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"human fish", as the name suggests, is a creature with both human and fish-like features, described in various pieces of Japanese literature.
Though often translated as "mermaid", the term is technically not gender-specific and may include the "merman". The literal translation " human-fish" has also been applied.
In later medieval times (§Kamakura and Muromachi periods)), it was held to be a sign of ill omen, and its beaching (§Omens in Michinoku) was blamed for subsequent bloody battles or calamity.
The notion that eating its flesh imparts longevity is attached to the legend of the ('eight hundred year Buddhist priestess', cf. §Yao Bikuni)
During the Edo period, the ningyo was made the subject of burlesque gesaku novels (cf. §Saikaku, 1687 and Santō Kyōden's § Hakoiri musume, 1791). There were also preserved ningyo being manufactured using fish parts (§Mummies or Feejee mermaids), and illustrated by some scholars of the period (e.g. §Baien gyofu); some such mummies are held by certain temples that have ningyo legend attached to them (cf. §Prince Shōtoku).
The description of the ningyo as having a red cockscomb (§Shokoku rijindan, and Saikaku) or light red hair (§Kasshi yawa) corroborates the hypothesis that oarfish sightings led to ningyo lore.
One giant ningyo was allegedly shot in 1805, even though it was held to be lucky, according to the news circulated in kawaraban pamphlet form (§ Kairai)
Accordingly, the ningyo is sometimes referred to by the verbatim translation "human-fish" in English-language scholarship, thus allowing for the gender ambiguity.
The term ningyo was not explicitly used in the earliest accounts (cf. §Asuka period, year 619) recorded in the Nihon shoki (720 AD). A later embellished account in
involving Prince Shōtoku claims that the Prince Regent knew the term ''ningyo'', though this is regarded with skepticism. The term ''ningyo'' was likely absent from any of the primary sources used in compiling the ''Shoki'', and nonexistent in the Japanese vocabulary during the Prince's time. ''apud''
The term ningyo was also absent in medieval sources describing the Kamakura Period strandings in northern Japan §Omens in Michinoku) considered ominous. For example, a "large fish" washed ashore in the Hōji 1 (1247) according to 13th and 14th century texts. But these were called ningyo in a 17th-century recompilation.
Another prominent theory is that the misidentification of the dugong led to mermaid lore, but detractors pointed out that the dugong's range reaches only as far north as Okinawa (formerly the Kingdom of Ryūkyū), and so was not likely to have been seen during premodern times in various locations in Japan where mermaid legend (priestess who ate the mermaid) is known to occur. However, this argument is flawed, since there were other sea mammals of the Sirenia order, namely Steller's sea cows which were native to the Bering Sea, and could have plausibly wandered into northern Japanese seas. Other sea mammals such as seals and dolphins are also candidates to have been mistaken for human-fish.
An inscribed wooden slat ( mokkan) containing drawings of ningyo (13th century) suggest the actual animal captured may have been a pinniped, such as a seal (cf. §Ritual offering tablet).
The ichthyologist's hypothesis that the ningyo legend originated from sightings of the red-crested oarfish is bolstered by the lore or reports that the ningyo has red cockscomb (§Shokoku rijindan) or light red hair (§Kasshi yawa). This cockscomb also is mentioned in the novel by §Saikaku.
The ningyo reportedly caught in the 7th century became associated with then Prince Regent Shōtōku, and the creature has been depicted as a gift presented to him in picture scrolls entitled Shōtōku Taishi eden, the oldest surviving copy of this (1069) being the earliest piece of ningyo art in Japan. There are multiple copies of the scrolls in existence. Also, much later in the 19th century. An example is the ningyo represented as a composite of the goddess Kannon and a fish (cf. §Prince Shōtoku and fig.).
The ningyo was human-headed in the 11th century anecdote involving the head of the Taira clan (cf. §Presented to Tadamori),, quoting from the anthology Kokon Chomonjū (1254), pp. 400–401 When the ex-magistrate Taira no Tadamori 平忠盛 (1096–1153) moved his residence to Beppo 別保 in the Ise 伊勢 domain..he a big fish with a head similar to a man, endowed with hands, thick teeth like a fish, and a prominent mouth, which resembled that of a monkey. The body was like that of a normal fish.. (abridged)
The stranded ningyo had "four limbs" like a human or had hands and feet but was scaly and fish-headed. which were reported in Northern Japan in the 12th and 13th centuries and interpreted as omens (cf. §Omens in Michinoku) There has also been unearthed a wooden tablet with an illustration of such an ill-omened ningyo date to this period (c. 1286) (cf. )
But during the Edo period, illustrations of ningyo were varied, and in popular literature for entertainment (such as the kibyōshi genre), both human-headed fish type (armless) and half-human type with arms were illustrated (cf. §Two archetypes). One theory is that the two types derive from Classical Chinese literature, in particular the limbed ("hill-fish") and the limbless ("red ru fish") passed down from the ancient Shan hai jing ("Classic of Mountains and Seas") (cf. § Chinese lingyu and chiru).
