locus: the seton hall journal of undergraduate research

Locus: The Seton Hall Journal of Undergraduate Research Locus: The Seton Hall Journal of Undergraduate Research

Volume 4 Article 11

October 2021

Geomyths and Catfish Prints: An Analysis of the 1855 Ansei Geomyths and Catfish Prints: An Analysis of the 1855 Ansei

Earthquake in Japan Earthquake in Japan

Markela Quin Seton Hall University

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Geomyths and Catfish Prints: An Analysis of the 1855Ansei Earthquake in Japan

Markela QuinSeton Hall University

Abstract

Geomyths are myths and legends created bypre-modern cultures to explain unexplainable,strange, and mysterious phenomena. This paperwill look at the Japanese geomyth of Namazu, agiant catfish who resides underneath Japan andcauses earthquakes, and how it relates to the surgeof catfish prints which circulated around Edo,Japan following the 1855 Ansei-Edo Earthquake.Through an analysis of this geomyth and the cat-fish prints it inspired, this paper will demonstratehow geomyths can reveal the history and senti-ments of the culture from which they come andhow the geomyth of Namazu demonstrates that theTokugawa era of Japan was not as peaceful asmany historians have made it out to be.

1. Introduction

It is part of our human nature to desire an ex-planation for things which we cannot understand.For instance, unexplainable, strange, and myste-rious occurrences such as earthquakes, tsunamis,and other natural phenomena naturally demandexplanation by our human reasoning and intel-lect. In the 21st century, science and technologyhas advanced to the point where we can scientifi-cally explain why and how these various naturalphenomena occur. For example, we now knowthat earthquakes are caused by the shifting ofEarth’s tectonic plates and that lightning is causedby strong, oppositely charged electrical fields in

clouds. Now, we can confidently predict when andwhere an earthquake, lightning storm, or tsunamiwill occur, but pre-Modern cultures lacked the sci-entific knowledge we have today and had no wayof knowing or understanding why earthquakes orother natural phenomena happened. Therefore,to explain the unexplainable, pre-Modern culturesused myth and folklore to provide explanations forthese strange occurrences. One “case study” thatdemonstrates the use of myth and folklore to ex-plain strange phenomena is found in Japan’s GreatAnsei-Edo Earthquake of 1855.

Japan’s location as an island nation situated onfour major tectonic plates in the uproarious Pa-cific Ocean makes it a prime spot for natural dis-asters such as earthquakes and tsunamis. Japanhas indeed had several catastrophic natural dis-asters in its history, a significant one being the1855 Great Ansei-Edo earthquake that shook Edo(now modern-day Tokyo) with an estimated 7.0magnitude, killing around 7,000 to 10,000 peopleand causing mass destruction1. In the aftermathof this devastating earthquake, something inter-esting happened: artistic prints of catfish startedcirculating around Edo in great numbers2. Al-though the production and popularity of these cat-fish prints seems unrelated to the Great Ansei-EdoEarthquake, a closer look reveals that the con-

1Gregory Smits, “Shaking Up Japan: Edo So-ciety and the 1855 Catfish Picture Prints.” Jour-nal of Social History 39, no. 4 (2006): 1045.https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh.2006.0057, 1.

2Smits, “Shaking Up Japan”, 1.

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Quin: Geomyths and Catfish Prints

Published by eRepository @ Seton Hall, 2021

nection between these prints and the earthquakelies in Japan’s geomyths. As this paper will elu-cidate further, the Japanese geomyth of Namazuthe Earthshaker was used to explain how Japan’searthquakes were caused by a giant catfish thrash-ing itself underneath the nation of Japan. This pa-per will dive deeper into the geomyth of Namazuthe Earthshaker and explore how the Japaneseused this geomyth to explain the Great Ansei-Edo Earthquake of 1855. Through an analysis ofthis geomyth, this paper will not only demonstratehow the Japanese used geomyths to explain unex-plainable earthquakes, but will also argue that acloser look into the geomyth of Namazu and theartistic prints that it inspired sheds light onto thebroader sentiments and ideologies of 19th centuryJapan, revealing that the Tokugawa era of Japanwas not as peaceful as some historians previouslybelieved. In the end, the geomyth of Namazu andthe Great Ansei-Edo earthquake demonstrates thepurpose of geomyths and other myths, the com-plex layers behind geomyths and legends, and re-veals the true state of Tokugawa Japan.

