In movies, rainy days are primarily signaled by passionate kissing in the rain and spending quiet evenings together with those we love. However, eventually we want the rain to stop so that we can go outside and play again. April showers bring May flowers but now that it is May, we need the rain to let up a little. What better way than with a Japanese good weather sunshine doll?
Many cultures have traditions related to weather, weather prediction, and even trying to influence the weather, making the topic of meteorology not only a great entry point to science, but also to the shared connection every culture has to weather events. A teru teru bōzu, literally translated as shine shine monk or shiny shiny bald head, is a small traditional handmade doll made of white paper or cloth that Japanese farmers began hanging outside of their window by a string. This talisman is supposed to have magical powers to bring sunshine, good weather, and to stop or prevent a rainy day. Teru is a Japanese verb which describes sunshine, and a bōzu is a Buddhist monk (compare the word bonze), or in modern slang, “bald-headed”
In some areas of Japan the dolls are used by farmers on days when they hope for rain instead of sun. You’ll see many of them especially during the tsuyu (rainy season) and on special occasions, such as outdoor festivals or harvest events. Tsuyu occurs when cold air from Siberia north of Japan, and warm air from the South Pacific south of Japan, collide and stay for an extended period of time. This usually happens between June and early July.
The dolls are hung head-downwards and called fure fure bōzu or ame ame bōzu (both meaning roughly The Rain Monk) or rute rute bōzu which is simply teru teru bōzu said backwards. Although teru teru bōzu is the most common name, they are also known as teretere bōzu and sometimes hiyori bōzu. Researcher Miyata Noboru has found that in certain places in West Japan they are still called Hiyoribo and remembered as yokai.
What looks like a simple folk-custom is actually a prayer to ancient Chinese gods and to one of Japan’s monster clan, the yokai called Hiyoribo among other origins. According to scholars, the tradition of weather-watchers and a rich folk culture of hiyorimi (weather-watching rituals and practices) can be traced with certainty to Heian period (749 – 1185) continuing through the Edo period (1603 to 1867). It has been suggested that the teru teru bōzu weather-watching practice/ritual in particular was adapted from a Chinese practice which involved putting the teru teru bōzu on the end of a broom to sweep good spirits your way.
Teru teru bōzu became popular during the Edo period among urban dwellers, whose children would make them the day before the good weather was desired. Traditionally, if the weather does turn out well, a libation of holy sake is poured over them, and they are washed away in the river. Today, children who make teru teru bōzu out of tissue paper or cotton and string and hang them from a window when they wish for sunny weather, often before a school picnic day. Hanging it upside-down acts as a prayer for rain. Both of these are common superstitions in Japan.
Written in 1921, there is a hauntingly beautiful but slightly creepy traditional children’s nursery rhyme which the Teru teru bōzu is the central object and subject, which also has an ominous ending. As the song goes, the Teru teru bōzu is bribed with a golden bell and sake in exchange for successfully preventing rain and given an unveiled threat that failure would result in its head being cut off.
One origin story commonly told about the origins of the doll is just as dark. The Japanese word bōzu is one of the words used to call Buddhist monks. In the past, monks were also expected to be able to invoke rain. The main industry of Japan used to be agriculture and rain was crucial. In 800, the famous Japanese monk Kukai was commanded by the emperor in Shinsen-en, Kyoto to create rain. After that, more than 20 monks held this ritual until 1300. Among all the monks who tried the ritual, Jinkai was known as a specialist, even nicknamed “rainmaking master.” There is even a myth that a red dragon appeared while he was creating rain in Shinsen-en. If a monk failed in controlling rain, his head was severed.
The story goes that there was a monk who promised a suffering village plagued by flooding due to constant rains that he could stop the rains that were ruining their crops and bring good weather. However, after promising good weather to a feudal lord, the sunshine did not appear as promised and the monk’s head was chopped off as punishment for lying by the unimpressed villagers. It’s said the monk’s head was then wrapped in cloth and hung outside to stop the rain and bring out the sun.
