back on the hook

I posted here about the story of Hoderi and Howori, the two brothers in the Kojiki, one who 'finds his luck' in the mountains and the other on the sea. The crux of the story is that they exchange their 'luck' and, when Howori goes fishing with Hoderi's tackle, fails to catch any fish and loses the hook in the waves. When I first wrote about this, I found Hoderi's intransigence over the lost hook annoying. Howori breaks up his sword and makes five hundred hooks to replace the old one. But Hoderi is having none of it and insists on the return of the original. Since then, however, I've consulted a newer edition of the Kojiki - not 'new' exactly, just newer than Chamberlain's - and learned a little more about it.

First of all, more recent work on the phonology of Old Japanese apparently shows that the syllable which Chamberlain transcribes as 'ho' was actually pronounced 'po', so we should really call the brothers Po-deri and Po-wori. Second, there is some discussion in this newer edition of exactly why Po-deri is so insistent on the return of the hook:

The meaning of the word sati in this chapter is vital. Even today the word shachi, a divine blessing or magic power, is used among hunters to refer to luck in the hunt. This 'luck' can be gained and imparted by certain magic practices, and the magic is thought to dwell in the hunting implements - for the modern hunter, the rifle bullets, which are shachi-dama ('luck balls')

This point is underlined in a discussion of the folklore of hunting by the German scholar of Japan, Nelly Naumann. (Apologies for the rather stilted translation!)

The word shachi is often used in the language of hunting. We'll meet shachi-iwai or shachi-matsuri as a thanksgiving ceremony after the killing of wild game. The term shachi-ya means an arrow with which an animal was hit, while shachi-dama or shachi-maru is the bullet with which an animal was killed ... ; shachi-no-mi is venison. If a bullet kills an animal on the first shot, one says shachi ga mukaita, 'the shachi obliged'. However, if one has missed the target several times, one says sono mono no gu wa shachi no kiretari, 'the shachi of this gear is exhausted'. And if one doesn't shachi wo tsugu quickly - 'replace the shachi' - the equipment becomes useless.

Seen in this light Po-deri's demands seem more reasonable: 'The stubborn refusal of the elder brother to accept any but the original hook did not necessarily stem from perversity'. The hook is a talismanic object and 'separation from [it] might mean a complete loss of luck and economic ruin'. One's success at one's trade is closely bound up with the use of the tools that have served one well so far. And the luck is not transferable - your hook is lucky for you but will not be so for me.

I'm tempted to read this in relation to that tension between, on the one hand, what happens to you and, on the other, what you do for yourself. The focus on the hook is somehow emblematic of the need to pay attention to the detail of equipment, while acknowledging that these preparations set up the conditions to receive good fortune. What is perhaps rather shocking, though, is how this story continues. Things do not, in the end, go Po-deri's way. But I'll come to that another time!

     

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