2. Geomyths

The Japanese, as well as other cultures, havetried to explain the unexplainable, the uncanny,the weird, and the unknown through myths, mon-sters, and legends. For example, in the Edo pe-riod and earlier, the Japanese believed that mys-terious wolf-like creatures called raiju (“thunderbeast”) were responsible for thunderstorms andlightning strikes3. Riding on lightning, raiju wereattributed to causing the destruction that comeswith thunderstorms and lightning strikes, such asfires and lightning scars4. Myths and legendssuch as the raiju were created by the Japanese andother cultures to explain mysterious occurrences,such as thunder and lightning. More specifically,

3Michael Dylan Foster. The Book of Yokai: Mysteri-ous Creatures of Japanese Folklore. Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 2015.

4Foster, 197.

a certain kind of myth termed “geomyth” – aterm coined by Dorothy Vitaliano in 1968 – werespecifically used to explain geological phenom-ena such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, andfloods56. Vitaliano writes, “Myth and geology arerelated in several ways. First, man has alwayssought to explain his natural environment” by cre-ating myths and legends to explain the landformshe sees around him7. One example of this kindof geomyth is the “fishing up” myth used to ex-plain the formation of islands. Vitaliano explains,“’Fishing-up’ myths generally tell of a god who,while fishing, hooks his line on the sea bottomand hauls up rocks and other features that assumethe specific configurations of the islands in ques-tion.”8 Vitaliano gives more examples of thesekinds of geomyths, such as the Devil’s Tower inWyoming, which is said by Native Americans tohave formed when a group of people, being chasedby a gigantic bear, appealed to a deity for helpto escape. According to legend, the ground onwhich they stood rose to the sky, allowing thepeople to be safe at the top where the bear couldnot reach them9. The fluting around the sides ofDevil’s Tower is said to be the claw marks of thegiant bear trying to reach the people at the top10.Another example can be found on the islands ofHawaii, where the volcanoes are said to have beencreated by the goddess Pele – the Hawaiian vol-cano goddess – on the run from her sister. Adri-enne Mayor explains this myth further in her arti-cle “Geomythology”: “First she came to the north-westernmost island, where she dug a pit in searchof fire, but her sister chased her to the next is-

5Adrienne Mayor, “GEOMYTHOLOGY,” Encyclopediaof Geology, 2005, pp. 96-100, https://doi.org/10.1016/b0-12-369396-9/00366-x, 1.

6Dorothy B. Vitaliano, “Geomythology: Geological Ori-gins of Myths and Legends,” Geological Society, London,Special Publications 273, no. 1 (January 2007): pp. 1-7,https://doi.org/10.1144/gsl.sp.2007.273.01.01, 1.

7Vitaliano, 1.8Vitaliano, 1.9Vitaliano, 1.

10Vitaliano, 1.

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Locus: The Seton Hall Journal of Undergraduate Research, Vol. 4 [2021], Art. 11


land, and the next, and so on down the chain un-til she took up residence in Halemaumau, the firepit on Kilauea volcano. Then the sister gave upthe chase, and there Pele and her relatives aresaid to live today.”11 Mayor writes that even thesmall droplets of molten lava, blown away by thewind in volcanic eruptions, are said to be Pele’stears by Hawaiians12. According to Vitaliano, an-other kind of geomyth has been used to “accountfor conspicuous natural processes, such as earth-quakes, volcanic phenomena, and floods.”13 Oneexample of this kind of geomyth is the Japanesenamazu (“catfish”), which will be focused on inthe rest of this paper. Vitaliano gives a generaloverview of this myth in her article: “In Japan itwas believed that a giant catfish in the earth wasresponsible for earthquakes. This catfish was usu-ally pinned down by the Kashima deity, but whenthis god had to pay attention to other matters, thecatfish was left free to wriggle and a quake re-sulted.”14 The most popular and well-known loreof the Namazu is the following:

