Chikuzen Provinceちくぜん

While the *Yamawaro* is a mountain monster unique to the mountainous regions of Kyushu, its greatest originality lies in the fact that it forms two aspects of a single body with the *kappa*. The fact that Terajima Ryoan noted the habitation of *Yamawaro* in Chikuzen and Goto in *Wakan Sansai Zue* is evidence that early modern intellectuals incorporated the folklore of grotesque beings from the western mountains into the framework of natural history, showing that the Goto Islands were designated early on as a land of *Yamawaro* traditions. In the migration belief, it is said that the *kappa* of the river and the *Yamawaro* of the mountain switch places at the boundary of the spring and autumn equinoxes, which is thought to be a crystallization of the agricultural calendar, water god worship, and mountain god worship into a single existential image. Its assistance to woodcutters and the reward of rice balls, its love of sumo, its dietary preference for salt and crabs, and its grotesque form with dog ears, red hair, and a single eye are all supported by the *Wakan Sansai Zue* and the oral traditions of various parts of Kyushu. Amidst life in the Goto Islands, surrounded by sea and mountains, the *Yamawaro* has become inextricably linked to the *kappa* (*gataro*), becoming an entity that embodies the local spirituality penetrating both the waterside and the mountains.