Also, what the yōkai wood-block print illustrator Toriyama Sekien drew (1781, fig. left) was not a Japanese ningyo but one dwelling in the far reaches of China west of a World tree ( kenboku; pinyin: jianmu 建木]]). The caption adds that such ningyo was also known as the people of the Di Nation.
By the late Edo Period (mid to late 19th century), the visual iconography of the ningyo came gradually to match the half-human half-fish of the European mermaid.
In a version passed down at Obama, Wakasa, the sixteen-year-old girl eats the ningyo inadvertently, after her father receives the prepared dish as a guest, so that the family is not implicated in knowingly eating the ningyo or butchering it. The Kūin-ji temple history claims the father to have been a rich man named Takahashi, descended from the founder of the province, and when the daughter turned 16, the dragon king appeared in the guise of a white-bearded man and gave her the flesh as a gift. But there are versions known all over Japan, and the father is often identified as a fisherman. A fisherman reeled in the ningyo but discarded it due to its strangeness, but the young daughter had picked it up and eaten it, according to one telling.
Assuming age 800 in keeping with her commonly used name, her birth can be back dated to around the mid-7th century, during the Asuka Period.
Folklorist 's chronology makes her a survivor from an even older age. He dated Yao Bikuni eating ningyo flesh in the year 480 AD during the Kofun Period (Tumulus Period).Fujisawa (1931, pub. Rokubunkan) (pub. Daitōkaku）, pp. 40–42. apud However, no written source for this could be evinced, according to a recent researcher, and an oral tradition is presumed.
They were freshwater creatures, and the description of it being "childlike" suggested its true identity to be the Japanese giant salamander according to Minakata Kumagusu.Minakata 1973 [1901], p. 306. Cited by .
While Shoki never used the term ningyo explicitly, Prince Shōtoku had been involved in the Gamō River incident and knew to use the term, according to the prince's abridged history or . Shōtoku also knew the ningyo to bring forth disaster according to the Denryaku, and an annotation provides that it was customary for fishermen at the time to release a ningyo if ever caught in the net. When the prince was alarmed by the ill omen of a ningyo appearing in Ōmi Province, he had a statue of the Kannon goddess placed in the vicinity, according to document preserved at temple.
According to the engi or foundation myth of Kannonshō-ji, Prince Shōtoku met a ningyo in a pool near Lake Biwa who confessed to have been reborn in its shape due to poor deeds in past life, and the prince performed service to provide it salvation by building a temple to house a Kannon goddess statue, which was the origins of this temple.
An ningyo beached on Yasui-no-ura in Izumo Province (a bay in present-day Yasugi, Shimane) in the Tenpyō-shōhō 8 or the year 756 AD, and later, another one appeared in in Noto Province (a peninsula in present-day Suzu, Ishikawa) in the year Hōki 9/778. These reports are preserved in a extra=Jōji 2/1363, an old document concerning Hōryū-ji, the temple closely associated with Prince Shōtoku.
The event dates a century earlier than the anthology: when Taira no Tadamori (d. 1153; father of Kiyomori) had moved his residence to this place, populated by "bayside villagers" (fishermen)The term extra=lit. 'bay people' is glossed as "fishermen and ama living by the bay 浦辺に住む漁師や海女など" in .
The big fish had human-like heads (but also sets of fine teeth like fish, and a protruding mouths like a monkey's), with fish-like bodies. When hauled to land and carried (by pairs of fishermen) with the tails dragging, the creatures screamed in high-pitched voice and shed tears like a human. The tale concludes with the presumption that creatures must have been ningyo (human-fish). The three ningyo were presented to Tadamori, but one was returned to the bay's villagers (fishermen), who carved it up and ate it. It was exquisitely delicious, and no special effects came of it.
