Tanuki (Raccoon Dog)

Tanuki or Raccoon Dog

Tanuki translates as a raccoon dog, part of the canine family.  Japanese folklore rates the Tanuki as masters of transformation arts. 

Contrary to what many of our staff believes, the Tanuki is NOT modelled after our company president…(I was FORCED to write that!)

Using a leaf, Tanuki’s are believed to be able to change their shapes into any forms they want! (Sound familiar?  * For the Super Mario fans, if you’ve ever played the game, you will notice that Mario gets a leaf, then he transforms INTO a Tanuki!  The modern day game does surprisingly use traditional Japanese folklore in their games as well!)

 Back to the folklore-Tanuki’s usually play harmless tricks on humans.  They are quite mischievous but lovable.  Today you can see a Tanuki statue standing outside retaurants and bars beckoning customers.  Usually he stands upright with a vest and hat, and carrying a sack of sake for good company.

There are things on the Tanuki that symbolizes things:
During the Edo period, it was common to find young sons running a what we would call a “beer run” today- for their fathers.  The son would run to the local sake / liquor store with a sake bottle and memo pad.  The store clerk would fill up the sake bottle, and record the amount of sake purchased on the memo pad.  Somehow the raccoon dog, and the Edo sons were combined into the Tanuki ornament!

The tanuki also symbolizes “good human nature” by:
1.  If a person is very generous, he / she is figuratively said to have a “big belly”.  So the big belly on the tanuki symbolizes generosity.

2.  The ever smiling face  of the tanuki represents the good heart.

3.  The hat is said to prevent oneself from hard.

With all above combined, the tanuki ornament is considered a good luck charm.  (Makes a great gift for those who love Sake also!)
Click here to see our Tanuki Items!

Tags: japanese, raccoon dog, sake, tanuki

This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 1:47 pm and is filed under Information. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.