Most students of Japanese history learn that the Mongols were defeated by a typhoon, later named kamikaze, “divine wind”. People who read a bit more may understand that the Japanese did have something to do with the victory and that it wasn’t entirely the result of the gods and their wind. Seems like new evidence shows that there was even more to it than we always thought.
While history often depicts the invaders being repulsed in a day, new evidence shows the conflict extended to the gates of the administrative capital of Dazaifu.
Kyūshū University professor Hattori Hideo, an expert on the invasion:
Hattori has put forward a completely new theory that the invaders did not immediately withdraw as widely believed but advanced a considerable distance into the interior. In making his argument, he cites records that tell of fighting near the shogunal administrative center of Dazaifu four days after the Yuan army landed.
October is rapidly approaching. Things are finally starting to get cooler in Japan. Well… at least at night. A little. Or maybe it’s just my imagination. This summer has been brutal, so I’m jumping on any hint of autumn I can get!
The modern name for October in Japan is 十月, literally “tenth month”. Pretty boring, eh? The older name was more exciting! It comes with a fun story too. Let’s look!
The old name for October was was 神無月 (Kannazuki), “the month without gods”. This name raises a few questions. Why is the month without gods? Where did they go? What did the gods ever do for us anyway and why should we care if they go away?
There is an old legend that tells us all the Shinto gods in Japan have left their various shrines around the country and journeyed to Shimane for an annual meeting at Izumo Shrine. Izumo Shrine is believed to be the oldest shrine in Japan. According to myth, it was here that Ningi no Mikoto, grandson of the sun goddess Amaterasu, descended from the heavens. At one time, all of Japan was governed from Izumo. So you can see, it’s a pretty important place mythologically speaking, and a perfect place for the gods to meet.
Izumo Shrine by Tokuriki Tomikichiro
This meeting leaves the rest of the country momentarily godless, hence the name “the month without gods”. But interestingly, in Izumo the month had a different name. In this place the month was called 神有月 (Kamiarizuki), “the month with gods”.
It is a bit of a silly story, but as with much of mythology, it’s fun. People enjoy spreading the story, especially people in Shimane, who really have fun with it all, as you might imagine.
Gathering of gods at the great shrine at Izumo by Utagawa Sadahide
Modern scholarship tells us this story most likely came after the name. In the name 神無月 (Kannazuki), 神 means god or gods, 無 does mean “absent”, and 月 means month. Gods absent month would seem to make sense. But these scholars tell us 無 in this word probably was used for sound only, not meaning, and is therefore a possessive particle, making the 神無月 actually god’s month (or month of gods to make it sound better). So you see, this line of reasoning says that the entire story of the gods meeting in Izumo and abandoning the rest of the country is based on false etymology and came later.
The scholars who tell us this give a lot of evidence for their beliefs and they are probably right. Their argument makes sense and goes with other words. But…. the story of the gods and an Izumo meeting is more fun, so I don’t think it’s going to be going away anytime soon.
Many haiku reference this story. Here’s one:
禅寺の松の落葉や神無月 zendera ni matsu no ochiba ya kannazuki
the zen temple
pine needles falling
month of no gods
—Boncho
(trans. David LaSpina)
another:
留主のまにあれたる神の落葉哉 rusu no ma ni aretaru kami no ochiba kana
while the god is gone
the shrine is blanketed
with dead leaves
—Bashō
(trans. David LaSpina)
I’m sure I have some archived posts from the old site focusing on each of these haiku and giving more detail. One of these days I’ll find and repost them. ↩
floating in the haze
like small islands
treetops
—David LaSpina
浮かんでる霧の中にや木の梢 ラスピナ ukanderu kiri no naka ni ya kinokozue[1]
Late Fall by Kusaka Kenji
I put the English first above because that is how I wrote it, then I translated it to Japanese. The funny thing is for the Japanese I removed the simile like small islands, because that was just too long. That is something that surprises many people: that due to the structure of the language, the traditional 5 / 7 / 5 count works out to a much much shorter poem in Japanese than in English.
That makes the Japanese roughly: floating / in the haze / treetops. That may actually make a stronger haiku. It leaves more to you the reader to fill in instead of me explicitly telling you how to picture it. I’ve kept the original English version in this post for reference, but I may use the Japanese version and a shortened English version if I publish this elsewhere.
I wrote this haiku after driving in the countryside one morning. It was a foggy morning, as they occasionally are. We have started to get hints of cooler weather in the morning and at night, and that always brings fog, especially in the mountains and hills. As I drove through the mist, the treetops looked like small islands floating in an ocean, inspiring the haiku.
Fog is a kigo (season word) for autumn, which, according to the traditional Japanese calendar, we are already in. I actually had the Japanese word in mind when I wrote it, 霧 (kiri) which we usually translate as “fog”, reserving “haze” to describe the same thing but in spring (霞—kasumi—in Japanese) but I used “haze” simply because it sounded better to my ear as I wrote it. No other reason than that really.[2]
It’s hot in Japan this year. I mean really hot. It’s not just me that thinks so. I think the cicada agree.
暑き日や蝉が歌ってる影からね atsuki hi ya semi ga utatteru kage kara ne[1]
it’s hot today
the cicada sing…
from the shade
—David LaSpina
Whether it’s global warming or El Niño or something I haven’t heard of yet—whatever the reason, it is really hot. The incredible humidity of Japan isn’t helping things. It’s reached the dangerous level many times this summer, and already there have been a number of deaths and many more hospitalizations from heat stroke.
The cicada are everywhere in Japan, as I’ve talked about before. Some States in the US have been complaining this year about the Brood X and the above average amount of cicada: well… it’s like that every year in Japan. Yeah, we have a lot. I enjoy them, so no complaints here, by the way. Anyway, one might imagine cicada enjoy the heat since they are usually out at the hottest part of summer.
But y’know… I notice a lot of them do their singing from the shade of tree branches. Even the cicada get hot, it seems! Or so I might imagine.
The English of the haiku came to my mind first, then I tried to backtrack to what a Japanese version might look like. The humor seems slightly different in the Japanese version as I wrote it, but rather than worry about it too much, I’m just going with my initial idea. If you have any suggestions for a better translation, let me know!
Silly humans often gives some significance to lightning strikes. Either they mean something or they are just scary. But how does the animal kingdom respond to them?
稲妻や屁とも思はぬひきが顔 一茶 inazuma ya he to mo omowanu hiki ga kao[1]
lightning strike—
not caring in the least
the toad’s face
—Issa[2]
Heavy Showers at Higashi-hongan-ji Temple by Fujishima Takeji
As he often did, Issa is using one of his animal friends as the subject. I wonder also if he is referring to Bashō’s haiku about not being enlightened.
稲妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ
inazuma ni satoranu hito no tattosa yo
one who sees lightning
without becoming enlightened
how admirable!
Bashō was expressing some frustration at all the religious “experts” who would boast abut how enlightened they were in attempts to gain a following. Not so different from people today. No doubt Issa would have been running into these same types of people in his day, which was around 120 years after Bashō, and probably held the same frustrations. How admirable for the toad that it also doesn’t claim to have become enlightened upon seeing that lightning strike!
The phrase that I translated as “not caring in the least” is literally “consider it less than a fart”, a colorful colloquial expression for “couldn’t care less”.
