Purged Demon or Just Road-Kill?

It's remarkable how interesting roadkill can be. Not so long ago I mentioned encountering a dead monkey in the road and noticing how people were really going way out of their way to avoid it, most likely for superstitious reasons. Well, this morning, on my way to work, I saw something truly odd. There were two dead tanuki (raccoon dogs) by the side of the road, each in a totally different location.


The Japanese tanuki, or raccoon dog.

You have to understand that tanuki aren't seen very often even when they're alive. They're both shy and very adept at hiding. They are also mainly nocturnal animals. In the sixteen years I've been here in the Land of the Rising Sun I've only seen two of them in the "wild". Now, if I count dead ones, I've just doubled that total in a single morning. That's truly amazing.


The two that I saw looked more like this...only a bit less intact. Incidentally, this image comes from this Japanese website, which is researching the volume of wild animals killed on roads.

The tanuki has always had a special place in Japanese tradition, but not necessarily for good reasons. In ancient Japan they were thought to be not animals but rather shape-changing demons. It was believed that most were good-natured but mischievous while others were quite evil. A very good example of the former can be seen in the Studio Ghibli movie Pom Poko, in which the tanuki are incorrectly referred to as "raccoons" in the English version. (Incidentally, Pom Poko actually caused a smattering of controversy in the West over the fact that the tanuki not only have very prominently displayed testicles but actually use them as their shape-shifting organ! This is totally in accordance with Japanese folklore, so it was hard to edit out...) As for the truly evil tanuki of legend, they had a habit of playing the role of the proverbial doppelgänger, using their shape-shifting abilities to take the place of people for the purpose of personal gain. However, even the most demonic tanuki were totally at the mercy of their stomachs, so it was usually easy to root them out by tempting them with something yummy or fun.


The family from Pom Poko.

I don't know how much truth there is to any of the old legends, but it would appear tanuki still haven't figured out what roads are and what the things that travel on them can do. Well, at least two didn't last night. Either that, or somebody's wonderful Wile E. Coyote-esque plan went horribly awry...


Here's a traditional image of a tanuki. No, that's not a pillow he's sitting on!