Si

Original Paper

Juntendo Medical Journal 42(S)Si S9 (1997) Susa-no-o's Legacy:

From Trickster and Ecological Themes in the Kojiki

BRUCE ALLEN *

Summary:

This paper outlines some of the basic ecological concerns expressed in the Kojiki. It focuses

primarily on the story of Susa-no-o, giving particular importance to Susa-no-o's role as a trickster figure. Two central episodes are used to demonstrate how Susa-no-o's trickster nature functions in highlighting early Japanese considerations about the proper relations of humans toward the land and agriculture. It then discusses the influence of these themes upon successive

Japanese cultural attitudes. In the concluding section it considers the presence of the trickster tradition in modern writing, referring to examples which suggest its continuing importance.

The Kojiki, meaning "Record of Ancient Things", was completed in about 712 C.E., and is the

oldest extant book in Japan. It provides an extremely rich compilation of folklore, semihistorical records, genealogies, and insights into the origins of Japanese culture. This work continues to be

of pivotal importance to scholars in fields ranging from the arts through the social and natural sciences. In this paper I focus on several central episodes from the story of Susa-no-o in the Kojiki which give an understanding of how early Japanese thought about their relations with the earth. Susa-no-o is a god and a culture hero who is portrayed as a trickster figure. He can take his place amongst the wildest, most bawdy, and most multi-faced tricksters in world literature. I show how this trickster nature of Susa-no-o serves as an important rhetorical device in conveying the agricultural and ecological ideas contained in the Kojiki. I discuss the influence which these early stories have had on successive Japanese attitudes to the natural world. In the conclusion, I question the presence of this trickster tradition in more recent literature and suggest its continuing relevance today.

Several writers have already noted the fact that Susa-no-o shares many characteristics with other trickster figures in literature throughout the world (Ellwood, Maruyama, Ouwehand). However, what has been scarcely noted is the striking and vital connection which exists between Susa-no-o's trickster nature and basic Japanese attitudes toward agricultural and ecological values. This is curious because it seems to me that the Kojiki gives a central importance to the problem of how people should appropriately live with the land which quite outweighs its concern for most other moral issues. Furthermore, I think that these core ecological concerns expressed in the Kojiki have had an influence on much of Japanese history

--althoughIfearthatinmanycasesthisconsciousnessisbecomingrapidlylosttodayas

Japaneselosetouchwiththeoldtricksterwithintheircollectivepsyche.

Department of Foreign Languages, Juntendo University School of Medicine, Chiba, Japan

*順 天堂大学医学部,外 国語研究室

〔Dec.10,1996原 稿 受 領 〕(Feb.25,199～ 掲 載 決 定)

S2 Bruce Allen : Susa - no - o's Legacy

In suggesting that we might find a sense of ecological concern in the Kojiki, however, I should

point out that we need to avoid the common fallacy which Jarold Ramsey has called the assumption of "Aboriginal Ecologists" (Ramsey, 60). Archaic Japanese, just as other early

peoples throughout the world -- although generally sensitive to the natural world -- have had mixed and complicated ecological records. Moreover, their understandings of the processes of the natural world were not governed by the rational principles of science or a conscious awareness of ecology. Their earlier ecological history is only recently beginning to receive careful research. Thus we need to avoid the over-enthusiastic or romantic assumptions that their relations to ecological systems were always benign or beneficial. However, I think that if we are sensitive, we can also find abundant instances in the Kojiki of how earlier Japanese were able

to -- as William Carlos Williams has expressed it --"reconcile the people with the stones"

(Williams, 145). Although they were not conscious ecologists, these earlier people were remarkably sensitive to many relationships which we today have only recently learned to call

ecological.

