During a Pandemic
over 3 years ago
– Fri, May 28, 2021 at 02:26:43 AM
Greetings yokai fans!
Today's illustration serves as the final chapter heading for The Fox's Wedding. This double page illustration is called "During a Pandemic," and it marks the chapter of pandemic-themed yokai which covers the evil spirits which cause disease, as well as the good spirits which protect mankind against pandemics.
The illustration depicts a hōsōgami shrine that would be set up in the house of someone infected with smallpox during the Edo Period. A detailed description of these shrines appears in the entry for hōsōgami (smallpox spirits) in the book, but I'll talk a little about what we see in this illustration here.
The setting is a tokonoma (an alcove) that you'll find in most Japanese living rooms. A shrine like this would be set up to beseech the smallpox gods for mercy through offerings and to drive them away by displaying things that smallpox gods hate. The color red is notable as being something that smallpox gods are afraid of, so there are many red items.
Images of gods who were effective against smallpox are common staples of smallpox shrines. Here we see a painting of Shōki the Plague Queller (my version from The Book of the Hakutaku) hanging on the wall above the shrine. Other popular figures would be the child heroes Momotaro or Kintaro, the warrior Minamoto no Tametomo, and other famous heroes and gods. Often these would be in the form of red-ink-only woodblock prints known as aka-e.
Other charms you can see here include red gohei (folded paper), which is normally found in household shrines but made out of white paper. A statue of a shōjō as well as a noh mask of a shōjō–a red-haired, red-faced yōkai who loves alcohol. Red beans are placed in a dish, next to the traditional dish of salt. Tigers, being strong and fearsome animals, are meant to scare away the cowardly disease spirits. Wooden owls, wooden shōgi (a game like chess) pieces, as well as daruma dolls all have auspicious meanings attached to them and might be found in these shrines.
A lot of regional items are present in this picture. Two "standard" daruma rest on the red table in the alcove. Below them, we see a fearsome Shingen daruma from the mountains of central Japan (a daruma doll based on the warrior Takeda Shingen), and a conical sankaku daruma from northern Japan. The red akabeko is a lucky cow from Aizu in eastern Japan. The red doll sarubobo comes from the mountains of Gifu in central Japan. The papier mache fish is called a medetai, a play on words with tai (red snapper) and medetai (celebratory), meant to bring good luck.
A child's red toy taiko drum is present. The red top and weeble-wobble-like toys called okiagari symbolize both the idea of being hard to knock down, as well as the fact that smallpox was a disease that hit most people during childhood.
A sick child would have been dressed in red kimono, and any other red items that can be found would be used. Here's an Edo Period illustration of such a shrine:
And here are some examples of contemporary pieces depicting the lives and deaths of pandemic victims:
I chose the hosogami shrine for this illustration because it was a bit more pleasant than some of the other Edo Period illustrations from plague times. As you can see, the bodies were piling up faster than people could burn them, and crematoriums were operating 24-7. It's amazing that painters and printers were able to document the sites in such a way. But I figured it would be more pleasant to paint owls than caskets.
Anyway, here is the process of the image from sketch to finish. I originally had fewer toys and included a red futon, but I decided to do away with the futon and add a few more objects while inking the piece.
