Abstract
IN a Japanese work, “Hokuetsu Kidan,” by Tachibana no Mochiyo (published circa 1800, tom, ii., fol. 5, seqq.), I have found some remarkable sounds described. Among the details given therein of the “Seven Marvels of the Province of Echigo,” we read: “The fifth marvel, the Dônari [literally Body Sounds, or Temple Sounds], is a noise certain to be heard in the autumnal days, just before a fine weather turns to stormy, it being sounded as if the thunder falls from the cloud, or the snow slides down a mountain. Where it originates is quite uncertain, as there are in the counties several mountains assigned therefor. The sounds are heard of same intensity in variously distant places.” Further, the author recites a folk-tale current in his time among the villagers of Kurotori, in Co. Kambara, which attributes these sounds to the head and body of a hero, Kurotori Hyôe [killed in 1062?]; separately interred under a Shintoist temple in this village, they ever strive to unite once more. “The marvel, it is said, is now seldom met with; still it occurs frequently within two or three miles of the village, proceeding doubtless from the precinct of the temple. And the fact is more wonderful that the inhabitants of Kurotori themselves never hear the sounds unless they go out of the village.” Concluding the narrative, the author, from his personal observation, argues the action of the tide-waves upon the earth to be the real cause of these curious sounds.
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MINAKATA, K. Remarkable Sounds. Nature 54, 78 (1896). https://doi.org/10.1038/054078a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/054078a0
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