The Coal Pit (Yama) and the Fox (Peeling off Burnt Skin)
1958 - 1963

Yama to Kitsune (Yakikizu no Kasa-hagi)
[The Coal Pit (Yama) and the Fox (Peeling off Burnt Skin)]
21.0 x 31.0 cm Ink Painting

In spring of 1900, a miner working for K Coal Pit got badly burned in a gas explosion (gasuke) underground and met with the strangest incident when he was recuperating at his home.
One night, a cloud of visitors including two doctors suddenly piled into his house.
His wife was so tired of taking care of her husband in serious condition that she supposedly thought they were leaders, officers or interested persons in the pit (yama). The twenty or more visitors included women, a few of whom held babies in their arms.
The tiny room of four and a half tatami mats was crowded with the visitors, who politely consoled and comforted the wife and her family. After a while, the doctors began to slowly take off the patient's bandages to treat him. The patient sometimes screamed in pain. It was said that the doctors were peeling off his skin, telling him to endure the pain for some time to cure his burn.
They finished treating him after a long time and vanished away like a puff of smoke before dawn.
By then, the patient's body was already cold as ice and he was dead. His family was astonished at his death and began to cry out in loud voices. Their neighbors gathered in great surprise. Many people including the pit director and doctors immediately rushed to her house, hearing the news. The patient was stripped naked and his body was completely skinned. It was discovered that this was the work of wild foxes and the people of the pit stomped their feet with frustration, but they did not know what to do because the demons were invisible. Ah, what a miserable family! The wife had poor eyesight and her twenty-year-old brother in law was a blind man. The only other family member was a four-year-old girl. The wicked foxes also seem to have taken advantage of the dimness of their room, lit only by a single oil lamp. How hateful the twenty or more evil foxes were! They say foxes live as long as 1,000 years if they eat half-burnt human skin. It seems that they did it for their longevity.
It is very strange that such an incident really occurred in the past. K Coal Pit was surrounded by forests but the incident happened in the middle of densely-built row houses.


Translation Assisted by Mr. Nathan Johndro

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