Inari

kkitsune:

Kitsune are associated with Inari, the Shinto deity of rice. This association has reinforced the fox’s supernatural significance. Originally, kitsune were Inari’s messengers, but the line between the two is now blurred so that Inari itself may be depicted as a fox. Likewise, entire shrines are dedicated to kitsune, where devotees can leave offerings. Fox spirits are said to be particularly fond of a fried sliced tofu called aburage, which is accordingly found in the noodle-based dishes kitsune udon and kitsune soba. Similarly, Inari-zushi is a type of sushi named for Inari that consists of rice-filled pouches of fried tofu.There is speculation among folklorists as to whether another Shinto fox deity existed in the past. Foxes have long been worshipped as kami.

Inari’s kitsune are white, a color of good omen. They possess the power to ward off evil, and they sometimes serve as guardian spirits. In addition to protecting Inari shrines, they are petitioned to intervene on behalf of the locals and particularly to aid against troublesomenogitsune, those spirit foxes who do not serve Inari. Black foxes and nine-tailed foxes are likewise considered good omens.

According to beliefs derived from fusui (feng shui), the fox’s power over evil is such that a mere statue of a fox can dispel the evil kimon, or energy, that flows from the northeast. Many Inari shrines, such as the famous Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto, feature such statues, sometimes large numbers of them.

Kitsune are connected to the Buddhist religion through the Dakiniten, goddesses conflated with Inari’s female aspect. Dakiniten is depicted as a female boddhisattva wielding a sword and riding a flying white fox.

fashionableai:

Went to Fushimi Inari after classes today. It was really pretty but we only got to climb it like halfway ‘cause it got dark.  I wanna go back sometime soon and buy a little stuffed fox and a cellphone strap.  There are fox statues all over the grounds and there’s over a thousand torii.  They showed it in a scene in Memoirs of a Geisha.  The place is ginormous. I really need a whole day to explore the whole thing, but idk if I’ll get the chance. I definitely wanna try to get to the top before dark next time though.

The shrine is named for the goddess Inari, who has an affinity with foxes and whose favorite food is sweet fried tofu.  She’s the name sake for foods like inarizushi and why they call kitsune udon kitsune udon.

I’m so jealous of anyone who has the ability to go to Fushimi Inari. I would give a limb just for an ofuda and a fox plush, maybe a torii souvenir, but mostly I just have an overwhelming need to physically go there, maybe do a circumambulation of the mountain. I hope I’m able to make it sometime soon (by which I mean in the next decade)

Inari (Oinari) and Kitsune

genestho:

Often associated with other gods, Inari is a major Shintō kami that can be depicted in either male or female form. S/he protects the rice harvest, farmers, merchants, fisheries, and other foodstuffs.

Foxes, usually white in color, traditionally flock to the sides of Inari’s image, but it is more popular today for the shape-shifting fox (“kitsune” in Japanese). Foxes are associated with bringing and sustaining life and also warding off evil Kimon (“demon gate”, the northeast quarter where “demons gather and enter” in Chinese feng shui).

In early records of lore, Inari was identified with Uga no Mitama no Kami, the Shintō goddess of agriculture, and also with a male counterpart - Uka no Mitama no Mikoto, the god of the grains. Also, Inari was familiarized with Ukemochi no Kami, another food goddess.

Even more confusing is that Inari is the fact that pre-modern artwork depicted Inari as a bearded man standing on a sack of rice with two foxes by his sides, or as a long-haired woman carrying sheaves of rice or riding a white fox. Upon these attributes of Inari, there are even more.

—-from my Pagan Blog Project entry, here.

Yes perfect

Inari (Oinari) and Kitsune

genestho:

Often associated with other gods, Inari is a major Shintō kami that can be depicted in either male or female form. S/he protects the rice harvest, farmers, merchants, fisheries, and other foodstuffs.

Foxes, usually white in color, traditionally flock to the sides of Inari’s image, but it is more popular today for the shape-shifting fox (“kitsune” in Japanese). Foxes are associated with bringing and sustaining life and also warding off evil Kimon (“demon gate”, the northeast quarter where “demons gather and enter” in Chinese feng shui).

In early records of lore, Inari was identified with Uga no Mitama no Kami, the Shintō goddess of agriculture, and also with a male counterpart - Uka no Mitama no Mikoto, the god of the grains. Also, Inari was familiarized with Ukemochi no Kami, another food goddess.

Even more confusing is that Inari is the fact that pre-modern artwork depicted Inari as a bearded man standing on a sack of rice with two foxes by his sides, or as a long-haired woman carrying sheaves of rice or riding a white fox. Upon these attributes of Inari, there are even more.

