Daruma, Epidemic Diseases, Smallpox, Owls, Dogs, & Toys
Special thanks to GABI GREVE for introducing many of these images to me.
For obscure and complex reasons, images of Daruma (often accompanied by an owl, small puppy, and/or toy) became talismans against smallpox in Japan’s Edo period (1615-1868). Such images were often red, for the smallpox deity (Hōsō Kami 疱瘡神) was said to like the color red, which symbolizes, among other things, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, and measles, as well as fertility, childbirth, and the caul (the embryonic membrane covering the head at birth). In those days, the common folk tried to please the smallpox deity with red images (Aka-e 赤絵, lit. "red prints;" also known as Hōsō-e 疱瘡絵, lit. “smallpox prints”) in the hopes of averting illness or being granted a speedy recovery. Says Bernard Faure: “A Daruma doll was usually offered with other auspicious toys to sick children. The altar to the smallpox god was decorated with red paper strips (gohei 御幣), a Daruma doll, and an owl (みみずく); sometimes also of a doll called shōjō 猩猩 or 猩々(orangutan or ape or monkey). Furthermore, the sick child had to wear a red hood.” Faure also says “Daruma became popular in the Edo period, probably as the result of a complex evolution, which metamorphosed him from a malevolent spirit to a crossroad deity, a god of the placenta and a controller of human destinies, and finally an epidemic deity and a god of fortune.” For more on the monkey and Daruma association, see below. For more in general about the color red, see The Color Red in Japanese Mythology.