There had been frequent beachings of ningyo in Mutsu Province or Dewa Province (Michinoku region) according to the (printed 1641),, and each sighting is treated as an omen, associated with some armed conflict or ill fortune which struck afterwards:, untitled list for the "summary of ningyo appearances (人魚の出現の概略)"; "Table 1 Records of Appearances of Ningyo 人魚の出現記録」"; ；. Note that Fujisawa inconveniently converts to the obsolete Japanese imperial year system instead of the western calendar system.
Actually all these cases, culminating in the Hōji 1 event, were recorded in much older Azuma kagami (chronicle up to year 1266) and the Hōjō kudai ki (aka , 1331) except that the creature is not called a "ningyo" but rather a "large fish" (which was human cadaver-like with "four limbs"), or a creature "having hands and feet, covered in overlapping scales, and a head no different than a fish's". And these near-contemporary sources also interpret the ningyo ("big fish") appearances as presaging major warfare occurring within that year. quotes from Azuma kagami (in literary Chinese), then explains in Japanese: "For example, when ningyo appeared in the summer of Bunji 5 (1189).. the Northern Fujiwara perished.. it appeared in Kenpo 1, and in the 5th month of that year, Wada Yoshimori raised troops 例えば文治5年（1189年）夏にあらわれた時には..奥州藤原一族が滅亡.. 建保元年出現したが、同年5月に和田義盛が挙兵".
In Hōji 1, on the very same day (11th of 3rd month) when "big fish" was beached up north in Tsugaru, Michinoku (or perhaps the day preceding) the ocean by the Yuigahama (beach) was bright scarlet, and reported to have changed to blood. Yuigahama was the location of bloodshed on a number of occasion. The reason it may have indeed turned scarlet was possibly due to a red tide occurrence.)
The Hōji 1 event was discussed in one late source, called the 本朝年代記 (published Jōkyō1/1684), but this miscopies the day to the "20th of the 3rd month", which makes it the probably direct source of Ihara Saikaku's fictional piece in which a ningyo appears.
There are two later sightings in the 14th century recorded in the aforementioned Kagenki. The second sighting occurred after the fall of the Kamakura Shogunate, and belongs in the Muromachi Period.
Although these two cases appear to be auspicious omens, Fujisawa insists these examples do not corroborate the notion that the ningyō itself was seen as an auspicious object, since the attributions of good luck were consigned here via association with the Yao-bikuni's longevity or the sacredness of Futami-ura bay.
There is subsequently a gap, and the next record listed occurred in the warring period (Sengoku period) part of the Muromachi Period:
A description of deer-like voice is unusual, since the ningyo is typically said to sound like a human child or infant.
The archeological find in Akita (cf. §Ritual offering tablet) from the same era as listed above also can be counted as another example of the Michinoku region. There are also later anecdotes in the Tsugaru Province occurring in the Edo Period, but these will be discussed below under (§Tsugaru domain).
The ningyo is human-headed and fish-bodied, except it has two arms and two legs alongside a finned tail. Except for the face its entirety is covered with marks which apparently represent scales. The actual animal was probably a Pinniped, or some sort of pinniped, according to the archaeologists' report.
The inscriptions have been transcribed as " Ara, tsutanaya, teuchi ni tote sōrō, sowaka (Oh, pity, but let it be killed, Svaha)" and similarly "Oh, pity, bound up like that even though a human, sowaka". Since the beast was considered ill omen, the Buddhist priest (also illustrated on the tablet) probably made offering in the form of prayer, "sowaka" being a Sanskrit word often chanted at the end of the mantra.
The earlier record is that in Genroku 1/1688, a ningyo was captured at Nouchi-no-ura., according to the Tsugaru ittōshi
Then in Hōreki 9 (1759), on the 3rd month at the port of Ishizaki village, a fish of "this shape" (i.e., as depicted in the fig. right) was reported caught, according to the extra='Tsugaru diary' or (excerpted in the ?). About a hundred years before the capture, when a certain apprentice monk from 藤光寺 temple in Tsugaru was faring across the sea towards Matsumae Domain, and fell off the boat. This incident was connected to the fish catch, and when questioned the storytellers confessed they enlarged (embellished) the tall tale. A similar account with illustration is found in the extra='Mitsuhashi diary' in the entry for Hōreki 7 (1757), later part of the 3rd month, and the creature drawn is observed to be wearing a or "ring surplice", and the text describes it as a "薄黒い異形の魚" The extra='Hirayama diary' is yet another source, stating that in Hōreki 8, "a jinmengyo appeared in the sea of Ishizaki village, and all manners of people went to spectate".
