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What else could you do with it?... That one there looks just like a Virgin Mary, doesn't it?" He pointed to the gilded image of a female clasping a child to her breast. "Yes," I replied; "but it is Kishibojin, the goddess who loves little children." "People talk about idolatry," he went on musingly. "I've seen things like many of these in Roman Catholic chapels.
Her story is a legend of horror. For some sin committed in a previous birth, she was born a demon, devouring her own children. But being saved by the teaching of Buddha, she became a divine being, especially loving and protecting infants; and Japanese mothers pray to her for their little ones, and wives pray to her for beautiful boys. The face of Kishibojin is the face of a comely woman.
High before the shrine, suspended from strings stretched taut between tall poles of bamboo, are scores, no, hundreds, of pretty, tiny dresses Japanese baby-dresses of many colours. Most are made of poor material, for these are the thank- offerings of very poor simple women, poor country mothers, whose prayers to Kishibojin for the blessing of children have been heard.
Souls close to nature's Soul are these; artless and touching their thought, like the worship of that Kishibojin to whom wives pray. And after the silence, the sweet thin voices of the women answer: Oomu otoko ni sowa sanu oya Wa, Qyade gozaranu ko no kataki. The parents who will not allow their girl to be united with her lover; they are not the parents, but the enemies of their child.
As we skirt the foot of a wooded hill upon the right, my Japanese comrade signals to our runners to halt, and himself dismounting, points to the blue peaked roof of a little temple high-perched on the green slope. 'Is it really worth while to climb up there in the sun? I ask. 'Oh, yes! he answers: 'it is the temple of Kishibojin Kishibojin, the Mother of Demons!
And, moreover, it was believed to possess supernatural powers of a very high order. In the family of one Sengoku, a samurai of Matsue, there was a Tokutaro- San which had a local reputation scarcely inferior to that of Kishibojin she to whom Japanese wives pray for offspring.
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