Susa-no-o is one of the major heroic figures in the Kojiki. And I think that it is because of Susa - no - o's character as a trickster par excellence, that he speaks with such particular resonance and appeal to many modern readers. His contemporary appeal is both as a literary figure and also as one who can effectively call attention to environmental concerns through bringing the human and natural worlds closer together. Susa - no - o is an ambiguous and everchanging being who is both a destroyer and provider. On the one hand, he can be a supreme defiler of the most sacred virtues and agricultural rituals, and yet on the other, he also

plays an important role in the genesis of crops and agricultural bounty. He is, by turns, childish, vain, impetuous, incestuous, and casually murderous. And yet the prevailing sense given in the Kojiki is clearly that his character excesses may be largely overlooked, and that his outrageous breaches of ritual order -- if by no means ignored -- may be at least eventually pardoned and understood in a more important context. For -- in keeping with the special potentials of tricksters -- in breaking the sacred rules, Susa - no - o ultimately upholds and consecrates the very principles upon which these rules are based. And through his notorious transgressions, he sets a heavenly precedent for understanding and reconciling human error by accommodating it into an eventual return to the fold of the community through restoration of correct principle and ritual.

The entire tale of Susa no - o's adventures is intricate, and would require considerable space to relate. Therefore, what I would like to do here is, rather, to focus more in detail on two critical episodes of his story. These episodes exemplify his quintessential trickster roles as; on the one hand, a supreme defiling rule-breaker, and secondly; his related if seemingly paradoxical role as a provider of agricultural bounty.

*

In the background preceding the first of these two episodes, Susa - no - o has recently defied his

father Izanagi's command to go out from the high plain of heaven and rule the kingdom of the

seas. For this defiance Susa - no - o has been expelled from the plain of heaven. But in a parting

act he visits his sister Amaterasu to take his leave. Well-knowing her brother's legendary

shifty character, Amaterasu immediately suspects him of trouble - making and possibly of trying

to usurp her lands. But Susa no - o boasts of his pure intentions and challenges her to an "oath-

Juntendo Medical Journal 42 (S)(1997) S3

swearing" contest so that he may prove his virtue. She accepts his challenge and in their ensuing contest to prove their virtue -- one which involves an incestuous bout of

procreation -- they produce offspring; with five male births attributed to Amaterasu, and three females to Susa-no-o.

Wildly reveling in his self-judged "success" in these oathswearing and procreation feats,

Susa-no-o thereupon proclaims himself the winner of his self-styled "virtue" test. But rather than graciously accepting his highly-dubious victory, he launches further into an extraordinary episode where he "rages with victory" ; thereby upsetting the fundamental principles of agriculture, and defiling the most sacred ritual order. He boasts:

"It was because my intentions were pure and bright that in the children I begot I obtained

graceful maidens. By this it is obvious that I have won." Thus saying, he raged with victory, breaking down the ridges between the rice paddies of

Ama-terasu-opo-mi-kami and covering up the ditches. Also he defecated and strewed the faeces about in the hall where the first fruits were

tasted. Even though he did this, Ama-terasu-opo-mi-kami did not reprove him, but said: "Th

at which appears to be faeces must be what my brother has vomited and strewn about while drunk. Also his breaking down the ridges of the paddies and covering up their ditches -- my brother must have done this because he thought it was wasteful to use the land thus."

Even though she thus spoke with good intention, his misdeeds did not cease, but became even more flagrant.

When Ama-terasu-opo-mi-kami was inside the sacred weaving hall seeing to the weaving of the divine garments, he opened a hole in the roof of the sacred weaving hall and dropped down into it the heavenly dappled pony which he had skinned with a back-wards skinning. The heavenly maiden, seeing this, was alarmed and struck her genitals against the shuttle and died.

(Kojiki, tr. Philippi, 79-80)

In this short sequence, it is important to recognize how Susa-no-o's actions represent the most flagrant offenses possible against Japanese agricultural practice and ritual purity, namely;

breaking down the ridges between rice paddies, covering up the irrigation ditches, polluting by strewing faeces in the most sacred hall of the harvest festival, skinning a pony backwards, and

then dropping this outrageous, ritually-defiled pony directly into heaven's most sacred hall. Here we see, on a fully-heroic scale, the disruption of the very basis of the ecological order, the

extremity of defilement and pollution, and the reversal of the order of the most sacred festival. It is interesting to note how part-way through this sequence Susa-no-o's sister Amaterasu is even willing to provide her brother with an ecologically-viable excuse for his behavior by suggesting that he must really have been trying to stop the wasteful use of the land. But Susa-no-o will have nothing of such talk. In keeping with his trickster nature, he seems bent upon continuing his defilements and even demonstrating them on a yet-higher order. Thus he makes his mark in the most memorably offensive way possible. Yet in events following this scene his outrages serve to highlight precisely their seemingly-opposite qualities; through affirming a sense of what is most sacred, balanced, and clean. Ironically, the trickster Susa-no-o purifies by