Namazu appears as a mythical seadenizen residing beneath ‘the fiveprovinces’ and ‘seven circuits’ (Japan),supporting the land on its back. Thehead of the monstrous fish rests underold Hitachi Province, where the shrineof the Kashima deity is located. The de-ity holds namazu in check by means ofthe ‘pivot-stone’ (kaname-ishi), identi-fied with a large sacred rock in the shrinegrounds. As long as the god is resident,the belief goes, all is well, but whenhe is away, for instance, in the ‘god-less’ month (October), the unguardednamazu becomes prankish; quakes arethen due.15

11Mayor, 2.12Mayor, 2.13Vitaliano, 1.14Vitaliano, 2.15Cornell, John B. The Journal of American Folklore 79,

no. 314 (1966): 621-22. doi:10.2307/538234.

Namazu became popularized again when printsof Namazu, called namazu-e in Japanese, spreadthroughout Japan following the Ansei Earthquakeof 1855. After learning that the Japanese used theNamazu geomyth to explain why earthquakes oc-cur, it is clear to see why these namazu-e begangetting popular after the Great Ansei Earthquake.However, there is always more than meets the eyein these myths and stories. As we will see, a closerlook into these myths and legends can often revealthe cultural context and sentiments of the societyfrom which the myth came. Digging deeper intothe history and events surrounding the Great AnseiEarthquake, we will see that the myth of Namazuthe Earthshaker unveils deeper ideologies and sen-timents of Tokugawa-era Japan. While TokugawaJapan is widely heralded as an era of prosperity,stability, and peace by historians, an analysis intothe geomyth of Namazu reveals that this era ofpeace was not as peaceful as commonly believed.

3. Rectification and World Renewal

Going deeper into the geomyth of Namazu re-veals that this myth represents something morethan just an explanation for earthquakes. In hisbook Agents of World Renewal, Takashi Miura,a professor of East Asian Studies at the Uni-versity of Arizona, writes that in the namazu-ewhich circulated following the Great Ansei Earth-quake, Namazu earned status as a yonaoshi god—a god of world renewal and rectification— be-cause of its ability to redistribute wealth follow-ing the earthquake. Miura writes, “Besides beingone of the most destructive earthquakes in earlymodern Japan, this earthquake [the 1855 Ansei-Edo Earthquake] was significant because the peo-ple of Edo interpreted it as an instance of worldrenewal. This manifested most vividly in a genreof woodblock prints known today as catfish prints(namazue).”16 Although earthquakes are generally

16Takashi Miura. 2019. Agents of World Renewal: TheRise of Yonaoshi Gods in Japan. Honolulu: University ofHawaii Press.

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Figure 1. O-namazu-go no namayoi (Tipsiness following the great namazu), lithograph print, 10” x 14 5/8”,https://www.fujiarts.com/japanese-prints/k407/143k407f.jpg.

devastating events, they were also beneficial tocertain classes of people because wealth was re-distributed by taking money from the rich andproviding money to the poor. Miura explainsthat following the earthquake, the rich were ex-pected to make charitable donations to go towardsthose in need17. While money was being takenfrom the wealthy in these donations, constructionworkers or other low-wage workers, would earnmoney from being employed to rebuild follow-ing the destruction of the earthquake. Miura fur-ther explains, “The earthquake catfish, in otherwords, reinvigorated the circulation of wealth inEdo by providing lucrative opportunities to low-wage workers and forcing the hoarding rich to

17Miura, 97-98.

use their money for the less privileged. The cat-fish thus revitalized Edo by mobilizing a stag-nant flow of money that had resulted in wealthinequality in the city.”18 The print in Figure 1,O-namazu-go no namayoi (“Tipsiness followingthe great namazu”)19 demonstrates this interestingdichotomy of loss and gain following Namazu’searthshaking. This print depicts Namazu beingheld down by Kashima, the Japanese deity whosejob is to hold the catfish in place with a large stone,with one group of people on top labeled “smiling”while those on the bottom labeled “weeping” and“have plenty of free time”, which, in other words,

18Miura, 86.19O-namazu-go no namayoi (Tipsiness following the

great namazu), lithograph print, 10” x 14 5/8”, Shaking upJapan, p. 1058.

