Excerpt from S’s files—About the Stone 5:
Elderly Man: You want to hear about Mashira-sama? That’s a bizarre thing to be looking into.
Man: Yes. Wait…what do you mean, bizarre? Mashira-sama is a god, right?
Elderly Man: That thing, a god? Wait, is that what my daughter called it?
Man: Yes, she did. She said it’s a monkey god.
Elderly Man: Of course she did. I’m the one who told her that. All right, young man, listen up. I don’t mind talking about this, but don’t tell anyone or publish anything about it, okay?
Man: I understand. I’ll keep this confidential.
Elderly Man: He’s no god. He was just a regular man.
Man: A regular man?
Elderly Man: Yes. His name was Masaru.
Man: They enshrined a regular man and erected a hokora for him?
Elderly Man: It was the only way.
Man: Was a stone involved at all?
Elderly Man: …Where should I start? I first heard it from my father, who heard it from his father, so the story comes from when my grandfather was alive. Around the Meiji era. Did you know that this entire area was a big village before they built that dam?
Man: Yes. I knew that.
Elderly Man: Well, everyone knows everyone else out here in the country, so it’s like a big family. But one house, Masaru’s, was a little strange. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that they were outcasts, but everyone kept their distance from that family.
Man: Why?
Elderly Man: A bear killed Masaru’s father when he was a little boy, so it was just him and his mother. But she was frail and bedridden.
Man: Then Masaru was taking care of her?
Elderly Man: Apparently so. Unlike his mother, Masaru was strong, and he worked hard in the fields. But he changed after his mother died. He started acting a little odd.
Man: Odd, you say…?
Elderly Man: Maybe he was lonely. His mother required all his time and attention, so he never showed up for town meetings and was still single in his twenties. He stayed home all the time and started making dolls, then talked to them all day long like they were his wives.
Man: Didn’t anyone in the village do anything?
Elderly Man: Everyone worried about him, of course. They decided an actual family would bring him back to his senses, so they arranged meetings for him with women in the village. But it didn’t work.
Man: Why is that?
Elderly Man: Well, you see… Let’s just say he was a little strange… It seems he was a difficult person to spend time with.
Man: …Okay.
Elderly Man: Some villagers teased him from time to time. Young man, do you know the Persimmon Tree Code?
Man: Sorry, no.
Elderly Man: That’s okay. Young people these days wouldn’t. Basically, it’s a symbolic dialogue newlyweds use on their wedding night. People still used it when I was a boy.
Man: What do you mean, a symbolic dialogue?
Elderly Man: The man asks, “Do you have a persimmon tree?” Then the woman answers, “Yes, I do. And there are some persimmons on its branches.” The man then says, ”May I have a persimmon?” To which the woman replies, “Yes, help yourself.” Of course, there doesn’t have to be a persimmon tree. The exchange is just a way to confirm consent.
Man: I see. That’s interesting.
Elderly Man: So we used to have this custom, and someone, half joking, told Masaru about it, saying he would find a bride if he just asked girls if they had persimmons.
Man: And did Masaru do it?
Elderly Man: No, he misunderstood and pestered every woman in the village, telling them, “I have persimmons. Come with me.”
Man: …Oh.
Elderly Man: It upset everyone, and none of the women would go near him after that.
Man: What a sad story.
Elderly Man: …It is. Well, one night a woman living near Masaru was murdered. Someone split her head open. The villagers searched for the murderer and found a big black rock with blood on it in Masaru’s fields. No one knew how the rock got there, and it didn’t look like the kind found in these mountains. When they discovered it, the murdered woman’s husband and some young people in the village surrounded Masaru and beat him up.
Man: …Oh, wow. Did Masaru really do it?
Elderly Man: Probably. He confessed when the people interrogated him.
Man: Did they kill him?
Elderly Man: No, they had beaten him senseless, but he smashed his own head against the stone he used to kill that woman and died.
Man: That’s horrible.
Elderly Man: Apparently, his face looked horrific at the end. His mouth and eyes were wide open.
Man: What happened after that?
Elderly Man: They buried him in the mountain forest, saying they didn’t want him in the village cemetery. Then they placed the rock on top as a kind of tombstone.
Man: And that’s the hokora?
Elderly Man: No, no. After they buried him, women in the village started dying. It was very strange, but they all died after smashing their heads on that rock. Some people started saying Masaru must have called them.
Man: So it was Masaru’s curse?
Elderly Man: Everybody seemed to believe so. They quickly built a hokora by the shrine on top of the mountain to placate him. But they didn’t have an image of worship to place inside. So they took the stone, wrapped a sacred rope around it, and called it Masaru-sama when they prayed to it.
Man: …And did that appease Masaru?
Elderly Man: …Apparently. People started offering him the persimmons and dolls he had obsessed over in life.
Man: I see. But why is it called Mashira-sama now?
Elderly Man: Well, they couldn’t tell such a horrible story to children. But they had to keep making offerings to Masaru. So they created a monkey god with a similar-sounding name and passed down the legend over the generations. I also used Mashira-sama when I told my daughter about it.
Man: …Thank you so much for this. I think I understand now.
Elderly Man: I’m sure my daughter told you, but the shrine is completely run-down these days. The gods do horrible things when they are forgotten. I pray for my ancestors every day in front of our house shrine.
Man: …But Masaru wasn’t a god.
Elderly Man: Young man, think about it. If the people around you start praising everything you do, then you start feeling special, chosen, even if you don’t deserve it. It’s the same thing. If everyone worships and fears something, then that thing becomes a god. And then to be gradually forgotten? Gods, Buddha, monsters, they all cease to exist if no one knows about them. So they assert their presence when they feel that people are forgetting. That’s just how it is.
Man: I see. Thank you so much for the story… I’m very sorry to have to ask this, but is everything you just told me true?
Elderly Man: …What do you mean?
Man: I went to the shrine and I saw the hokora with the missing stone. But it was about as old as the main shrine. And it was all wood. Just like the main shrine, I didn’t see any nails holding it together, either. It looked like it had been made by skilled carpenters with experience in building shrines. Nothing about it seemed hastily constructed.
Elderly Man: Why are you asking that now? I don’t know anything about that. I heard the story from my father. Are we done? It’s almost time to eat.
Man: My apologies. Thank you for your time.