S4 Bruce Allen : Susa-no-o's Legacy

his excesses. And finally, it is important to note, he returns to teach the people through his

eventual return to the community. The trickster Susa-no-o is "bad" but -- by his badness

and his eventual return, his badness serves to teach us more effectively.

*

The warning messages signaled by Susa-no-o's primal offenses have continued to resonate and to shape both cultural and agricultural sensitivities throughout Japanese history. If we look at this first story of Susa - no - o in a wider historical context, we can see that significant elements of the rituals it refers to have been preserved in national rituals, and as a result they have continued to exert influence throughout Japanese history. For example, in the yearly

performance of the sacred Harvest Festival, the Niiname-sai, we can find a reenactment of some of the elements of the very same rite in which Amaterasu -- the sun goddess and supposed original ancestor of the imperial line -- was interrupted by Susa-no-o's defilements of faeces-strewing and dropping the backwards-skinned pony (Ellwood, 152) . Furthermore, since ancient times, the most sacred accession rite of each new emperor, the Daijo- sai, is the inaugural performance of the same Harvest Festival described in the Kojiki (Ellwood, 152) . Through this rite, as well as through other yearly rice planting and harvesting rituals, the emperor regularly ensures the continuance of healthy crops and natural cycles.

*

In discussing a second important episode in Susa - no - o's story, I want to further-illustrate

how his trickster nature is intimately connected to ecological considerations about pollution and

caring for the land. In particular, I will relate this story to the understanding it gives us of

early explanations about the origins of agriculture as confronted in the paradox of the

emergence of life from death and decay. In this episode, Susa-no-o is seen not simply as a rule-

breaker, but now also as one who plays a crucial role in the genesis of agricultural bounty.

Here, as in many other world cultures, it seems that the multi-faceted character of a trickster

figure has served early story-tellers as the appropriate rhetorical vehicle to help make the

paradoxical appear natural and understandable. Shortly after Susa - no - o's grand outrages in the heavenly rice fields and the Hall of the Sacred

Harvest the gods order an accordingly severe punishment. They shear off his beard and the

nails of his feet and hands, they ritually exorcise him, and finally they expel him from the

heavenly plain by sending him to earth to live with mortals.

When he arrives on earth, Susa-no-o finds himself terribly hungry. Before long he meets a

food goddess named Ohgetsuhime and the following extraordinary scene occurs:

[Susa - no - o] asked food of Ohgetsuhime. Then Ohgetsuhime took various viands out of her nose, her mouth, and her rectum,

prepared them in various ways, and presented them to him. Thereupon, Susa-no-o, who had been watching her actions, thought that she was polluting

the food before offering it to him and killed Ohgetsuhime. In the corpse of the slain deity there grew [various] things: in her head there grew

silkworms; in her two eyes there grew rice seeds; in her two ears there grew millet; in her nose there grew red beans; in her genitals there grew wheat; and in her rectum there grew soy beans.(Kojiki, 87)

Juntendo Medical Journal 42 (S)(1997) S5

In this compact but vital episode, we find the mythical explanation for the origin of the

primary Japanese crops. Moreover, this explanation is all set within a context of wondering about the mysterious recurring natural cycles of birth-from -death, and their equally-mysterious connection to pollution. When Susa - no - o commits the murder of his benefactor

goddess, the reason we are given is that he has detected pollution in Ohgetsuhime's method of food production. Yet paradoxically, this very act of slaying ends up in bringing about the origin

of the fundamental Japanese agricultural products; the silkworms, rice, millet, red beans, wheat, and soy beans. Thus, in this vivid -- even viscerally grotesque -- encapsulation, a rotting, seemingly-polluted corpse mysteriously gives birth to the life-giving crops and the event recapitulates the primal agricultural mystery of the origin of life amidst decay and death. Such an explanation echoes common agricultural people's intimate observations of the life processes of the earth. It also embraces with it an implied concern and respect for maintaining these cycles.

