is said to have aided the Minamoto side during the Battle of Yashima (1185) by confusing Heike forces with illusion, and to have taught swordsmanship to Minamoto no Yoshitsune. Shikoku as a whole holds an extensive eight-hundred-and-eight tanuki cycle, including Kincho of Awa (Tokushima) and Inugami-Gyobu of Iyo (Ehime), and Sanuki's Tasaburo is counted among the three great tanuki of Japan. The central sites are Yashima-ji (the eighty-fourth temple of the Shikoku pilgrimage) in Takamatsu and the Genpei Yashima battlefield. Sources include Genpei Joi-suiki, Yashima-ji Engi, the Edo gazetteers Sanshu Fushi and Shikoku Henrei Reijo-ki, the folklore volume of the Kagawa prefectural history, and Inoue Enryo's Yokaigaku Kogi.