This dish is its life force, and if its water spills, the Kappa is weakened. With a human-like form, webbed hands, feet, and a turtle-like shell, the Kappa also has a dish on its head that holds water. After all, drowning would be the least of your worries if compared to running into a monster, right?! It was meant to scare children into staying away from areas of deep water. The Kappa, translating to river-child, is a yōkai reaching back to ancient times. These yōkai have been popular since the middle ages, and there are certain types known by nearly every Japanese person since childhood. According to these beliefs, spirits called mononoke (物の怪)-further divided into nigi-mitama (good fortune) and ara-mitama (ill fortune)-reside in all things.Īra-mitama were converted into nigi-mitama under rituals, however if those rituals failed due to insufficient veneration, they then became yōkai. These traits trace back to Japan’s roots in animism, along with its history of Buddhist and Shinto philosophies woven into its timeline. They often have supernatural abilities like shapeshifting, and can possess animal features-like the Kappa, which is similar to a turtle. Yōkai are the Japanese monsters that make up all the manifestations beyond the human realm, and though some are evil, others choose not to associate with the human world. Made up of two kanji that represent “bewitching calamity” and “apparition mystery suspicious,” they also come by different names such as ayakashi or mononoke (sound familiar? A famous Ghibli movie, perhaps?).
As every culture has its ghosts and ghouls, so too do the Japanese in the form of yōkai (妖怪).
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