Here, as elsewhere in the Kojiki, moral offenses such as murder and incest -- offenses which would normally be considered of paramount concern to more modern sensibilities -- are overlooked and are taken rather as background elements of a heroic tale. What remains morally critical to the tale is the themes of pollution, ritual purity, and the ensuring of the cycle of

growth, death, and rebirth.

In successive events of the Kojiki we find that Susa - no - o is gradually transformed and weaned at least somewhat from his outrageous ways. In time he emerges more as a culture hero -- a sort of romantic playboy, slayer of dragons, and rescuer of maidens. Yet he still retains his basic volatile impetuousness and his mixed, humanly-identifiable character. In old age he finally retires and cedes his powers to a son. But even in his long "retirement" throughout the ages Susa-no-o has lived on in Japan as a local folk god who is still venerated in the countryside even today. In literature he has remained as an influence in the artistic background which has colored the creation of other romantic Japanese figures such as Prince Genji in Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji.

While respecting the caution not to naively assume the presence of "Aboriginal Ecologists" in the Kojiki, I think it is also important to fully recognize the evidence its stories show of a deep sensitivity to the facts of ecological life and to the responsibilities needed to maintain a healthy environment. Throughout the Kojiki there are many other episodes which share similar themes of concern for

pollution, the regeneration of life from death, and the constant responsibilities which humans have to care for the land.

Unfortunately, too often these considerations have disappeared from cultural attitudes in recent society and writing; in Japan, just as in other countries. Nonetheless, in the growing body of contemporary literature which is giving a new importance to the consideration of place and the environment -- often referred to as nature writing -- we can find renewed efforts to bring these ancient themes alive. Thus in the concluding section I would like to jump ahead in time to discuss the development of this continuing thread of ideas in recent international writing and to suggest some points of confluence and transition between the past, present and future.

S6 Bruce Allen : Susa - no - o's Legacy

The Trickster Story in Transition

What relevance do tricksters and their tales have to us today? Is the trickster largely dead and

gone, or might this wily creature be amidst us yet, and influencing us anew? For modern readers throughout most of the world, I think it is often rather difficult to relate to tricksters such as Susa - no - o -- other than by approaching them from a rather distanced, "archaeological" sort of literary interest, or by romanticizing them or otherwise relegating them to a distant

past. Yet I think that the trickster imagination survives amidst us today, and that in literature it persists and is receiving renewed interest. At the same time, I think there is an important and persisting connection between the trickster tale and the recent writing which is concerned with humans' relations with the land.

One American writer who has given particular attention to the presence of tricksters in modern life is the poet and essayist Gary Snyder. In his essay "The Incredible Survival of Coyote" he discusses the reemergence of the trickster-coyote in modern writing and relates it to a growing sense of awareness of the importance of reconnecting ourselves to the land. Throughout his writings he speaks of our need to borrow from the trickster imagination in our attempts to "re-inhabit" the land with an ecologically responsible attitude. We can also find in his writing some interesting parallels with the spirit of the Susa no - o story. In his collection of essays The Practice of the Wild, Snyder proposes that, as a primal "acid test" of our ecological consciousness, we think of ourselves as food. He boldly suggests the idea that,

to acknowledge that each of us at the table will eventually be part of the meal is not just being `realistic'. It is allowing the sacred to enter and accepting the sacramental aspect of our shaky temporary personal being.(quoted in Turner, 45)

The ancient story of Susa - no - o also speaks of precisely such an awareness of our human part in the greater cycles -- in which we may eat at the global table, and yet must also accept our

part in contributing to the unfolding meal; in part by contributing our efforts to it during our lives and then, ultimately, by accepting the return of our own flesh to it in our deaths.

Nor is this literary sensitivity to the earth's cycles limited simply to a recent revival of interest. In a nineteenth century example, Walt Whitman strikes a similar note of awareness in

his poem "This Compost" where he wonders:

Ohowcanitbethatthegrounditselfdoesnotsicken?

