earticle

영어

The namazue were wood block prints featuring images of huge catfish. Many kinds of namazue, probably more than 300 kinds, appeared for sale in Edo right after the great earthquake in 1855. They sold very well for two months until the government strictly prohibited merchants from selling them. This paper is to examine the meanings the namazue had for Edo people from the perspective of folk religion. It also introduces the political satire that some of them conveyed. The namazue were drawn based on a folk belief that huge underground catfish causes earthquakes, which had its origin in medieval cosmology with a dragon coiling around Japanese islands. Inheriting some characteristic features of the dragon, the catfish was illustrated as a destroyer on the one hand and a savior on the other in namazue. Edo people accepted the folk belief to a certain degree and welcomed namazue including pictures of deities punishing catfish. When publishers and painters produced namazue with images of deities, they tended to choose such deities as Deity of Kashima, Amaterasu, Ebisu, and Daikoku, who were venerated by wide range of people. Edo people expected the namazue to function as a kind of talisman which would protect them from further damages caused by earthquakes. Humorous expression of namazue also helped them to cope with mental stress caused by the disaster. There were some namazue which conveyed political satire. In such cases the namazue could function as a media of expressing criticism against the ruling authority.