Ningyo legends, enshrined islands and the animation of an aquapelagic assemblage around Biwako

Abstract

Biwako is the largest lake in Japan. Its waters, islands and shores have a rich mythology due, in substantial part, to their close proximity to the ancient cities of Kyoto and Nara. This article focuses on two interlinked aspects of the region's aquatic legends. The first concerns the presence of ningyo (folkloric fish-bodied and human headed creatures credited with human-like intelligence) around the eastern part of the lake and their interaction with human communities. In several accounts, the ningyo were caught and killed by local villagers and a number of temples have subsequently claimed to hold the mummified bodies of these creatures. Nihonshoki, an imperial chronicle from the 1720s CE, tells of a ningyo that appeared as an omen of the death of a prince and folklore relates that the same prince enshrined a mummified ningyo in a local temple before his demise. In this manner, the prince, the legendary ningyo, the preserved ningyo, local villagers and the region's enshrining religious institutions are intertwined within the aquatic system of Biwako. Secondly, the lake is known for centuries-old sanctuary islands on which Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines have been built. These contain sacred statues and talismans and indicate the manner in which the entire domain of individual islands is an object of worship. The (supposedly preserved) ningyo artefacts of shoreline and inland temples and the enshrined islands manifest and animate the overall aquapelagic assembly of the region. I use the word "animate" to express the manner in which local ningyo legends and sacred island spaces are experienced as "real". The preserved ningyo artefacts and islands are animated in the spatialconceptual context of the lake as the materiality of its water generates a whole territory of mythical and contemporary landscapes.