How can you be alive you growths of spring?

How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain?

Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within you?

…

Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient,

It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,

…

It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last.

(Leaves of Grass, 296-7)

Juntendo Medical Journal 42 (S) (1997) S7

Whitman is passionately alive to such fundamental connections between life, death, and the rotting things which are forever going back into the earth and renewing the world. He implies that we will be healthier for becoming aware of these processes, wondering about them, and ultimately, nurturing their continuance.

To cite but one example of Japanese contemporary writers who are dealing with such themes of the relations between humans and the land, Ishimure Michiko has beautifully and often hauntingly portrayed the love of people for the places they live in, along with the tragedies which can result when the balance between humans and the land is broken. Her work, like Snyder's suggests a contemporary attempt to "re-story" and re-imagine the earth, where humans can live in participation with, rather than in conquest of nature.

In our present world where we can so readily observe the outrageous and grotesque

destruction of our environment -- far beyond that of Susa-no-o's -- outrages these older

stories and poems come to take on a particular relevance. They live on and can inspire and

engender a renewed wondering in us about the earth and about what we are becoming. Where

there is wonder in such cycles there is hope for renewal.

*

What then can we say of the fate of the trickster today? Tricksters never entirely disappear from the world; they merely change their shapes, their masks, and their visibility. Certainly, we live no less amongst tricksters today; even if it may often be difficult for us to adequately recognize or acknowledge their existence. They have taken on a modern guise. No doubt we would be better off if we could see them, learn from them, and even be able to create more appropriate and life-generating substitutes for the ones we now have.

Herman Melville dealt at length with this problem of the emergence of the modern trickster. In The Confidence-Man, he describes a transitional world where old-style tricksters are steadily giving way to more sinister figures who wear masks to gain fortune and power, and who are constantly deceptive; deceiving even the players themselves. Nonetheless, Melville also seems to suggest that Americans of his time were still aware of the tricksters amongst them, and were even able to appreciate the skills of the clever con-man -- even if it meant being tricked themselves on occasion. The con-men of his day still depended on a basic reserve of confidence and trust among people in society (Matterson, xvi). Increasingly, however, the modern trickster's world has become a boomer's and hustler's land of rapid-growth, exploitation and distrust. In contrast to the tricksters of old, our new con-men-tricksters are constantly moving on; without connections to home or community. The ancient tricksters wore

their masks and assumed various forms, yet eventually they returned home to their people; ultimately unmasking themselves in humor, and revealing some glimpse of truth. In contrast, the modern con-men trick and take without either revealing themselves or sticking around long enough to teach anything lasting.

In a striking passage, Melville refers to the venerable tradition of masked tricksters in telling

of Shakespeare's Lear, where; "Tormented into desperation, Lear the frantic king tears off the mask, and speaks the sane madness of vital truth" (quoted in Lindberg, 17). Perhaps it is such a "sane madness of vital truth" which our tricksters throughout history have offered us -- and

of which we are in particular need today. Too often, whether in the US, in Japan, or elsewhere, we find instead a world of mere hustlers and con-men. These are beings who conspire toward a

S8 Bruce Allen : Susa-no-o's Legacy

world of frenzy, while making it increasingly difficult for us to tear off -- or even to

recognize -- our masks, and to replace them with a more sane madness of truth. Perhaps then,

one of the important hopes in literature today is that it might help us to better identify our living tricksters; both without and within our own psyche. By incorporating them into new

living stories, we may become better able to deal with them and to help restore tricksters to

their fundamental roles as life-enhancers and life-givers. And by connecting these stories to the

land -- as trickster stories inevitably tend to do -- we may breathe new life into the earth.