—-from my Pagan Blog Project entry, here.

Kitsune

shoeboxofstories:

As part of my 2010 pilgrimage to Japan I had the pleasure of visiting the amazing Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine. This hauntingly beautiful place and the surrounding folklore of trickster fox-spirits gave me the idea for the latter day ghost story that follows. I ended up writing it in 2011 as part of a creative writing course. Here it is in full. Enjoy.

———————————————————————————————————————————————-

‘What on earth do you want one of those for, Edward?’

  The rebuke came almost immediately, as he turned the small wooden carving over in his hand, bowing politely to the smiling Japanese lady who stood behind the stall.

   ‘Horrible, cheap looking thing,’ continued the abuse from somewhere beyond his line of vision, ‘I bet they only cost pennies to make while fools like you pay a fortune.’

  Wincing, he rummaged in his pocket for the perfectly reasonable four-hundred Yen the stallholder was asking for and ultimately handed over a larger denomination, motioning away her attempts to deliver change. He turned, instead, to face Jessica, his wife of ten years, and the source of the insults; turned to meet the searing stare he could already feel burning into him from behind the shield of her ray-bans.

  ‘Perfectly happy to waste money on silly little fox trinkets, then?’ she remarked, her hands perched on her hips in the way that an eagle might grip a freshly slain rabbit. ‘Meanwhile we have to slum about like peasants in some kind of paper house where there isn’t even a proper bed.’

  Edward looked down at the little carving he had bought. Its long angular snout, narrow eyes and the mouth that seemed to smile slyly back at him. He might have guessed she wouldn’t see the value in it. He didn’t know what he had been thinking in finally bringing her along on one of his trips.

  ‘Come on,’ he said with a sigh, ‘let’s get going,’ and he set off past her, walking at a slow pace towards the sea of red torii gates that lay ahead; curling their way up the greenery of the mountain, through the various shrines of Fushimi Inari-taisha. As he walked, he pushed the little statue of the fox-spirit, the Kitsune, into his pocket and tried to put the nagging and perpetual moaning of his wife to the back of his mind.

  In truth, he thought, he must have known that she wouldn’t enjoy Japan. They had been in Kyoto for only three days and already she was unhappy with most things.  The food, she claimed, was not to her taste, despite the variety of western style eateries available in their prefecture. She disliked the way that there were no street names with which to orient herself and blamed this for being unable to find her way around. As for his choice of accommodation…well, he really should have known better.

  For him, the magic of visiting another country was in embracing its culture and traditions, of exploring its folklore and engaging with its locals. It was, however, clear to him now that she viewed this - perhaps would always view this - as the most ridiculous of behaviour; as the romantic folly of people like her husband…of people like him.

  In his naiveté, he had booked them into a traditional Japanese ryokan, the kind he often enjoyed staying in while on business in Japan; tatami flooring, sliding doors, a futon to sleep on and an outdoorspa for bathing.  After the ear-bashing he had received over this choice he now couldn’t even begin to imagine why he had imagined that it would ever be acceptable to Jessica.

  As he passed under the first of the torii gates, each of them embossed with a large black kanji script, he could already hear her voice calling to him again.

  ‘Slow down, Edward, for goodness sake. I’m going to end up with blisters!’

  Not for the first time, he struggled to recall what strange force it was that had ever pulled them together to begin with.

 

 

                                                                                            *

‘Why are there cats everywhere?’ she asked with a frown, as her lips ceased sucking the life out of the water bottle.  They had reached the halfway point of their trek up the mountainside and were now seated at a popular resting point overlooking the city below and the surrounding woodland. They had indeed passed several cats on their way.

  She passed the bottle across to him and for a moment a smile cracked through the surface of her frosty visage as she waited for his answer.  It almost made him remember the fondness of their early years together, before her bitterness and jealousy over his work had seemingly overtaken her and left him at the constant mercy of wild, unpredictable mood swings. He took a sip and wiped the sweat from his brow, gesticulating at their surroundings.

  ‘This mountain,’ he began ‘is a shrine to Inari,’

  His wife already appeared distracted with the large, fairly healthy looking feline that lounged across the path from them. He smiled unconsciously. She could find beauty in things when she tried.

  ‘Inari is sort of…’ he began again, trying to find a terminology that her more forthright side wouldn’t instantly dismiss, ‘not a…god exactly but a sort of…spirit or natural force, in this case one that regulates industry and agriculture…in the Shinto belief system he’s a sort of…business deity.’

  Jessica rolled her eyes, as the previously serene expression tumbled from her face.

