Amefurikozō

What it is

Amefurikozō is a yōkai, one of the odd creatures of Japanese folklore, pictured as a small boy-servant of the rain. In the classic picture collections it carries a Japanese umbrella whose central pole is missing, and holds a paper lantern. The commentary to the images names it a jidō, a child attendant kept in noble households, serving Ushi, the god of rain. It belongs to the world of Edo publishing: drawn by Toriyama Sekien, it also walks through kibyōshi, the illustrated comic tales of the day, where yōkai often take the part of servants. Later yōkai writing adds that it raises showers and enjoys watching people be troubled, and that its umbrella cannot be taken off once worn. One northern tale has it waving a lantern to bring rain for a fox's wedding.

Where it comes from

Its oldest known portrait is in Toriyama Sekien's Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki, an Edo-period collection of yōkai pictures. Sekien's caption calls the creature a jidō, a page employed by nobility, in the service of Ushi, the Chinese rain god. The text is read as a play on words: ushi was also an honorific for a lord, and jidō can be heard as a plain word for children, so the picture has been explained as a child employed by an adult. The creature then moved into kibyōshi, the illustrated tales of the day. In Gozonji no Bakemono of 1792, by Jihinari Sakuragawa with pictures by Utagawa Toyokuni, a one-eyed amefurikozō in a bamboo kasa approaches a man on a rainy night. Commentators link this figure to the tōfu-kozō, another rainy-night servant, and yōkai books of later eras add further theories.

How it is done

As a story-figure, its conduct is fixed by a few repeated signs. It walks abroad on rainy nights, carrying something in both hands, an umbrella or lantern in the pictures. In the tale from Iwate, when a fox asks it to make rain fall for a fox's wedding, the kozō waves its paper lantern and the rain suddenly falls. The display at Mizuki Shigeru Road in Sakaiminato gives it the role of adjusting rain, work said to touch the life of every living thing. Later yōkai books tell that a person who steals its umbrella and wears it cannot take it off again.

Tools and materials

Two props mark it. The first is an umbrella: in Sekien's print a Japanese umbrella with its central pole missing, in the kibyōshi a bamboo kasa, the wide rain hat. The second is a paper lantern, which the creature waves when rain is wanted. In Gozonji no Bakemono it carries something in both hands; since it walks on rainy nights, readers have taken the load to be tōfu, which the servant-yōkai tōfu-kozō also carries on wet nights. The missing pole is the oddest touch of Sekien's design.

What it is for

In the accounts, the amefurikozō exists to serve rain. Sekien's caption makes it a page to Ushi, the god of rain, and the explanation shown at Mizuki Shigeru Road gives it charge of adjusting rain, work said to bear on the labour and life of all living things. It also answers requests: in one tale a fox asks it to make rain fall for a fox's wedding, and it does.

Peoples and places

The creature is Japanese, and its fame runs through books rather than shrines. It entered print in Edo-period picture collections and comic tales, and reappeared in yōkai writing of the Shōwa and Heisei eras. Places keep it in view: Sennin Pass in Kamihei District, Iwate Prefecture, is the setting of the fox's wedding story recorded by Norio Yamada in Tōhoku Kaidan no Tabi, and Mizuki Shigeru Road at Sakaiminato in Tottori Prefecture displays an explanation of it for visitors, giving it the role of rain adjuster. The settings differ in character: Edo prints show a servant page, while the northern tale gives it power over rain at a fox's command.

What people believe

Behind the figure sits a small world of ranks and weather. Rain has a god, Ushi, a Chinese deity, and even a yōkai may hold a low post in his service, as a jidō, a child kept by noble houses, serves a lord. Names themselves carry meaning: commentators read the creature's name and post as a pun, a child employed by an adult, which is how the picture jokes. Foxes, kitsune, are able to perform their own weddings and to ask for the weather they need, calling for rain so the procession can pass. Rain, finally, is not idle weather: the Sakaiminato explanation ties its adjusting to the work and life of every living thing.

When it is done

Rainy nights are its hours. The Edo tale stages the meeting as a man walks in night rain, and readers tie the creature to such evenings, as they do the tōfu-kozō, another yōkai of wet weather. In the Iwate story, the shower it calls coincides with the fox's wedding, performed while the rain lasts.

How scholars and sceptics see it

Commentary has treated the amefurikozō largely as a print creature and a puzzle of words. The reading of Sekien's caption turns on language: ushi as an honorific for a lord, jidō as both page and child, so that the picture is explained as a pun, a child employed by an adult. The kibyōshi figure is explained by comparison, as a rainy-night servant like the tōfu-kozō, its hidden burden read as tōfu. Writers of yōkai literature in the Shōwa and Heisei eras added theories of their own, about the umbrella that cannot be removed and about showers raised for mischief. Norio Yamada's Tōhoku Kaidan no Tabi records the fox's wedding tale as local kaidan, a strange tale of the north.

Compare and confuse

Its nearest cousin is the tōfu-kozō, the tofu-boy yōkai of Edo print. Both are servant children in kibyōshi, both walk on rainy nights, both carry something in their hands, and one interpretation understands the amefurikozō's burden as tōfu for that reason. Elsewhere in the same tale stands the kitsune no yomeiri, the fox's wedding, the event a fox asks rain for at Sennin Pass.

Today

Today it lives in print and on the street. Yōkai books of the Shōwa and Heisei eras repeat its umbrella theory and its love of showers, and at Mizuki Shigeru Road in Sakaiminato, Tottori Prefecture, an exhibit explains it to passers-by as the adjuster of rain, work said to touch the life of every living thing. Norio Yamada's account keeps the Iwate fox's wedding tale in circulation.

Questions people ask about Amefurikozō

Good reading and sources

• Amefurikozō on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data