This ningyo was a creature with head of a long-haired young woman's, a pair of golden horns, a red belly, three eyes on each side of its torso, and a carp-like tail end, according to the text of the flier. This mermaid purportedly measured 3 jō 5 shaku or .
While the printed illustration only shows one side of the ningyo, the text itself confirms it had 3 eyes on each side of the body. The feature of eyes on the torso is shared by the prediction beast kudan, also known to have appeared in Etchū Province, and the hakutaku (or Bai Ze, of Chinese origin), as scholars have pointed out.
The flier reports that the people grew frightened, and destroyed it with 450 rifles. Yet the flier also states that "A person who views this fish once will enjoy great longevity, avoid bad turns of events and disasters, and gain luck and virtue".
There is also a Oranda watari ningyo no zu printed on kawaraban newspaper, with the facial features of an old man. The newspaper described the creature as having "hair that was redhaired, hand like a monkey with webbings, and shaped like a snake", and purported that eating its flesh imparts longevity of 100 years, and even looking at it had the effect of warding sickness and extending lifespan.
The text describes the ningyo as being equipped with four limbs but the illustration draws a mermaid without legs, and having a tail-fin instead; she also is drawn without any cockscomb-like appendage on the head. Another discrepancy is that the samurai named Kinnai had shot the ningyo with a bow (half-bow) according to the text, but the weapon has been swapped with a firearm in the illustration.
It is an example of work in the genre of kibyōshi or "yellow jacket", and a humorous, satirical piece, whose cast of characters include Urashima Tarō, who has an affair with a carp mistress producing a mermaid daughter in the process. The abandoned mermaid is netted by a fisherman named Heiji. To make ends meet she engages in miuri, i.e., selling herself into prostitution, but her fish-bodied oiran repulses customers. After discovering that licking a mermaid imparts longevity, Heiji opens a mermaid-licking shoppe, gains great wealth, and decides to marry her. She grows out of her outer skin, metamorphosing into a full-fledged woman with both arms and legs. Heiji sells the mermaid's skin moulting ( nukegara) for profit.
Where she is depicted as half-human with a pair of arms/hands, examples are readily given from works of fiction writers.
One example is the extra="The Flowerpot in the Sea-Queen's Palace", 1793, co-authored by Santō Kyōden and Takizawa Bakin and illustrated by Kitao Shigemasa. Tatsu no miyako namagusa hachi no ki @ Waseda U., Middle Volume, fol. 10 p. 30 (Fig. 15)
Another is the depiction of a ningyo in the famous work by Bakin, the Nansō Satomi Hakkenden (1814–42), p. 31 (Fig. 16) though this work does not centrally revolve around denizens of the sea.
The other type consists of examples where she is depicted as human-headed and armless, as in the case of Kyōden's Hakoiri musume just described (cf. fig., top of page), or the Etchū Province example above.
However this formulation for explaining Chinese origin does not quite succeed, since, as its proponent points out, the Chinese lingyu is actually four-legged, as is the renyu (人魚, "human fish") aka tiyu (; Japanese: teigyo) and it was the Japanese Wakan sansai zue ("Illustrated Sino-Japanese Encyclopedia of the Three Realms", 1712) which for some reason altered the image of the ningyo/renyu 人魚 (aka ryōgyo/lingyu 鯪魚) into a two-armed but legless mermaid.
A different commentator also regards the pictorialization of the ningyo in Wakan sansai zue to be an "addition.. with an illustration.. much like the Western idea of a mermaid".
Japanese scholars writing on the ningyo drew much from Chinese sources, for example, the Bencao Gangmu (1596), the compendium of Chinese materia medica, which was introduced into Japan in 1607, and was frequently quoted on the subject of the mermaid. Thus Kaibara Ekiken (1709) cited it, and distinguishes the teigyo ("ningyo" in small print) from the geigyo ("salamander").
Japanese scholars could also have accessed information that Europeans wrote in Chinese. Thus Ferdinand Verbiest (aka Nan Huairen) in 1672 wrote in Chinese that for the siren, "The female bones work even better (to stem the blood diseases)". This is clearly restated from naturalist Johannes Jonston (1657) earlier. But Gentaku (cf. ) while supplying an abriged translation from Jonston, curtailed the mention of female bones being advertised as better medicine.
