Water Imp of Rivers and Ponds
A kappa stands about as tall as a four- or five-year-old child, carries a turtle shell on its back, has webbed hands and feet, and is usually green, though around Tono the kappa are said to be red-faced. Its vital point is the saucer-like hollow on its crown, which holds water: full, the creature can out-wrestle a grown man; spilled, it goes limp. The classic countermeasure is a deep bow, which a well-mannered kappa must return, tipping out its own water. Regional names abound, kawataro in Kyushu, gataro around Osaka. The 1712 encyclopedia Wakan Sansai Zue describes it under 'kawataro' as child-shaped and fond of sumo, and Toriyama Sekien drew it in his 1776 bestiary.
A whole cycle of stock tales surrounds it: caught trying to drag a horse into the water, a kappa writes a letter of apology and swears off mischief; when its arm is cut off, it trades a secret bone-setting salve to get it back. It loves cucumbers, whence the cucumber sushi roll called kappa-maki, and it extracts the legendary shirikodama ball from the human anus, an old explanation for drowning that doubled as a warning to keep children from the riverbank. In folk religion kappa are often counted as servants or diminished forms of the water god, and small riverside shrines to them survive.
Yanagita Kunio's Tono Monogatari (1910) records the pranks of the kappa of Tono in Iwate; the pool called Kappabuchi behind Jokenji temple, with its unique kappa guardian statues, remains a landmark of the town.