The story rings true and plausible but hints of far older practices from prehistoric-to-proto-historic times. We know, from the oldest Japanese historical records of the mythological age and of the era of the earliest emperors of Japan, as well as from archaeological excavations (evidence is found in Asuka, Nara and elsewhere) that there was an ancient practice of human and/or animal (horse, cow, etc.) sacrifice to river gods as well as of soothsayers, fortune-bearers and virgin maidens who traveled with seagoing expeditions, and who were thrown overboard to the sea gods as propitious or conciliatory offerings.
According to record in the book called “Kiyu Shoran” (Inspection of Diversions) “嬉遊笑覧” if the teru teru bōzu is successful, and the following day is clear, then its head is washed with sacred sake and the doll is sent into a river to be washed away. In Edo period Japan, rivers were thought to connect to the afterlife and the realm of the gods, so sending the teru teru bōzu down the river was returning it home in the same way that candles and lanterns were floated down the river during Obon, the Festival of the Dead.
As the tradition goes, the custom begins where you make a plain-faced Teru Teru bōzu, hang it outside your window then wait in anticipation. If the following day, the Teru Teru bōzu has delivered and the sun is shining, you show your gratitude by drawing a smiley face on it. If however, your doll has been unsuccessful in its mission… be gentle and give it another chance. After all, it’s no longer feudal Japan. as with Daruma dolls—a face was only drawn on the teru teru bōzu if it had been successful in bringing fair weather.
According to Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai, the legend of the Hiyoribo Weather Monk is passed down many generations in Japan and is said to originate in the mountains of Hitachi-no-kuni (modern day Ibaraki prefecture).
“He is said to come from the mountains of Hitachi-no-kuni—modern day Chiba prefecture—and his season is the summertime. Hiyoribo is said to be a yokai who brings sunny weather, and who cannot be seen on rainy days.
Toriyama Seiken illustrated the Hiyoribo in his picture-scroll “Supplement to the Hundred Demons of the Past,” and explained that this yokai was the origin of teruteru bōzu. He said that when children hang up teruteru bōzu and pray to them to bring sunshine into the rain, it is actually the spirit of the Hiyoribo that they are praying to. “
According to the Japan Weather Association, which runs the country’s popular tenki.jp weather app, the tradition of teru teru bōzuspread to Japan from China during the Heian Period (794-1185) and can be traced back to a custom that suggests the person charged with invoking good weather was not a monk but a broom-carrying girl.
As the story goes, during a time of heavy and continuous rainfall, a voice from the heavens warned the people that their city would be submerged if a certain beautiful young girl did not appear outside. To save people from the deluge, the girl was essentially sacrificed, sent outside with a broom to symbolically head to the heavens where she would sweep rain clouds from the sky. In order to remember the brave girl who brought clear skies, young ladies would recreate her figure in paper cut-outs, a skill in which the broom-carrying girl once excelled. These figures were then hung outside to bring sunshine in times of rain.
Known as 掃晴娘 (So-Chin-Nyan) or Souseijou in Japanese, which literally means “sweeping fine weather girl”, the paper doll concept gradually took on a different face in Japan, eventually becoming the teru teru bōzu we see today. This theory, which has the support of folk historians, sheds light on the origins of the weather talisman, which, with the rainy season still well underway, will be popping up outside windows and under rooftops around the country.
Kuragehime (a.k.a Jellyfish Princess) is the title of a short anime that is a fantastic feel good anime. It is such a great series and in one of the scenes you get to see an absolutely adorable Teru Teru bōzu jellyfish doll. A bunch of versions of the jellyfish dolls were made in the episode and each one is just as adorable as the next.
One fantastic artist made Kuragehime’s Teru Teru bōzu and I was so impressed by it, I had to include it.
Sources: Wikipedia, https://cloandro.wordpress.com/tag/teru-teru-bozu/,
https://japanesemythology.wordpress.com/tracking-down-the-origins-of-the-teru-teru-bozu-%E3%81%A6%E3%82%8B%E3%81%A6%E3%82%8B%E5%9D%8A%E4%B8%BB-sunshine-doll-tradition/
https://hyakumonogatari.com/2011/12/22/what-are-teruteru-bozu/
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