The Japanese magic grinder grinds sea salt
There are more articles and studies of the Kalevala in Japan than of any other Japanese translations of Finnish literature. What is it in the Kalevala that attracts the Japanese reader? What is it in the book that evokes this huge interest in studying the Kalevala?
Kunio Yanagida. Wikipedia.
In 1935, the Japanese folklorist Kunio Yanagida gave a lecture in Tokyo, in Mitsubishi kurabu, on the subject “Science in Finland”. At the same time, he mentioned the contest to host the 1940 Olympics, in which Finland also took part. In his lecture, Yanagida presented an interesting interpretation of the similarities between Sampo in the Kalevala and the Japanese folktales. The tale of the Stealing of the Sampo, in which Sampo during the combats falls into the sea together with Louhi from Pohjola, is, according to Yanagida, similar to the popular folktale “Miksi meri maistuu suolaiselta, in English “Why does the sea taste salty”, which is widely told in “the region of the North Sea”, in other words, in Europe. In the Japanese folktale the story starts when a greedy human being steals the grinder that produces salt. The greedy person grinds the grinder when he flees in his boat, but since he does not know the spell by which the grinder can be stopped, he drowns in the sea with his boat and grinder. The grinder keeps on grinding to this day in the sea. Yanagida also compared the death of Aino and her transformation to a cuckoo with the soul’s transformation to a bird, which can be found in the tale shide no taosa. In Japan, the nightingale is said to bring death over the mountain and in fables most animals turn into birds after they die.
Kunio Yanagida’s opinion strengthened the folkloristic view on the Kalevala. He felt a deep respect for the internationally renowned works by the Finnish folklore researchers Antti Aarne and Kaarle Krohn. Yanagida pointed out that the Finno-Ugric and Ural-Altai people are “related” and he believes that the similarities in the examples above are a result of the “racial origin”. There is no certainty of the origin of the Japanese language and people and Yagnida’s reflections also point to the similarities between the Kalevala and the Japanese mythology. According to one theory on the origin of the Japanese language and people, the Japanese come from Mongolia, the Ural-Altai linguistic region. This theory, which is interesting when considering the relationship between Finland and Japan, is widely spread in Japan.
The mythological affinity
Thus, the Kalevala has become the object of interest among researchers within folkloristics and mythology. They found similarities both in the Kalevala and the Japanese mythology as well as the culture in Finland and Japan. They interpreted the Kalevala through their own experiences when reading it and also through themes that are familiar from Japanese myths and folktales.
The interpretation “Kaukainen sukulaisuus”, in English “Distant kinship,” can also be seen in the review of the first complete Japanese translation in 1937.
“The national epic the Kalevala, which consists of old myths and legends, is a wonder within the world literature, both in volume and quality. […] Its complex, wonderful poetic form resembles, to its contents, the Kojiki and to its form the Manyōshū-anthology. In other words, it is a masterpiece. […] Finland is a small country and geographically situated far away in the North. With the help of the great work done by the translator, the Finnish people, who are our [the Japanese people] distant relatives, both in racial and linguistic sense, gave us an opportunity to get to know the best literature that it has created. (Ichikawa, Yomiuri-shinbun 25.6.1937.)”
How are the cultural features of the Kalevala produced in the post-war Japan, where the society is changing as a result of economic growth? Shizuo Takahashi, who is primarily known as a researcher within the field of youth literature, compared in his article ”Shingaku izen no shinwa” (in English: The myth that preceded the myth), which was published in 1974, the ingredients of the Kalevala and the oral myths in Japan. As Takagiki did in the beginning of the 20th century, also Takahashi made a connection between Väinämöinen, the main character in the Kalevala, and the chief deity in the Izumoshinwa Ohokuninushi (Ōnamuchi-no-mikoto).
In Takahashi’s opinion Väinämöinen and Ōnamuchi-no-mikoto are realistic saints as they convey a quality of being agrarian and heroic gods: they are close to life, people and nature. Takahashi concludes that the foundation of myths like the Kalevala and Izumoshinwa is in the kind of world where the mythical system functions best – in a world where the high culture emerges at a later stage and that has a patriarchal ruler.
The challenges of the suitors: culturally recognisable mythology
In his work Karewarashinwa to Nihonshinwa (1999), Tamotsu Koizumi has combined the three heroes in the Kalevala, Väinämöinen, Lemminkäinen and Ilmarinen – to Ohokuninushi in the Kojiki. In this case, his interpretation is based on the similar fate that they share, which is a result of “a conditional matrimony”. The characters in the tale in the Kojiki is the young suitor Ohokuninushi, his enemy King Susano-o and the king’s daughter Suseri-bime who is being courted. Although Ohokuninushi and Suseri-bime fall instantly in love with each other, the girl’s father, Susano-o, objects to their love and imposes three conditions to Ohokuninushi in order to stop the wedding. Regardless of the difficult conditions, Ohokuninushi accomplishes the three tasks that he was given. He survives a night with snakes and another night in a room that is filled with millipedes and bees, he brings back an arrow from a burning field. However, this last task Ohokuninushi performs with the help of his bride.
The Japanese Kalevala researchers have throughout the ages considered that the Japanese heroic tales, in other words the myths and folktales, show similarities with the Kalevala. The mythical and folkloristic elements in the Kalevala, thus, function as evident signs in the Japanese interpretations of the Kalevala, when it has been the object of studies of myths and folktales. Several researchers find connections between Ohokuninushi, the chief deity in the Izumoshinwa, and the heroes in the Kalevala: The recovery of Ohokuninushi and Lemminkäinen with the help of their mothers, the agrarian characteristics of Väinämöinen and Ohokuninushi and the conditional matrimonial plot with three grooms and tasks.
It is primarily mythologists and folklorists who have read and studied the Kalevala in Japan. The Kalevala has more been regarded as a compilation than as the history of Finland, a source of the Finnish national identity and heritage. The reason for why Japanese researchers are more interested in the mythical dimension can be found in the differences and similarities of the cultural contexts of the countries. The interpretation that the reader makes depends on their own cultural environments and a different cultural environment leads to different inter-textual interpretations. The familiar context or signs in the myths and folktales that the Japanese people have read earlier function when they read the Kalevala.
Hiroko Suenobu ja Jun Igarashi: “Kalevala japaniksi” – Kalevala maailmalla. Helsinki: SKS. 2012.