Teru teru bodzu

Teru-teru-bodzu (Jap. て る て る 坊 主, literally “glitter-monk”) is a traditional Japanese handmade amulet doll made of plain white paper or white fabric. In form, such dolls resemble the “ghost” dolls that are made in Europe and America on Halloween. Japanese peasants believed that this amulet has magical powers and is capable of bringing good weather and stopping, preventing or causing rain; for this purpose it was hung out under a shed of a house or a cornice of a window. The Japanese verb "Teru" describes the action of the sun, and "Bodzu" means a Buddhist monk (akin to "Bonza") or, which is more characteristic of modern slang, "bald"; This word is also sometimes used as affectionate nickname for little boys.

These dolls became very popular among the children of the townspeople during the Edo period (XVII-XIX centuries), who, hanging the doll in the evening, shouted: “Teru-Teru Bodzu, please, let the weather be good tomorrow” ^[1] . Modern Japanese children make these dolls of tissue paper or cotton napkins and string: the first napkin is crushed into a lump and placed in the middle part of the straightened second, which folds into a “bag” and is tied under a nested lump of string, one end of which is always longer than the other is to be able to hang the doll. On the “head” of the doll, eyes and a smiling mouth are drawn, so that the Buddha, upon seeing the doll, would also smile (according to another version, the face is drawn precisely because of the request to cause rain). Dolls hang under the windows, doing it usually before walks and picnics in nature. If the doll hangs upside down, then this means a request for rain. The use of teru-teru-bodzu remains common in many Japanese families to this day, although the pronunciation of their names may vary slightly in different regions of the country.

By itself, the custom was probably borrowed from China (the doll of the goddess of rain, Sao-Zinnian), but in Japan there is a legend about its appearance and the reason for the name of the doll, namely Teru-Teru-Bodzu. According to her, in one village there was continuous rain, which did not stop and threatened to destroy all crops. Locals asked a Buddhist monk to pray for the rain to stop; he agreed, but only for a reward; having received him, he began to pray, but his prayers did not bring good weather. After that, he asked the peasants to increase the size of the reward, which was done, but his prayers again failed. When he asked for a new offering for the third time, the peasants, instead of gifts, seized him and executed him, hanging him on a tree. The day after the execution, the rain suddenly stopped. The peasants decided that the monk, having died, met with the Buddha, at last managing to give him their request. Since then, in order for the Buddha to precisely hear the request, monks were always hanged on the trees, but not the living ones, but their symbolic images. Some Japanese cultural scholars, however, do not agree with this version and put forward their own (for example, that “Bodzu” was related not to a Buddhist monk, but simply to a bald round head, and “Teru-Teru” was a joke about the fact that the head shines when sunlight strikes it).

In 1921, varabe-uta (Japanese children's tune) was written related to tera-tera-bodzu, authored by Keson Asahara and Simpai Nakayama, which remains popular today.