Binbōgami
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A is a
kami are the deities, divinities, spirits, phenomena or "holy powers", that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, or beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the sp ...
or god who inhabits a human being or his house to bring misery and poverty. Several Japanese
folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
s,
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s, and
rakugo is a form of ''yose'', which is itself a form of Japanese verbal entertainment. The lone sits on a raised platform, a . Using only a and a as props, and without standing up from the seiza sitting position, the rakugo artist depicts a long ...
s refer to it. Concerning binbōgami's preference of baked
miso is a traditional Japanese seasoning. It is a thick paste produced by fermenting soybeans with salt and ''kōji'' (the fungus ''Aspergillus oryzae'') and sometimes rice, barley, seaweed, or other ingredients. It is used for sauces and spread ...
, in Senba, Osaka, ( :ja:船場 (大阪市)) the following story is told:
There used to be an event till about 1877 to send binbōgami away: At the end of each month, merchants in Senba made baked and plate-shaped miso, then a ''bantō'' (番頭, head clerk), with the plate-shaped miso in his hands, walked around till the air was filled with its appetizing smell. After a while, he bent the plate-shaped miso closed. The miso's smell makes binbōgamis come out of the houses they inhabit and traps them in it. The bantō dumps the miso into a river and washes the smell away before returning. According to poet Mitsuyuki Nakamura, binbōgami has an ''
uchiwa A handheld fan, or simply hand fan, is any broad, flat surface that is waved back-and-forth to create an airflow. Generally, purpose-made handheld fans are folding fans, which are shaped like a sector of a circle and made of a thin material (suc ...
'' to draw in and enjoy miso's smell.


Description

Generally, a binbōgami appears as a skinny, dirty old man, who wields both an
uchiwa A handheld fan, or simply hand fan, is any broad, flat surface that is waved back-and-forth to create an airflow. Generally, purpose-made handheld fans are folding fans, which are shaped like a sector of a circle and made of a thin material (suc ...
and a
kendama The is a traditional Japanese skill toy. It consists of a handle (''ken''), a pair of cups (''sarado''), and a ball (''tama'') that are all connected together by a string. On one end of the ''ken'' is a cup, while the other end of ''ken'' is na ...
in his hands and wears one broken
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on his foot. ''Toen Shōsetsu'' (兎園小説), the mystery stories written by
Kyokutei Bakin (), a.k.a. (, 4 July 1767 – 1 December 1848), was a Japanese novelist of the Edo period. Born (), he wrote under the pen name (). Later in life he took the pen name (). Modern scholarship generally refers to him as , or just as n. He is ...
and others includes a story of kyūki (窮鬼):
In 1821, there was a bushi house with ever-present misery. One day, the man who served the house went to
Sōka is a city in Saitama Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 249,645 in 118,129 households and a population density of 9100 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Situated in the southeast corner of Sa ...
and came across a bonze. The man asked him where he came from. The bonze replied he came from the man's house. The man said that he had never seen the bonze before. "I'm binbōgami," the bonze answered, "and that's why so many people in the house caught an illness. That house has enough misery, so I shall go to another house. Your master will have better luck hereafter" and the bonze disappeared. Just as the bonze said, people in the house experienced better luck gradually.
Being a
kami are the deities, divinities, spirits, phenomena or "holy powers", that are venerated in the Shinto religion. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, or beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the sp ...
, a binbōgami cannot be killed. A story in
Niigata Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture in the Chūbu region of Honshu of Japan. Niigata Prefecture has a population of 2,227,496 (1 July 2019) and is the List of Japanese prefectures by area, fifth-largest prefecture of Japan by geographic area ...
describes how:
If you light an
irori An ''irori'' (, ) is a traditional Japanese sunken hearth fired with charcoal. Used for heating the home and for cooking food, it is essentially a square, stone-lined pit in the floor, equipped with an adjustable pothook – called a ''jiz ...
on an
ōmisoka —or —is a Japanese traditional celebration on the last day of the year. Traditionally, it was held on the final day of the 12th lunar month. With Japan's switch to using the Gregorian calendar at the beginning of the Meiji era, December 31 ( ...
, irori's heat kicks binbōgami out and invites fukunokami (福の神, the kami of good luck) who likes the warmth of irori. There are many other superstitions which connect binbōgami with irori, including that of Tsushima,
Ehime Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Ehime Prefecture has a population of 1,342,011 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 5,676 km2 (2,191 sq mi). Ehime Prefecture borders Kagawa Prefecture to the northeast, Toku ...
: If an irori is lit too repeatedly, binbōgami appears.
''Tankai'' (譚海), an essay collection by Souan Tsumura, includes a story about a binbōgami:
During a nap, a man dreams of a ragged old man entering the room. Thereafter, everything the man did went wrong. Four years later, in another dream, the old man appears again. The old man says that he will leave the house and tells the man how to send a binbōgami away: Make some baked rice and baked miso, and place them on an ''oshiki'' (wooden board, with four bent edges to serve as a tray), and take it through the back door and dump them into the river. The old man also reveals how to avoid binbōgami thereafter: Not to make any baked miso, which is preferred by binbōgami, and to never eat any raw miso, which makes poverty too severe to light a fire to bake miso. The man did as he was told, and he never again experienced poverty.
It is also said that hospitality of the inhabited people may turn binbōgami into fukunokami.
Ihara Saikaku was a Japanese poet and creator of the " floating world" genre of Japanese prose (''ukiyo-zōshi''). Born as Hirayama Tōgo (平山藤五), the son of a wealthy merchant in Osaka, he first studied haikai poetry under Matsunaga Teitoku and later ...
's ''Nippon Eidaigura'' (日本永代蔵) includes the story (''Inoru shirushi no kami no oshiki'' 祈る印の神の折敷 lit. oshiki as a praying sign) which tells :About the man who deified a binbōgami. At the night of Jinjitsu (January 7 in the former Japanese calendar), a binbōgami appeared at the man's bedside and thanked him, "I had a prepared dinner on a tray for the first time," and made the man a millionaire in return. And it is also said that a poor ''hatamoto'' (middle-class bushi), who thought binbōgami had brought him security as well as poverty, put
sake Sake, also spelled saké ( ; also referred to as Japanese rice wine), is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name ''Japanese rice wine'', sake, and indee ...
and rice out to pray to binbōgami for a little bit of luck. And then, he received a little bit of luck. This binbōgami is now enshrined beside Kitano Shrine, in Bunkyō ward, Tokyo. If you pray at the small shrine to welcome binbōgami temporarily, and send him away 21 days later, it is said, you can avoid binbōgami thereafter.


See also

*
Japanese mythology in popular culture Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
*
List of legendary creatures from Japan The following is a list of demons, ghosts, and other legendary creatures that are notable in Japanese folklore and mythology. A B ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Binbogami Abundance gods Fortune gods Japanese legendary creatures