A number of other Japanese scholarship on the ningyo also discussed the supposed siren-mermaid bones being trafficked by the Europeans as heishimureru (Spanish/Portuguese: peixe mulher; , 'woman fish') One identifiable source was the Flemish Jesuit Verbiest aka Nan Huairen (mid-17c.) who wrote in Chinese, cited Ono Ranzan (1803), and possibly even used earlier by Kaibara Ekiken (1709), to describe the effects of the peixe muller medicine.
Male ningyo
There is a picture entitled onga toko ningyo survives which was copied by the young lord of Hirosaki Domain, to be shown to his mother, wishing to impart longevity upon her. Thus this is another example of ningyo localized in the area of the Hirosaki aka Tsugaru Domain.
Edo popular fiction
Saikaku
The ningyo according to Saikaku's reckoning was first washed ashore during Emperor Go-Fukakusa's first era year (1247), and he claims it was remembered as having "a scarlet cockscomb on its head, and a face of a beautiful woman. Four limbs like they were wrought out of jewels, golden-gleaming scales, the flesh most fragrant, and serene voice like the skylark-whistle" according to Ihara Saikaku's ("Exemplary Tales of the Way of the Warrior", 1674), which features a ningyo as noted above.
Hakoiri musume
Santō Kyōden's extra=, "Daughter in a Box: Shopfront Mermaid", 1791. is also well known as a work during the Tokugawa era which dealt with the ningyo mermaid topic.
Two archetypes
In the mid-Edo period, illustrations of the ningyo consisted of two broad types, as exemplified in illustrated fictional tales.
Chinese lingyu and chiru
The dual visual representation has been attributed to the Japanese familiarity with Chinese sources that depict both types, specifically, a human-armed type of mermaid called the extra=pinyin: lingyu, "hill-fish" and an armless (finned) type of mermaid called the extra=pinyin: , "red ru fish".
Chinese vs. Western sources
As to the knowledge people held about the ningyo during the Edo Period, the influence of Classical Chinese literature is palpable. Even Kyōden's Hakoiri musume reveals the writer's literacy, as the work discusses the distinction between the teigyo (Chinese: tiyu) and the geigyo (Chinese: niyu, 鯢魚).
Ningyo in Wakan sansai zue
The influential Wakan sansai zue was modeled after the Three Realms encyclopedia (Sancai Tuhui, 1609) of China, and also drew from such Chinese material on the topic of ningyo. But as already noted the image of the ningyo was not faithful to Chinese sources. The work also equates the ningyo with the (陵魚]], but this synonymy is based on the gloss in the Japanese lexicon Wamyō Ruijushō, not Chinese sources.Cf. ,
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/a> and modern Japanese translation,
Peixe muller or heishimureru
The popular encyclopedia Wakan sansai zue also describes the medical use of peixe muller (in Spanish or Portuguese; Japanese transliteration: heishmureru, "woman fish"). The sources were Dutch or Chinese, which was the only foreign languages allowed to be studied during the isolation period of the Tokugawa shogunate. The Wakan sansai zue its claim that the woman-fish bones works as a detoxicant differs from known accounts, and stymies identification of any possible source.
Ōtsuki Gentaku
In the interim, many other European works referring to the siren-mermaid were introduced to the Japanese literati: Johannes Jonston (Latin 1657, Dutch tr. 1660), Ambrose Paré ( Œuvres, 1575; Dutch tr. 1593), and François Valentyn (1724–26, in Dutch), thanks to the efforts of 's extra='New Treatise on Six Things', 1786, who gave translated digests from these works, accompanied by reproductions of siren-mermaid illustrations., p. 22; Fig. 8 (Facsimile from - Anburushisupaare 安蒲兒止私巴亞列, i.e., Ambroise Paré) And this endeavor was instrumental in forging the image/iconography of the ningyo during the era that was influenced by the European siren-mermaid. particularly credits Jonston's work, which was given an abridged translation into Japanese in 1741, but only afforded a token entry on the ningyo, and it was not until Gentaku in 1786 that a detailed translation of Jonston's discussion on it was given ().
Mummies or Feejee mermaids
Specimens of taxidermically crafted ningyo have been observed and illustrated during the Edo Period, including the painting in Baien gyofu'' (cf. below) and the sketch by natural historian dated Ansei 3/1856.
Baien gyofu
Mōri Baien's Baien gyofu (梅園魚譜, 'Baien's catalog of fishes', Bunsei 8/1825) contains a full-color hand-painted illustrations of a ningyo in frontal and side views. This has been determined to represent a so-called "stuffed" ningyo crafted by joining the tail-end of a fish, also called a Feejee mermaid in the West.
In popular culture
See also
Explanatory notes
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