Izuna (Nagano)

Izuna is a small fox-familiar of the Izuna cult, centred on Mount Iizuna (1,917 m, Nagano City). Like the kuda-gitsune of central Honshu, it is said to be kept in a bamboo tube and sent by its operator to possess others, but in this lineage it is bound to the Shugendo cult of Izuna Gongen, the deity enshrined at Iizuna and at Takaosan Yakuoin (Hachioji, Tokyo). Ascetics trained on Mount Iizuna were said to acquire the Izuna-no-ho technique. Densities of belief are recorded across northern Nagano (Nagano City, Iiyama, Nakano) and the Joetsu region of Niigata; warlords including Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin are traditionally said to have venerated Izuna Gongen. Sources include the Edo-period miscellany Kasshi Yawa (Matsura Seizan) and Mimibukuro (Negishi Yasumori), Yanagita Kunio's Santo Mintanshu (1914), and Murakami Kenji's Nihon Yokai Daijiten (Kadokawa, 2005).