An Illustrated Guide to Kappa Life

Guest blog post on the origins of kappa.

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An Illustrated Guide to Kappa Life

“. . . creepy water-dwellers that looked like scaly monkeys, with webbed hands itching to strangle unwitting waders in their ponds.” – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

This brief mention in Harry Potter was my first encounter with kappa. According to traditional Japanese folklore, kappa are a type of supernatural creature that lures and pulls people into water.

Recently, however, I encountered a different depiction of kappa.

Photo 1: The water-loving kappa. Literally, “river child” in Japanese.

An Illustrated Guide to Kappa (カッパの生活図鑑), by Kunihiko Hisa, portrays kappa as generally harmless and merely fun-loving creatures.

I couldn’t tell how much of Hisa’s Illustrated Guide was made-up by him, as opposed to drawn directly from folklore. Below, I paraphrase parts of his book, which you can contrast with Wikipedia’s traditional depiction of kappa.

Kappa Anatomy
Kappa can walk on land but will die if their bodies get too dry. So they are usually found around lake shores, riverbanks, dry river beds, wetlands, waterfalls, and ponds.

The “plate”: Their most distinctive feature is found on their heads. Functioning like a sponge, the plate’s moisture level tells kappa if they must hurry back to water. It also regulates body temperature through evaporation.

Photo 2: Hair around the “plate” protects the scalp and enables kappa to sense the flow of water and detect movement of fish nearby.

The shell: They have shells like turtles but webbed feet like frogs. You can tell male and females apart by the bottom of their shells: male shells have a pointed tip; female shells have a dent.

Photo 3: Kappa love napping on water, floating shell-up. The shell not only protects their bodies from attacks by predatory birds but also absorbs vitamin D from the sun! Another notable feature of kappa anatomy is the scent gland, located near the bum. If attacked, a kappa can release a gas of intense odor…

Built for underwater life: While swimming, their earlobes and noseholes shut to prevent water from entering. A “lid” also prevents water from entering the trachea. Meanwhile, their eyes have a protective transparent membrane. 

Photo 4: Kappa can spend any length of time underwater, if it isn't rigorous exercise. They don't actually breathe underwater, relying instead on stored-up oxygen in dedicated organs, absorbed through skin. Extreme skin dehydration is fatal. 

Kappa Diet and Tools

The omnivorous kappa eat fish, amphibians, small birds and eggs, small animals like mice, and insects like dragonflies. Contrary to legend, Hisa claims, they do not gang up to drag horses into water. They do fight with otters but don’t eat them.

It’s true, however, that they like cucumbers. Their plant diet includes the seeds of watermelons, gourds, and pumpkins, as well as human-cultivated produce.

Since kappa don’t use fire, they can’t make clay or metal tools. But they do have the obsidian knife. Its glass-like blade can cut as sharply as metal.

Photo 5: Fermenting fruits into alcohol and storing it in dried-out gourds, corked with a piece of wood. 

Kappa Society

Generally, kappa live in family units. The father and mother work together to raise children. Children later leave their parents to form temporary, gender-segregated groups of young mature kappa. They eventually they meet, marry, and start their own families. Kappa who do not marry tend to live alone.

Photo 6: Kappa also form a larger tribe with their “relatives” – those who live within the same region of river, lake, or wetland. Annually, the tribe gathers to exchange information and discuss conflicts with neighboring tribes.

Elderly kappa who no longer have families give up their homes to young couples sometimes. They then roam as young kappa do and visit many homes, teaching children how to make stone tools, hunt, and identify medicinal plants. 

Photo 7: Kappa can live where a body of water is present. For instance, in a hole dug by the riverbank, under a giant fallen tree in the wetlands, behind a waterfall, or even in limestone caves.  

Photo 8: Underground home with a spiked air vent (the spikes deter unwanted visitors).

Kappa at Work and Play

A kappa’s work consists of gathering food, making tools or medicine, and raising children. But they work only as little as they need to survive, never gathering extra resources to sell or barter.

Photo 9: Medicine making: Ingredients for treating cuts, blisters, and fever. Legend even says that a kappa’s severed limb can be glued back with this miraculous salve. 

They enjoy basking in the sun, water sledding, and catching dragonflies. Male kappa enjoy competitive games, especially wrestling. 

Photo 10: Wrestlers grip each other by the shell; grabbing hair isn’t allowed. Other competitive games including stone-skipping and balancing bamboo sticks. 

Raising Young

Kappa females generally lay 1 or 2 eggs. It takes 3 weeks for an egg to hatch and 3 months for a child to mature.

The baby knocks against the egg shell, indicating it’s time to hatch. The mother helps break the shell and pours water over the newborn. She feeds it with food the father has obtained, first chewing the food into small, soft bits that the baby can eat.

Photo 11: The baby cannot stand or swim on its own yet. The father first helps the baby learn to float and swim by holding it gently in his hands. 

Kappa Battles

Kappas seldom fight. But once in a while, kappas do meet in “battle.” 

Photo 12: Kappa battles occurs when an area becomes overpopulated. Or when livable land shrinks in droughts.

But they rarely fight to the point of death. Rather, they gather in large numbers on opposite ends of a river, armed with bamboo poles as a show of force. A representative from each tribe comes forward to compete in a wrestling match. The victor wins the land for his tribe. 

Kappa Seasons

Winter:

Most kappa hibernate in winter. 

Photo 13: In the north, they sleep all winter. But in the south, kappa occasionally rouse from sleep and eat nuts, fruits, berries, fish, or salamanders they have stored up. 

Spring:

Young kappa look for a mate to establish their own families. Most families lay eggs in May, which hatch into babies in June. Babies begin walking on their own around end of June or early July, which is also the rainy season. Rainy season is the best time for walking practice, as children that venture far off are less likely to die of dehydration.

Summer:

Children will have learned to walk and swim on their own by summer. Summer is the most fun season of all, a time for play and learning.

Autumn:

When spring comes, children will leave their parents to live with other young kappa. 

Photo 14: Whence did kappa come? Theory I: Evolved from a primeval shell-bearing reptile. Theory II: Evolved from a proto-human with dinosaur origins. 

Author’s Postscript (excerpt)

Kappa sightings were reported up to the Meiji period, which is about 100 years ago. But now they are a thing of the past. 

Photo 15: They were good at surviving, given they could make tools, raise children, and make medicine. As they developed survival skills, they began to lay fewer eggs to avoid overpopulation, over-foraging, and destruction of nature.

Conflict between kappa and humans has been minimal. Of course there has been the occasional stealing of cucumbers and pumpkins from humans. But as the kappa diet consists largely of meat – especially fish – kappa have rarely caused destruction to crop fields. Rather, there have been more occasions for gratitude toward kappa, such as when kappa shared their medicine with humans.

But how has human life affected kappa life in return? Humans have caused floods and redirected water to their fields and man-made canals. These changes to the natural landscape have made life difficult for insects, fish, and birds, which in turn affects the kappa. 

During the Meiji period especially, riverbanks and shores were built up with concrete, riverbeds were excavated, and dams erected for all sorts of human purposes. To top it all, cities and factories have been dumping dirty water into rivers and lakes.

So, sadly, kappa have vanished. And it did not take very long to happen. (Kunihiko Hisa, 1 January 1993)