Daidarabotchi
Daidarabotchi
The Giant Linking Senzoku Pond and Musashino’s Hollows
Oni and giant beingsThroughout Japan, especially the Kantō and Chūbu regions
Musashino accounts link Suribachiyama, Mujinakubo, Senzoku Pond, and Koike Pond with Daidarabotchi’s feet and staff. In the 1919 account, Senzoku Pond marks the staff; in an account printed in 1983, Koike Pond is the staff hole and Senzoku Pond the place where he urinated. Such variants make several “story maps” from the same uneven ground. Separate from the ponds’ natural formation, they show how local memory arranged the landscape.