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means unemployed20. The people on the top in-clude a carpenter, a blacksmith, and a physician,to name a few, while the people at the bottom in-clude a teahouse proprietor, a seller of importedgoods, and a variety of entertainers21. This par-ticular print demonstrates that although all wereaffected by the earthquake, not all were affectedin the same way. Construction workers and othersbenefitted from the work opportunities and moneyfollowing the earthquake while other groups feltthe loss of money and business from it. Miurawrites, “The concept of world renewal is central incatfish prints and signifies a revitalization of Edothrough rectifying the disparity between the richand the poor. Two important themes underpinnedthis process of world renewal: (1) a postdisastereconomic boom experienced by low-wage con-struction workers, and (2) punishment deliveredagainst the hoarding rich, forcing them to use theirmoney for the sake of others.”22 Thanks to Na-mazu’s earthshaking, the imbalance of money wasrectified as low-wage workers were paid and thegreedy rich were forced to give away their money.As the prints above demonstrate, the namazu-e ex-emplifies the dual role of the Namazu geomyth:Namazu is not only a geomyth that explains whyearthquakes happen, but Namazu also representsrectification, renewal, and balance through the re-distribution of wealth.

4. Cosmic Imbalance

Namazu’s role of bringing about world recti-fication and balance through the redistribution ofwealth unlocks another key component of the Na-mazu geomyth. Rather than believe that Namazu’searthshaking was simply a result of the Kashimadeity forsaking his duty and letting the giant cat-fish roam free, some Japanese believed that Na-mazu’s earthshaking was due to a greater cause,namely,that the redistribution of wealth from Na-

20Smits, 1059.21Smits, 1059.22Miura, 95.

mazu’s earthshaking was a divine intervention thatsought to bring balance to the cosmic imbalanceof the Tokugawa era. This cosmic imbalance waswidely thought to be a result of an imbalance ofyin and yang in society. In his article, “Shak-ing up Japan: Edo Society and the 1855 CatfishPicture Prints,” Gregory Smits explains the con-cept of yin and yang as the “complementary op-posite forces or tendencies underlying the worldand its processes.”23 This concept was developedin ancient China and had evolved by the CommonEra to uphold that yin and yang “make themselvesmanifest in the universe through the five agents ofwater, fire, metal, earth, and wood.”24 Over time,Smits writes, the concept of yin and yang work-ing in harmony with each other, governed by thefive agents and bringing balance to the world, waspopular in East Asia. However, from time to timethe balance and harmony of yin and yang and thefive agents gets disturbed and there is imbalancein the world. As some Japanese believed, in or-der to bring back balance to the world, Namazucauses earthquakes which result in a redistributionof wealth in society, allowing for money to flowfrom the hands of the greedy rich to the hands ofthe needy poor, resulting in the restoration of bal-ance to yin and yang. Thus, the geomyth of Na-mazu heralds something more than a giant catfishroaming free but signifies the intentional interven-tion to rectify a world in imbalance and restoreharmony to the cosmos. However, questions arisein this theory of cosmic imbalance: What is thereason for this cosmic imbalance? Why wouldthere be cosmic imbalance and a need for worldrectification if the Tokugawa era is heralded as atime of peace and prosperity for Japan? If “PaxTokugawa” were true, why the need for Namazuthe yonaoshi god, a god of world renewal and rec-tification? The answer to these questions lies inlooking deeper into the cracks on the surface of theTokugawa era; a closer look into the era of “PaxTokugawa” reveals that Tokugawa Japan was, in

23Smits, 1050.24Smits, 1050.

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reality, comprised of an imbalanced society in anera of unrest.