Today, amidst our still rather new-found awareness of ecology as a scientific idea, it is

important that we are also able to look back to the deeply-felt sensitivities to ecological reality

found in earlier stories such as that of Susa-no-o. Recently, we have slowly come to realize that

ecology represents the study of a complex web of life which extends far beyond the immediate

world of humans. Yet our understanding of this web is still often precariously brittle, shallow,

and intellectual. It often resides too much in our heads, and not enough in our hands and our

works. We need to better integrate our worlds within and without. In order to do this we need

inspiration. Reminders from our past of how people have lived these ideas in daily practice can

help to point us to the future. They can also help us to laugh at and criticize ourselves. In turn,

they can give us a renewed confidence in the power of our imagination. Stories in the tradition

of Susa-no-o can help keep us both well-grounded and in touch, while at the same time

creatively expanding the net of life and capable of providing hope for its future.

References

Ammons, Elizabeth, and Annette White-Parks, ed. Tricksterism in T urn - of- the- Century American

Literature: a Multicultural Perspective. Hanover, NH: University of New England Press. 1994.

Aston, William George, tr. Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the earliest times to A. D. 697. 2 vols. ;

reprint; ed. London: 1956.

Elliade, Mircea. Myth and Reality. New York: Harper Torchbooks. 1975.

Ellwood, Robert S. "A Japanese Mythic Trickster Figure: Susa-no-o" , in Hynes and Doty: Mythical

Trickster Figures: Contours, Contexts, and Criticisms. Tuscaloosa: U. of Alabama Press. 1993.

Erdoes, Richard, and Alfonso Oritz, ed. American Indian Myths and Legends. NY: Pantheon, 1984.

Hynes, William J. and William G. Doty. Mythical Trickster Figures: Contours, Contexts, and Criticisms.

Tuscaloosa: U. of Alabama Press. 1993.

Ishimure, Michiko. Sorrow in the Sea of Sadness; Our Minamata Disease. Kyoto: Yamaguchi Publishing

House, 1990.

Lenz, William E. Fast Talk & Flush Times: The Confidence Man as a Literary Con ven tion. Columbia: U.

of Missouri Press. 1985.

Lindberg, Gary. The Confidence Man in American Literature. NY: Oxford U. Press. 1982.

Lopez, Barry, ed. Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping with His Daughter: Coyote Builds North America.

NY: Avon, 1977.

Maruyama, Manabu. Minkan Densho (in Japanese). XIV, 8: 15-25.

Matterson, Stephen. Introduction to Herman Melville's The Confidence Man. London, Penguin. 1990.

Melville, Herman. The Confidence-Man. London: Penguin. 1990 (1857).

Obayashi, Taryo. "The Origins of Japanese Mythology". Acta Asiatica. no. 31 (1977).

Ouwehand, Cornelius. "Some notes on the god Susa - no - o". Mon um en to Nipponica, XIV, 3-4 (1958-59),

138-161.

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Philippi, Donald L, tr. Kojiki. Tokyo: U. of Tokyo Press. 1968.

Ramsey, Jarold. Reading the Fire: Essays in the Traditional Indian Literatures of the Far West. Lincoln:

U of Nebraska Press. 1983.

Snyder, Gary. The Practice of the Wild. NY: North Point Press. 1990. A Place in Space: Ethiics, Aesthetics, and Watersheds ; New and Selected Prose.. Washington

D. C. Counterpoint, 1995.

Turner, Jack. "Gary Snyder and the Practice of the Wild". In Deep Ecology for the 21st Century. ed. George Sessions. Boston: Shambhala, 1995.

Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. (1893 edition). NY: Bantam, 1983.

Williams, William Carlos. Selected Poems (ed. Charles Tomlinson) New York: New Directions. 1985.

[和文要約]須佐之男命の遺産:

古事記における トリックスターとエコロジカルなテーマか ら

本論文では古事記に書かれているい くつかの基本的なエコロジカルな考え方 について論及する.

お もにはスサノオの話 を中心 にとりあげるが,特 に彼の トリックスターとしての役割に焦点をあて

ている.ス サノオをとりま く話の中から特に中心的な2つ のエピソー ドを用い,い かにスサノオの

トリックスターとしての性格が古代の日本人が持 っていた土地 と農耕に対す る正 しい考え方を浮 き

出 しているか示 している.ま た,こ のようなテーマが後の 日本人にどのような影響 を及ぼ したか述

べている.ま とめにおいて,今 でも トリックスターが重要であることを示す例 を述べ ながら,現 代

文学におけるその存在について考 える.