  ‘I might have guessed,’ she exhaled, as, across from them, the cat rose and began stalking something in the shrubbery. ‘There I was assuming that today was a day off for you, but it turns out you’ve actually taken me here so that we can commune with some make-believe ghost and ask it to help you out in your meeting tomorrow,’ she scowled.

  Not for the first time, Edward winced at her turn of phrase.

  ‘Never mind,’ she said, slipping her sunglasses back over her eyes, ‘I was asking about the cats,’ she reminded him as, from across the path, the feline which had prompted her questioning now stood poised and ready to pounce.

  ‘Cats are considered good luck charms for businesses, here,’ he shrugged ‘it’s natural that these strays have found themselves a home where they will be well respected by those passing through.’

  Jessica made an ugly facial expression.

 ‘Strays?’ she began, but was cut off as, in front of them, the stray in question dived into the undergrowth.  There was a distinctive squeak and several seconds later the cat re-emerged with a large, and now very evidently dead, toad hanging from its mouth.

  ‘I think,’ said Jessica, her face barely moving beneath the ray-bans, ‘that I am going to be sick.’

                                                      

                                                                                         *

   It was late afternoon by the time they reached the higher echelons of the mountain and the heart of the shrine.  Now they strolled through tightly compacted corridors of leaf and natural rock, narrow passageways that branched off into a seemingly endless array of miniature Shinto shrines and large, ominous looking statues that resembled the carving he carried in his pocket. In the sky above, the sun had begun its descent and the light it emitted radiated down through the cracks in the foliage, casting an ethereal glow over the silence and intermittent birdsong that accompanied their progress.

  ‘These things give me the creeps,’ said Jessica, looking up into the stony, grey eyes and laughing maw of the statue closest to her. ‘I thought you said they liked cats here. These things look more like wolves,’ she said, rubbing her arms.

  He smiled and removed the carving from his pocket.

  ‘They’re Kitsune,’ he explained, holding up the miniature, ‘fox spirits. These ones are supposed to act as messengers to Inari. They also act as guardians of the shrines themselves. The belief is that they protect them from thieves,’ he explained.
  Jessica tutted and rolled her eyes.

  ‘They’d be better off employing security guards,’ she muttered ‘these things are just creepy, it’s like their eyes follow you about.’

  He smiled.

  ‘Well, that’s probably the intention,’ he remarked.

  ‘Is that why you bought one, then?’ she asked him, as, from behind the ray bans, he could already feel the look of disapproval forming, ‘because I think we already have a burglar alarm back home for those purposes,’ she sniped.

  He shook his head.

  ‘I just think they are interesting,’ he tried to explain ‘before Inari, the Kitsune were a different part of Japanese folklore,’ he went on. ‘People viewed them as trickster spirits who could shape-shift and appear in human form. There are all sorts of legends where some poor farmer ends up falling in love with and marrying what turns out to be a fox,’ he laughed…then he noticed something else.

  ‘Jessica, where did you get that?’

  In her left hand, dangled a miniature of the numerous red torii gates they had traversed on their trek; duplicates of which could be seen decorating the various shrines around them.

  ‘Nice isn’t it,’ she smiled ‘I think it’s a much better souvenir than your silly fox thing. I’m going to put it in the garden when we get home.’

  He bristled at her blasé attitude.

  ‘That isn’t what I asked you, Jessica,’ he said, pacing up to her. ‘Did you take this from a shrine?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘What if I did?’ she asked ‘There are hundreds lying about here and they’re the exact same type that the stallholders are selling to fools like you at the entrance. What’s the harm in taking one? There’s nobody around and, even if there was, how would anyone know I didn’t buy it?’

  Without listening to her anymore, he snatched the replica from her hand, feeling the warm prickling sensation cascade over his face.

  ‘That’s not the point!’ he yelled, as, from above them, a flutter of wings ricocheted through the treetops; his voice disturbing some unseen, avian spy. His wife glared back at him.

  ‘How dare you snatch at me like that,’ she yelled and her face crinkled into the familiar look of disgust. ‘Look at you,’ she snarled ‘a grown man, fretting about some silly made up fairytales. Are you worried that the big bad fox will come and get you?’ she enthused, her tone changing to that of a child. ‘I only wanted a crappy souvenir. You’re pathetic, Edward, as pathetic as this stupid country.’ And with this remark she turned and stomped back along the winding paths, while he stood, vacant and trembling, the Kitsune in one hand, the miniature torii gate in the other and the cold, grey eyes of the statue looking down at him from above.  It was some time before he sensed the overpowering musk and looked up to find the woman standing there, observing him keenly.

  ‘Your wife is very angry at you,’ observed the woman.