5. “Pax Tokugawa”

The Tokugawa era, otherwise known as theEdo era, of Japan lasted between the years of1600–1867. According to historians, the Toku-gawa era was a time of stability, prosperity, andpeace, and in many aspects it was. In EarlyModern Japan, Conrad Totman explains that theyears leading up to the Tokugawa era were rifewith conflict and instability, which eventually ledto the stability of the 1600’s. He writes, “The1630s marked a watershed in Japanese history asthe pacifying of a tumultuous realm gave way tomaintenance of a stabilized order.”25 Japanese pol-itics, economy, and culture were all on the up-rise during this time after years of war and dis-unity. In the realm of politics, years of civil warand military struggle for power gave way to theone man whom this era is named after, TokugawaIeyasu. After Ieyasu gained control of power, herearranged the political power structure of Japan,which left the shogun with the real power andthe emperor and the court with a public facadeof power. Totman explains, “With those moves,Ieyasu had in fact defined the basic relationship ofemperor, shogun, and daimyo as it would remainfor the next 250 years. All honor was shown to thecourt, but it was nearly powerless. All governingauthority rested in the hands of a hereditary Toku-gawa shogun.”26 Under Tokugawa Ieyasu’s reign,“The Tokugawa (or Edo) period brought 200 yearsof stability to Japan.”27

The Tokugawa era also saw the growth ofJapan’s economy due to “more shipping of com-modities, a significant expansion of domestic and,initially, foreign commerce, and a diffusion of

25Conrad Totman, Early Modern Japan (University ofCalifornia Press, 1995), 101.

26Totman, 50.27Ronald E. Dolan and Robert L. Worden, Japan: A

Country Study (Washington, D.C.: Federal Research Divi-sion, Library of Congress, 1992), 28.

trade and handicraft industries.”28 During thistime, Japan’s agricultural output also changed,which resulted in increases in food production.As Japan’s economy grew, long-term increases inagricultural output, commercialization, and foodproduction ultimately led to the population growthand urbanization of Japan. From 1600 to 1720,the population of Japan more than doubled fromaround 12 million people to about 31 million, withmany flocking to cities such as Edo, Osaka, andKyoto.29,30 These cities eventually became cen-ters of trading, production, food supplies, and con-sumer goods, respectively.31

Along with the economy, Japanese culturealso flourished under the Tokugawa era as a newstyle of ukiyo culture defined this period. Totmanwrites, “As the century advanced and cities blos-somed, however, cultural creativity flourished de-spite the outpouring of sumptuary rules and theideological rhetoric of scholaradvisors. By cen-tury’s end, a vibrant ukiyo, or ‘floating world,’culture was setting the tone of urban life.”32 Thefields of printing, theatre, poetry, prose, and art,were all changing and growing under the Toku-gawa era as new artistic and literary styles wereemerging in ukiyo fashion. Printing shifted frommovable type to wood blocks; Japanese theaterwelcomed puppet theater and kabuki; poetry wel-comed the haikai literary form; Japanese prosesaw writing subjects expand to include a wide ar-ray of religious texts, travel writings, and writingson the “floating world” of ukiyo.33

6. Cracks in the Veneer: A Society Imbalanced

Despite the seemingly stable and prosperousareas of politics, culture, and economy, by the

28Dolan and Worden, 30.29Dolan and Worden, 30.30Peter N. Stearns and David L. Howell, “Japan,” in The

Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2008).

31Dolan and Worden, 31.32Totman, 184.33Totman, 204-205.

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end of the Tokugawa era in Japan, cracks of so-cietal unrest were starting to show on the veneerof Japan. These cracks would continue to buildand eventually result in an explosion and rectifica-tion of Japanese society, manifested in the formof the Ansei-Edo Earthquake and the namazu-ethat were published in the aftermath. One crackthat shattered the veneer was class unrest due tothe precepts and ideologies of what Japanese so-ciety should be failing to match up with real-ity. Robert Oxnam, the President Emeritus ofthe Asia Society New York, explains that “In ad-dition to securing political order, the Tokugawarulers sought to ensure social order as well. Tothis end, they institutionalized a four-class struc-ture designed to limit social mobility.”34 In thisfour-tiered class structure, merchants were sup-posed to be at the bottom of the social ladder, withartisans above them, the peasants on the secondtier (since they were the agricultural producers),and samurai at the top.35 However, the reality ofthe social structure in Tokugawa Japan was muchdifferent than what was represented in the four-tier model. In reality, merchants had made theirway to the top of the ladder thanks to the riseof commercialization and production of consumergoods, while the samurai started owing more debtsto these merchants, eventually finding themselvesnestling near the bottom of the social ladder. Peas-ant farmers, thought to be at the top of the societalladder, were in reality living a poor existence atthe very bottom of society. Many Japanese be-lieved that the reason why the merchant class be-came more powerful and made their way to thetop of the ladder was because of their greedinessand the hoarding of their money. All in all, theJapanese saw this discrepancy between what was

34Robert Oxnam, Carol Gluck, and Henry D.Smith, “TOKUGAWA JAPAN Social Order: TheFour Classes,” Asian topics on Asia for educa-tors || Tokugawa Japan, accessed July 28, 2021,http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/at/tokugawa/tj06.html.

