Tono Kappabuchi Legend

The Tono Kappabuchi legend gathers kappa tales recorded by Yanagita Kunio from Sasaki Kizen for the Tono Monogatari (1910), centred on Kappa-buchi, a pool on a tributary of the Kogarase River in Tono, Iwate. The collection includes a kappa nearly pulled into the water along with a horse, a pool-master who took the form of a woman, and a household line said to have borne a kappa's child. Kappa-buchi behind the Soto-shu temple Jokenji is the principal site, and a kappa shrine and kappa-shaped guardian dogs stand at the temple as thanks for a kappa's help in putting out a fire. The cycle has three subjects: water-edge taboos and the pulling of children or horses; household lines that married kappa; and small kappa shrines that quiet the pool. Yanagita treats the kappa as a present-day boundary figure tied to mountain-village life rather than as a medieval yokai; the tradition combines an explanation system for animal harm and drowning. The setting is Kappa-buchi in Tsuchibuchi-cho, Tono, with the wider valley including Yamaguchi and Ode villages. Sources include Tono Monogatari (1910, self-published; later editions in Kadokawa Bunko and Iwanami Bunko), tales 55 to 59 on the kappa, with further additions in Sasaki Kizen's Tono Monogatari Shui (1935). Reference materials are held by the Tono City Museum and the Cultural Affairs Agency's National Cultural Properties Database.