The tragic tale of Matsunaga Hisahide's demonic eight-legged teapot

[petronia]

In Mirage of Blaze. It's not really a teapot in the Western sense, being a little pot one uses to boil water for the tea ceremony rather than to brew the actual tea in. Still sucks, though. How would you like to be killed by a teapot demon? And didn't they do this trope in Matantei Loki Ragnarok?

It's called Hiragumo, "flat" + "spider", which is why I spontaneously picture it as eight-legged even though I'm probably wrong, and is actually a famous historical teapot. o_O Nobunaga coveted it, so when Hisahide failed in his final rebellion, he set terms that he would pardon Hisahide if he gave Nobunaga the teapot (I think for reasons too long to get into he assumed Hisahide wasn't entirely serious about betraying him). So to stick it to Nobunaga, Hisahide filled the teapot with explosives and blew himself up with it. XD Should count as one of the Great Suicide Scenes Of Japanese History.

(Googling this story turned up the lament of a random Chinese player of one of those sengoku strategy games. "I read Hisahide blew himself up with that teapot," he wailed, "so when I picked up the character I took his teapot away as soon as I could. The little fucker rebelled the very next day!")

In Mirage of Blaze Hisahide's simmering supernatural resentment (or maybe that of his soldiers, or possibly even something else altogether), takes the form of the Hiragumo and goes out and curses people by hanging over their heads like a gloomy teapot-shaped raincloud. Actually Naoe talks about it like this was based off some folk legend, in which the teapot-with-legs youkai scuttles into your house at night and drinks any tea or water that's left standing. Since it's a spider it also eats various other small noxious demon-things, so some people apparently leave water out purposefully to attract it. But I know nothing about that. >_> *eyes the tea dregs often left on my desk overnight uneasily*

Um, I was supposed to write about Naoe's past, I know. But I really needed to get this teapot thing down.

Comments

[luxetumbra.livejournal.com]

takes the form of the Hiragumo and goes out and curses people by hanging over their heads like a gloomy teapot-shaped raincloud.

lol, I was about to ask if it took the shape of an attractive angst-filled bishounen, but what you've described is much better.

Write about Naoe's past next though when you have a chance - I keep Googling for him, but of course there's next to nothing for the stupid English people like me.

[lisa-bee.livejournal.com]

Great Suicide Scenes Of Japanese History *g*

Also, spider-teapot. What on earth? I love Mirage of Blaze, it's so zany.

[tsutanai.livejournal.com]

You do know the story about the tanuki that pretended to be a teapot, right? Between this and... drat, what's the reading of that word... right, tsukumogami (old objects aquiring a soul of their own: in the Tsukumogami emaki (although there are other names for that scroll), something called the Onmyou zakki is quoted that things that are thrown out, after 100 years become youkai. (Unfortunately, aside from that quote, apparently the Onmyou zakki is unidentifiable.) You can see a teapot in the scroll itself (http://ddb.libnet.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/exhibit/otogi/tsukumo/tsukumo.html), but this predates any Hiragumo story by a fair bit. XD

I've been trying to look up Hiragumo specific legends with little luck. Oddly, it's one of the pre-defined kanji compounds as far as my computer is concerned.

[ayabai.livejournal.com]

How would you like to be killed by a teapot demon?

this is indeed how i plan to kick off. how did you know?

[dipping_sauce]

It's not really a teapot in the Western sense, being a little pot one uses to boil water for the tea ceremony rather than to brew the actual tea in.

Wouldn't that make it a teakettle then?

Also, calzone is my new favourite food.

[tongari.livejournal.com]

teapot demon. OK. xD

Actually Naoe talks about it like this was based off some folk legend, in which the teapot-with-legs youkai scuttles into your house at night and drinks any tea or water that's left standing.

... there is no English translation of this novel, yes? yes. T_T

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Write about Naoe's past next though when you have a chance - I keep Googling for him, but of course there's next to nothing for the stupid English people like me.

Definitely will. One long post on Naoe and Kagetora's historical persons, one long post on actual MoB's background story revealed should do it. Let's see how far I can get without mocking Naoe. XD

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I had to read that page over about three times to make sure I understood it properly. Chiaki was literally like, "There's a cursed cloud hanging over her head in the shape of a... a round pot. No, wait, it's a teapot!"

Takaya and me: "......Say what?"

[petronia.livejournal.com]

*pause* You may be right. It's definitely shaped like a "pot" rather than a "kettle" though, in the sense of not having a spout, so, uh.

