[Japanese Culture] Japanese Fairy Tale
Transcript of [Japanese Culture] Japanese Fairy Tale
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Japanese Folktale/日本(にほん)おとぎ話(ばなし)
(nihonn-otogi-banashi)
Japanese old faith in
animism
The Tale of Bamboo
Cutter / PrincessKaguya
Yasuhiro Mori ( やすひろ もり / 泰博 森 )
Japanese old faith in animism
Animistic Faith; Old Japanese people espoused andfeared anything great or abnormal in their life.
Worship of Kami (かみ) which are local and can beregarded as the spiritual being/spirit or genius of a
particular place: Strong admire to nature and animal.
But, still there are some different interpretations of definitions of かみ.
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Japanese Fairly Tales
So many Japanese Fairly Tales had been
influenced by the animism.
Animals or statues turn into human being; to
return favours from human, or to revenge their grudges against human.
The Tale of Bamboo Cutter / Princess
Kaguya(かぐや-ひめ)
Japanese
oldest folktale
Author and
date of made
are unknown
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Main Characters
The bamboo cutter,
Okina; Taketori-no-
Okina (たけとりのおきな/竹取の翁)
Kaguya (かぐや
)
Mikado (みかど/帝)
A bamboo cutter, Okina found a baby, whose
size is just about 9 cm, inside a bamboo.
Okina and his wife named her Kaguya (かぐや), and raised her.
Kaguya grew so quickly.
Within 3 months, she
became a beautiful woman.
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Kaguya left Medicine to become immortal to Emperor.
However, after Kaguya’sleaving, Okina and Ouna fellin sickness. Moreover,Emperor ordered his guards tothrow away the medicine intothe highest mountain.
Immortal (fushi/ふし/不死) became the name of Mount. Fuji(ふじ/富士) today.
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TODAY’sKAGUYA
Today, the machine of Japanese AerospaceExploring Agency (JAXA)which is around the Moonfor research of the origin of the lunar origin andevolution, and to develop thetechnology for the futurelunar exploration is namedKAGUYA after the realKaguya and her story.
Conclusion
Japanese used to have strongfaith in animism, which later
became Shinto
Such an animism influencedquite a lot of Japanese
folktales.
The tale of bamboo cutter/Princess Kaguya hasetymology of Mt. Fuji, thoughthere are another theory of etymology of Mt. Fuji.