35Oxnam, Gluck, Smith, “TOKUGAWA JAPAN SocialOrder: The Four Classes”.

supposed to be and reality, and did not like it, be-lieving that this dissimilarity was the source ofcosmic imbalance. Smits writes that, “In the largerscheme of things, many residents of Edo regardedthe Ansei Earthquake as a purposeful attempt bythe cosmic forces to rectify a society out of bal-ance. One reason for this imbalance was a stagna-tion of currency caused by Edo’s elite merchantshoarding wealth.”36 Miura concurs: “Put anotherway, the earthquake punished the rich for hoard-ing wealth and preventing a healthy circulationof wealth.”37 By hoarding money and greedilykeeping it for themselves, merchants interruptedthe normal, healthy flow of money in society and“backed it up”, so to speak, resulting in the ac-cumulation of wealth for themselves and a reor-ganization of the model social order. Smits ex-plains this idea further: “In short, these great mer-chants caused something akin to constipation inthe social body, and the earthquake was strongpurgative medicine.”38 This metaphorical conceptof society needing the free circulation of wealth tomaintain its overall health and wellness is a con-cept that was popular, especially among Confu-cians, in Tokugawa Japan, writes Smits. ManyConfucians, “likened the flow of wealth in soci-ety to the flow of vital fluids through the body andthe flow of vital energy through the cosmos”, be-lieving that the stagnation which was caused bymerchants resulted in an unhealthy body of soci-ety.39 That is why many believed the Ansei-Edoearthquake was a divine intervention to restart theflow of money in society. The namazu-e in Fig-ure 2 below demonstrates this. This print is en-titled Furidashi namazu-gusuri (“Namazu pow-dered medicine pouches”) and depicts an anthro-pomorphic namazu as a medicine seller. On thestick is no longer the usual pouches of medicinethat traditional medicine vendors would sell, buton it are people who would benefit from the earth-

36Smits, 1059.37Miura, 98.38Smits, 1059.39Smits, 1060.

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quake. The text explains the health benefits ofthis namazu’s medicine: “It restores the flow andcirculation of money collected in storehouses, re-stores warmth to the cold hearted, cures poverty,reduces laziness, and reduces the ill effects ofluxurious living.”40 Although most Japanese didnot strictly follow a Confucian lifestyle, manyagreed with the sentiment that the circulation ofwealth is important to maintaining a healthy so-ciety.41 Therefore, many Japanese saw the 1855earthquake as a way for the circulation of wealthto bring back balance to the cosmic imbalancecaused by greedy merchants and a broken socialstructure.

Figure 2. Furidashi namazu-gusuri (“Namazu pow-dered medicine pouches”)

40Smits, 1060.41Smits, 1060.

7. Cracks in the Veneer: Class Unrest

As a result of this societal imbalance, theTokugawa era was rife with peasant uprisings andsocietal unrest bubbling beneath a peaceful sur-face. For instance, Miura cites the Kansei Up-rising of 1797, the Bunka Uprising of 1812, theKamo Uprising of 1836, the Shindatsu Uprising of1866, the Bushu Uprising of 1866, and the YashuUprising of 1868 as some of the responses to thissocietal imbalance.42 These uprisings were startedin large part by peasant farmers who felt the finan-cial strains and physical hardships of their workimposed by new tax laws or high prices broughton by famines and new leadership. Unhappy andtired of their painful existence, these farmers tookup bamboo sticks, axes, picks, and even guns todestroy the houses of those they felt were wrong-ing them and demand justice be done. These peas-ant uprisings, along with other conspicuous eventsof the Tokugawa era such as the arrival of Com-modore Matthew Perry and the American fleetand crop failures, were held by the Japanese tobe physical manifestations of cosmic displeasureand imbalance. Smits explains, “Detailed theoriesof purposeful cosmic intervention in society arefound in specic philosophies such as Confucian-ism . . . but the general idea that cosmic forces in-tervene to correct human societies gone awry hadbecome widespread by the nineteenth century.”43