We are so definitely going back to that joint.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Because I'm OMNISCIENT like that. <3

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Tsukumogami! That's exactly the word they use. It's never actually explained, though (is it common knowledge? o_O), so I didn't take it to mean old objects, rather the kanji meanings of "tsuku" = haunt, possess, "mo" = mourning -> an unlucky spirit that causes deaths in the family? Why is it written that way, then?

If the Chinese IME is any indicator of how they pick these things, it may just be that it's a famous enough historical term due to the Hisahide incident. What I'd like to know is why it's called "Hiragumo"; surely not really because it has eight legs? XD

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Alas no. Anyone who does do one would probably get love from a multitude of people, but they'd also have to be prepared to do that and nothing but that in fandom for a very long time. XD

[tsutanai.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's really common knowledge (doesn't show up in a bunch of dictionaries... guess what I did a class paper for Japanese on? XD), but it seems like, among those who know.... I think it appears as a type in the great Edo dictionaries of ghoulies as well.

I don't know that they're particularly unlucky, and I've not been able to find much in the way of etymologies (yet). The name seems somewhat mysterious to me. Have you taken a look at that scroll? Buddhist propaganda though it may be. XD (I always read the tsuku as "along with", being as that's how it tends to be used in modern Japanese. XD) Interestingly, in the much more famous Hyakkiyagyou emaki many of the monsters depicted are of the "tsukumogami" type, if we may call it that. Yet, the mysteriously sentient (it is said) lute Genjou I don't think has ever been called a tsukumogami, so....

A hiragumo is also a type of spider, so I assume the teapot sort-of resembled one, either in markings (black with white spots), or in size or shape (I think these spiders, which are about 1cm long, are rather low and round...).

So, I guess he was a little teapot, short and stout? XD XD

[tsutanai.livejournal.com]

.... Dude, I have a thesis to write. XD And while tsukumogami may actually make an appearance....

Book 5, did you say? (By the way, if one is, say, going up north towards Sendai and the like, any particular of these books to read? Just asking. XD Been thinking of stopping by Tono too, while I'm up there, if typhoons and respiratory infections don't wreck my plans.)

[dipping_sauce]

Hmm. I always thought kettle-ness was less defined by presence of the spout, and more defined by it being used to heat water. I'd say check other sources to see how the word tends to be translated. (And both our teapot and our kettle have spouts -- maybe the spout is just a Western thing when used w/ tea?)

God, yes. They have pesto pizza!

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I find myself reminded of that Ikea commercial with the lamp tossed out with the garbage, in the rain (have you seen it?). "Do you feel sorry for it? ...Well, don't! It's just a LAMP!" XD

Evidently the niggling guilt I've always felt re the disposal of old belongings is universal, but all to the good if it prevents us from redundant consumption, I suppose. Also I can't decide whether I find the idea cute or creepy to the point of full-blown frightening. The old bugaboo regarding the line between animate and inanimate.

...It never even occurred to me that it could be named after a kind of real spider. ^^;

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Books 3-4 are actually set in Sendai (watch, as Date Masamune reacts with bemusement to the discovery that he has to pay to get into the replica of his own house!). They're not as evocative as book 5, though, which is set in Nara.

[tsutanai.livejournal.com]

Nara just always beats Sendai for evocativeness, I think. (Actually, there's an astrology-imagery-in-bushi-equipment exhibit going on in Sendai right now.) I wonder if Asuka could beat Nara? ...Probably depends on how you do it. Some of those stones in Asuka are just creepy.

If I could reliably grab a copy of her tour books before I left, I would. Because it can't be any worse than the regular guidebooks I've been poking through the past month, seriously. (And, of course, fever or typhoons might keep me home anyway.)

[tsutanai.livejournal.com]

Haven't seen the commercial, but seen a parody involving the Gameboy Advance.

The one thing that bugs me a bit, is people who point to this sort of belief in Chinese or Japanese mythology and go Look! Animism! (Aren't they so cute and primitive? Yes they are! Yes they are!) An interesting thing I read once, regarding whether-or-no Chinese folk religion had animism, is that this one rock that was worshiped. The rock was the home of a spirit, which was shaped like a rooster, and which came and went (like all good karma chameleons go). Ergo, said the author, this isn't really properly animism, since it wasn't believed that the rock really had a spirit, just the the spirit stayed there from time to time. Sometimes that's said about tsukumogami, I seem to recall, but it's also not the impression you get from the scroll, mirrors turning into servants and rosaries turning into monks and all.

Not sure how the naming of things go. In fiction, f'r examp, Hiromasa names his flute after locale etc. where he made it. But certain things, particularly if they're treasures, seem to get names. What are the limits? I've seen both "Japanese-style" and "Chinese-style" readings for various instruments and the like. Makes one a little curious....