The History of Personification in Japanese Culture.
This post is the second of our new weekly Medium takeover!
For one week a month we’ll showcase the written research of one of our students or recent graduates. This week we’ll publish four excerpts from the designer and researcher Minh Ha’s thesis. The second part, below, looks at the history of personification in Japanese culture.
The practice of personification began since the earliest days of humanity when ancient people attempted to explain the phenomena that occurred in their everyday life. Natural disasters such as storms, floods, drought, were regarded as the “fury” of powerful entities that governed over the skies, the rivers, the ocean, and the land. These higher beings would then come to be worshipped by the people so that they would cease their wrath, not dissimilar to how a person tries to calm down his or her fellow being. As human societies developed, their descriptions of gods were given more and more details, resulting in the gods becoming increasingly more perceivable with fully visualised forms and personas. From the basic concepts, communities went on to create their own pantheon of gods using their own appearance and culture as a reference. As a result, today we have numerous mythologies: Greek, Roman, Norse, Indian, just to name a few. Although these castes of gods are unique in their own way, in essence, they all represent abstract concepts that are otherwise hard to grasp by the common man.
By analysing the Inari from Japan this piece aims to explore the process in which these concepts of nature, or of man, obtained and developed their forms into what they are generally seen as today. Gods of the Japanese pantheon, called kami, were originally perceived as spirits of the land that watched over the people and their daily activities. These spirits had absolute authority over nature, and all the products that humans derived from nature were seen as divine provision by these beings. As the communities expanded their productive activities and developed their culture, the gods’ roles also extended to such activities, and their visualisations began to take shape as well.
Inari is one of the most prominent celestial figures within Japanese mythology, primarily presiding over rice and agriculture. There are many kami that are identified with Inari; conversely, Inari could be thought of as several different kami.
The most interesting feature about Inari is that s/he has many diversified personifications. The most common images are of an old man sitting on a pile of rice/carrying two bundles of rice and accompanied by two foxes, or of a beautiful fox woman (see figure 6). The former is easily explained due to Inari’s governing over rice, while the latter seemingly originated from Inari’s association with foxes as seen in traditional artworks; in modern times s/he is simply represented by a white fox. The reason behind the presence of foxes in Inari’s image is unclear, although there are several theories concerning this. One such theory is based on the behaviour of actual foxes, that would show up around rice fields during the growing season and hunt rodents that would harm the crops otherwise. Inari’s appearance in folktales are even more varied; including a snake guarding a bale of rice grain and a spider in a tale where s/he teaches a wicked man a lesson.
Indeed, it could be said that there is no universal personification of Inari. Aside from a few staple points such as the connection to rice and foxes, the image of Inari within each individual’s mind may very well be unique; there are as many images of Inari as there are worshippers. This is a general characteristic of Eastern deities, with their artworks having highly abstract features — in contrast to the high level of detail shown in Greek gods’ artworks. It encourages believers to form their own image of the gods/goddesses in their minds instead of adhering to an image created by someone else. It can be said that this philosophy allows people to form a closer bond with the deities and thus strengthen their belief.
For Inari, the concepts are “rice” and “fox”. Not only are there fewer of them, but they are also hardly connected to each other. This shaped the portrayals of Inari as being far more varied while at the same time less identifiable than those of say, the Greek Goddess Athena. Even before contemporary art, two personifications identFified as “Inari” could already be vastly different from each other, and more detailed studies were often required to identify the features of the original concept. Furthermore, current illustrations of Inari seem to have forgone the concept of “rice”, focusing on features of the “fox”, which also led to the misconception of Inari being a fox deity.
Yet, it is because of all the deviations that the community is more receptive to iterations of Inari throughout history, as long as the key ideas are found in them. That is not to say, there is limited room for creativity for well-established personifications.
If one were to personalise a concept, especially of existing personifications, how would they do it? Should they base their work on the previous portrayals that are already accepted by the public, or should they attempt to create a completely fresh image of the concept (Inari), or something in between?
Minh Ha graduated from the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology with a bachelor’s degree and is currently working on his master’s degree at the same school. His tentative MA thesis topic is related to environmental issues; particularly looking at how virtual reality can recreate the experiences and negative effects of the Anthropocene epoch.
Ha also works as a video editor for AZA Group. His interests lie in 2D animation but he’s just begun to expand into 3D, particularly with Unreal Engine.
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