That is why many Japanese believed the peasantuprisings, crop failures, and the opening of “iso-lationist” Japan, reflect an imbalanced society inneed of cosmic intervention. The Ansei Earth-quake serves as a physical manifestation of the re-ality of Japanese society at that time—a societyof violent and restless undercurrents ready to ex-plode. When the explosion did come in the formof the 1855 Ansei Earthquake, it not only shookJapan’s physical state, but also the state of its so-ciety. The redistribution of wealth which camebecause of the earthquake was the “medicine”

42Miura, 44-58.43Smits, 1046-1047.

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needed to rectify societal imbalance and restorecosmic balance in Japan.

8. The Legacy of Ansei-Edo

We have seen how geomyths serve as a wayfor cultures to explain unexplainable, strange, andmysterious phenomena by focusing on the Na-mazu geomyth of Japan and its application in the1855 Great Ansei-Edo earthquake. We have alsoseen how the geomyth of Namazu and the printsthat it inspired following the 1855 earthquakespeaks volumes about the state of Japanese societyduring the Edo period. Through these geomythsand prints, the larger historical context of Toku-gawa society and beliefs are seen, and the true na-ture of an imbalanced society and the means inwhich to restore order are seen. We have also seenhow the namazu-e of the 1855 earthquake illus-trate the societal unrest and imbalance of an erawhich is commonly known as one of peace, stabil-ity, and prosperity. Now, looking forward in time,we will see that the importance of the Ansei-Edoearthquake is not only confined to the events andaftermath of its occurrence, but that the legacy ofthe Ansei-Edo earthquake has influenced the yearsfollowing its occurrence and up to the 20th and21st century in an unexpected way.

Although the Ansei-Edo earthquake of 1855is one that has a background steeped in lore andmyth, in the years following its occurrence ithad a predominately scientific influence. Gre-gory Smits writes in his book Seismic Japan:The Long History and Continuing Legacy of theAnsei Edo Earthquake, that in the years follow-ing Ansei-Edo, Japanese scientists and seismol-ogists used the earthquake as a baseline to mea-sure improvement in terms of earthquake pre-diction and readiness.44 “The Ansei-Edo earth-quake quickly became an integral part of modernJapanese seismological knowledge. For this rea-

44Gregory Smits, Seismic Japan: The Long History andContinuing Legacy of the Ansei-Edo Earthquake (Honolulu,HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2013), 177.

son, the Ansei-Edo earthquake often served as apoint of comparison in articles about different as-pects of earthquakes.”45 For example, one articlewritten in 1885 discussed the relationship betweenearthquakes and petroleum, citing that if anotherearthquake like Ansei-Edo happened, all of Tokyowould be destroyed due to widespread petroleumuse.46 This shift towards scientific and rationalthinking can be seen in the years following 1855,where a noticeable rise in Japanese science andseismology can be seen. For instance, after theNobi Earthquake of 1891, Japan established theImperial Earthquake Investigation Committee, thefirst interdisciplinary scientific body of Japan.47

A short article published by the Committee ex-plains its purpose of investigating earthquake phe-nomena “with the view of finding methods of pre-dicting earthquakes, if possible, and of ascertain-ing the nature of construction, building, and oth-erwise, best calculated to resist the effect of theshocks.”48 This shift towards attaining a scientificreasoning and explanation for why earthquakesoccur is a far cry from catfish myths and cosmicimbalances. However, though it may seem that theimpact of Ansei-Edo resulted in scientific endeav-ors which fall away from the Japanese myth andlore which originally surrounded the earthquake,some of these scientific endeavors still have hintsof myth within them.