  She was evidently Japanese, although she spoke English with only a trace accent. She was dressed in a white and orange robe and her dyed auburn hair sparkled in the fading sunlight. He thought she looked quite beautiful.

  ‘No,’ he said in response ‘my wife is just very angry at everybody.’

  She came over to him and took the replica from his hand with little more persuasion than her smile.

  ‘Would you like me to fix this for you?’ she asked and, without even thinking, he found himself nodding, uncertain or unclear that he even understood her question.

  Taking the replica, she wandered over to a nearby shrine and hung it next to the others.

  ‘That was a simple thing to fix,’ she said smiling at him, her eyes clear and unnaturally blue. ‘I’m sure that fixing things with your wife will be easy, too.’

  He felt himself blushing again.

  ‘Yes,’ he said and suddenly felt very awkward ‘I’m sure they will…Domo arigato.’ He bowed to her.

  She bowed back and began tending to another nearby shrine while, shaken as if from a dream, he set off after Jessica.

                                                        

                                                                                     *       

  They barely spoke on the train and when they finally got back to the sparse confines of their ryokan and were able to change out of their hot, sweaty clothes, Jessica still refused to use the bubbling spa that sat in their garden; ready to soothe. Instead she changed into her dressing gown, ignoring the traditional jacket provided and sat sulking on the futon while he went to the nearby store to collect some batteries.

 He was halfway there when the feeling of uneasiness came over him. Maybe it was the quietude of the streets or his memories of the strange encounter with the woman at the shrine. Maybe it was Jessica herself and how unusually silent she had been on the train, the way she had held her bag close to her and refused to let him carry it for her.  Halfway to the store he stopped and turned back, quickening his pace.

 He reached the ryokan some five minutes later and, removing his shoes at the entrance and padding up the wooden staircase, slid open the door to their lodgings.

  ‘Jessica?’

  Almost immediately he noticed the smell. It overpowered his nostrils as he stepped into the small living quarters; a strong musky, earthy scent; animal and familiar.

  ‘Jessica?’ he called out.

  Silence.

  He hurried through to the sleeping quarters. The smell was even stronger here; feral and wild. On the futon her dressing gown lay shorn like a discarded skin, her bag overturned; the contents spilling out across the floor.

  ‘Jessica,’ he muttered…and then he saw it.

  On a nearby table was the carving he had bought; the little statue of the Kitsune. Beside it sat an all too familiar object.

   From the corner of his eye, a flash of something huge and orange caused him to whirl around to the nearby window, as from outside, beyond the quiet bubbling of the spa, he thought he heard the smallest, quickest of sounds. It was a squeak. Exactly like the one they had heard in the undergrowth when the cat had pounced on the toad.

  He ran back into the living quarters and, almost pulling the sliding door off its hinges, bounded out onto the wet grass of the garden beyond.  The smell of animal was overpowering now, the spa bubbled emptily in the gloom.

  ‘Jessica!’ he yelled.

  But there was nothing. Whatever had been here was now gone.

  Unsteadily he staggered back into the ryokan, as words heard earlier in the day now took on new significance in his head.

  ‘The belief is they protect the shrines from thieves…’

  ‘There are hundreds of them lying about here…’

  ‘People viewed them as trickster spirits who could shape-shift and appear in human form…’

  The memory of the words filled his head as he stepped back into the bedroom, looked once again at the table; at the carving of the Kitsune and the second item that Jessica had adorned it with. 

  The miniature red torii gate stood over the little carving; a second souvenir, one taken, almost certainly, from another shrine, while he had meandered and dallied with the woman and her words.

  ‘Your wife is very angry…would you like me to fix this?’

  He collapsed onto the futon, his mind spinning as he heard his own reply and the confirmation he now realised he had both given and received from something with sparkling blue eyes that might not have been a woman at all.

  ‘I’m sure fixing things with your wife will be just as easy.’

  He sat for a long time, rocking gently on the futon, wondering what to do next, while above him the Kitsunesat under the arch of Jessica’s plundered treasure; its narrow eyes looking back at him.

  It seemed almost to be smiling.

Kitsune

ryoko-fox:

This is kind of a rant I guess.

I wish more people actually knew what “kitsune” (of Japanese lore) were. I typed it in the search here on Tumblr and all I got were pictures of like, little chibi with fox ears and tails or drawings of girls with fox ears and huge boobs. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that a fox (nogitsune) is supposed to be able to shape-shift into anything, especially an attractive woman. But I kinda just wish that when I searched for “kitsune”, more pictures like these would come up:

   

Instead of those other pictures I described before. Ya know?

I share your frustration