While visiting local kilns with an overseas visitor recently, I was asked, "What's up with all the rabbits on everything?"Now, I've seen more Japanese pottery than you can shake a stick at, and I can report that while "everything" is indeed an exaggeration, I certainly have seen my fair share of usagi (rabbits) on pottery.
Rabbits jumping across waves, rabbits looking up at the moon, rabbits flying through the air, solitary rabbits, groups of rabbits, big and small... It seems that our furry friends' reputation of being able to reproduce abundantly, extends to being reproduced abundantly on Japanese ceramics.
Well, if like my visitor you are thinking "What is up with all those rabbits?" then I have an answer for you... or rather, two.
First, the popular rabbits and moon motif comes from an ancient Chinese tale of a hare (yes, I know hares are not rabbits, but let's not split hares... hairs... rabbits... what was I saying?) that lives in the moon, pounding magic herbs into an elixir of eternal life. This sacred rabbit was believed to live 1000 years (someone forgot to take their elixir), turning white after 500 of those years. In typical Japanese fashion, this Chinese tale was assimilated and "Japanized" in the process. The rabbit in the Japanese moon is pounding rice into tasty rice cakes, called mochi.
Second, the popular rabbits and waves motif comes from a story in the Kojiki (Japan's oldest history book) called "inaba no shirousagi," or the "White Rabbit of Inaba." According to this legend, a white rabbit crossed the ocean from Okino Island to the mainland at Inaba (modern-day Shimane prefecture) by using the backs of sharks as stepping stones and in doing so appeared to be running over the tops of the waves. This story became the subject of a famous Noh theater song.
While these two rabbit-legends are not the only two of their kind in Japan, they are two of the most famous, and account for many of the delightful rabbit motifs seen on Japanese ceramics.
This fall when the rice fields turn from green to gold and the night air gets chilly, Japanese people of all ages and persuasions will look up to the heavens, see the friendly rabbit in the moon pounding his mochi, and perhaps more than one will sing that old Noh song:
While the moon floats over the ocean
A rabbit runs over the waves
What interesting island scenery
Dave
Hi Dave. So glad to see the picture of the plate. My parents bought one just like it when my dad was stationed in Japan (1959-1962). I attended 6th and 7th grades in Yokosuka, where the plate was purchased, and 8th grade in Sasebo. The plate was called something like "Two Hares/Rabbits Dancing Over the Waves of Lake Biwa." Do you know anything about the plate such as the artist's name and where and when the plate was produced? Thanks! Pam
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