Beginning in 1976 and concluding in 1992, ateam of Japanese researchers studied whether cat-fish can sense or predict when an earthquake willoccur.49 This research project was founded on thewidespread belief that catfish can “sense” whetheran earthquake will occur and, as a result, becomes

45Smits, Seismic Japan, 178.46Tomiharu Isao, “Sekiyu to jishin to no kankei,” Yomiuri

shinbun, February 24, 1885, morning edition, 1.47Smits, 178.48D. Kikuchi, “An Earthquake Investigation Commit-

tee,” Nature 46, no. 1192 (1892): pp. 418-418,https://doi.org/10.1038/046418a0.

49David Thurber, “Catfish Are Off the Hook After TokyoEnds 16-Year Earthquake Prediction Study,” Los AngelesTimes, April 1992.

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more active prior to an earthquake—a belief whichhas its roots steeped in the myth of Namazu.50

This government-funded research plan studied themovements of catfish every day for 16 years, andat the end of it found, “Consistently, all seven ofthe usually sluggish fish greatly increased theiractivity several days before about 31% of earth-quakes that registered ‘quite strong’ or higher onthe Japanese earthquake scale” while five or sixof the fish became active before 60-70% of earth-quakes.51 Although this research endeavor failedto prove that catfish can sense earthquakes, it doesserve to prove how the long-lasting impacts of theNamazu geomyth still resonate within the scien-tific psyche of the 21st century.

The myths and legends of different culturestell us a lot about that culture’s history and be-liefs. The catfish prints which circulated follow-ing the Ansei-Edo earthquake show the historicalcontext of Tokugawa Japan and the sentiments ofits people, and reveal that the Tokugawa era wasnot as peaceful and stable as many believe it to be.We have also seen how certain myths and legendscan still have influence many years after their con-ception, as demonstrated in the 16-year researchproject conducted on the ability of catfish to pre-dict earthquakes. All these events illustrate thepower of myth and legend and its ability to shapethe mindsets of people in the past and future.

Bibliography

Cornell, John B. The Journal of American Folk-lore 79, no. 314 (1966): 621-22. AccessedNovember 16, 2020. doi:10.2307/538234.

Dolan, Ronald E., and Robert L. Worden. Japan:A Country Study. Washington, D.C.: Fed-eral Research Division, Library of Congress,1992.

Foster, Michael Dylan, and Kijin Shinonome.The Book of Yokai: Mysterious Creatures of

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Japanese Folklore. Oakland, CA: Universityof California Press, 2015.

Kikuchi, D. “An Earthquake Investigation Com-mittee.” Nature 46, no. 1192 (1892): 418–18.https://doi.org/10.1038/046418a0.

Oxnam, Robert, Carol Gluck, and HenryD. Smith. “Tokugawa Japan SocialOrder: The Four Classes.” Asian top-ics on Asia for educators || Toku-gawa Japan. Accessed July 28, 2021.http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/at/tokugawa/tj06.html.

Mayor, Adrienne. “Geomythology.” En-cyclopedia of Geology, 2005, 96–100.https://doi.org/10.1016/b0-12-369396-9/00366-x.

Miura, Takashi. Agents of World Renewal: theRise of Yonaoshi Gods in Japan. Honolulu,Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 2020.

Smits, Gregory. Seismic Japan: The Long His-tory and Continuing Legacy of the Ansei-Edo Earthquake. Honolulu, HI: Universityof Hawaii Press, 2013.

Smits, G. “Shaking Up Japan: Edo Society andthe 1855 Catfish Picture Prints.” Journal ofSocial History 39, no. 4 (2006): 1045–78.https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh.2006.0057.

Stearns, Peter N., and David L. Howell. “Japan.”Essay. In The Oxford Encyclopedia of theModern World. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 2008.

Thurber, David. “Catfish Are Off the Hook Af-ter Tokyo Ends 16-Year Earthquake Predic-tion Study.” Los Angeles Times, April 1992.

Totman, Conrad. Early Modern Japan. Univer-sity of California Press, 1995.

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Vitaliano, Dorothy B. “Geomythology: Geo-logical Origins of Myths and Legends.”Geological Society, London, SpecialPublications 273, no. 1 (2007): 1–7.https://doi.org/10.1144/gsl.sp.2007.273.01.01.

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