Folklore and earthquakes: Native American oral traditions from
Cascadia compared with written traditions from Japan
1
Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington, Box 351310,
2
Department of History and Program in Religious Studies, 108 Weaver Building,
With Contributions from D. CARVER3
A. D. MCMILLAN6
D. BUERGE11, C. P. THRUSH12, J. CLAGUE13, J. BOWECHOP14, J. WRAY15
RUTH S. LUDWIN1 & GREGORY J. SMITS2
Seattle, WA 98195-1310, USA (e-mail: rludwin@u.washington.edu)
The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
, R. LOSEY7
3
Carver Geologic, P.O. Box 52, Kodiak, AK 99615, USA
4
13797 Silven Ave NE Bainbridge Island, WA 98110, USA
, K. JAMES4
, R. DENNIS8
5
FEMA, Federal Regional Center, 130 228th St, SW Bothell, WA 98021-9796, USA
6
Dept of Anthropology, Douglas College, New Westminster, BC, V3L 5B2, Canada
7
Department of Anthropology, Room 13–15, Tory Building University
of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2H4, Canada
8
Chief Councilor Huu-ay-aht First Nation, P.O. Box 418,
Duwamish Tribe cultural resources expert, Duwanish Tribal Services, 4717 West Marginal
10Snoqualmie Tribe, cultural resources expert, and great-grandson of James Zackuse,
Duwamish Indian Doctor, The Snoqualmie Tribe, P.O. Box 280, Carnation, WA 98014, USA
12Rm 1297, 1873 East Mall, University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC V6T 1Z1, Canada
14Makah Cultural and Research Centre, Makah Tribe, P.O. Box 160 Neah Bay, WA 98357, USA
Port Alberni, B.C., V91 1M7, Canada
Way SW, Seattle, WA 98106, USA
11310 NE 85th St, Seattle, WA 98115, USA
13Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
15Olympic National Park, Port Angeles, WA, USA
Abstract: This article examines local myth and folklore related to earthquakes, landslides, and
tsunamis in oral traditions from Cascadia (part of the northern Pacific coast of North America)
and in written traditions from Japan, particularly in the Edo (present-day Tokyo) region. Local folk-
lore corresponds closely to geological evidence and geological events in at least some cases, and the
symbolic language of myth and folklore can be a useful supplement to conventional geological evi-
dence for constructing an accurate historical record of geological activity. At a deep, archetypical
level, Japan, Cascadia, and many of the world’s cultures appear to share similar themes in their con-
ception of earthquakes. Although folklore from Cascadia is fragmentary, and the written record
short, the evolution of Japanese earthquake folklore has been well documented over a long
period of history and illustrates the interaction of folklore with dynamic social conditions.
Local cultures in regions of significant seismic
activity around the world are rich in myths,
legends, and other symbolic representations of
From: PICCARDI, L. & MASSE, W. B. (eds) Myth and Geology.
Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 273, 67–94.
0305-8719/07/$15.00 # The Geological Society of London 2007.
68 R. S. LUDWIN & G. J. SMITS
psychology vis-a`-vis the violent forces of nature,
and other aspects of society and culture. This lore
can also shed useful light on the geological
record, sometimes even to the extent of suggesting
major geological events that remain undiscovered
by conventional scientific approaches. Common
themes appear in stories from different cultures,
and may help identify stories with geological
information.
In this paper, we examine two types of earth-
quake lore from Cascadia and Japan. First, we
discuss figurative stories from the Pacific Northwest
coast of North America that appear to refer to earth-
quakes, tsunamis, permanent land level changes, or
landslides. Geographically these stories describe
events along two major fault zones; the Cascadia
subduction zone (CSZ), which produced a magni-
tude 9þ earthquake in 1700 (Satake et al. 2003),
and the Seattle fault in Puget Sound which produced
an earthquake of estimated magnitude 7.4 in
approximately 900 AD (Bucknam et al. 1992). Sec-
ondly, we discuss non-geological evidence from
Cascadia and Japan that researchers have used to
date the CSZ earthquake of 1700. Next, we
examine figurative conceptions of earthquake caus-
ality in Japanese folk culture, both circa 1700 and,
in greater detail, during the period following the
Edo ( present-day Tokyo) earthquake of 1855.
This earthquake produced an outpouring of figura-
tive namazu-e (catfish picture prints), which
expressed a wide range of popular views on earth-
quake-related phenomena, both geological and
social. Data from both Cascadia and Japan
support our general argument that symbolic
language can usefully describe geological events.
In addition to demonstrating a linkage between
local earthquake lore and geological events in these
two parts of the world, we propose some observations
about similarities in this lore, with reference to other
regions of the world. At a deep level, which we call
the ‘archetypical level’, many apparently uncon-
nected societies throughout the premodern world
conceived of earthquakes in similar ways.
Stories of earthquakes and related events
from native societies in the Cascadia
subduction zone
Geological knowledge of the Cascadia
subduction zone
The plate-boundary fault at the Cascadia subduction
zone (CSZ) separates the oceanic Juan de Fuca plate
from the continental North America plate (Fig. 1). It
lies about 80 km offshore and extends roughly
parallel to the coast from the middle of Vancouver
Island to northern California. Although recognized
Fig. 1. Estimated 1700 rupture of the Cascadia
Subduction zone, from Wang et al. (2003). Numbers
indicate locales of Native stories with descriptions of
shaking and/or flooding. Story elements are tabulated in
Figure 9. Story references: 1. Boas 1935, 1a 33; 1b 92;
1c 122; 1d 27–31; 2. Teit 1912, 273–274; 3. Jenness
1955, 11,12,72,91,92; 4. Duff 1955, 9, 123–126; 5.
Roberts & Swadesh 1955, 315; 6. Sproat 1987, 124–
125; 7. Arima et al. 1991, 230–231; 8. Hill-Tout 1978,
157–158; 9. McCurdy 1961, 109–112. 10. Swan 1870,
57; 11. Gunther 1925, 119; 12. Clark 1953, 44–45; 13.
Eels 1878; 14. Reagan and Walters 1933, 14a 320–321,
14b 322; 15. Reagan 1934, 15a 33–34, 36–37; 16.
Jefferson 2001, 69–70; 17. Elmendorf 1961, 133–139;
18. Van Winkle Palmer 1925, 99–102; 19. Clark 1955,
321; 20. Boas 1894, 144–148; 21. Kuykendall 1889, 67;
22. 22a Boas 1898; 23–27 (similar story identified as
historical in the following reference), 22b 30–34, 22c
140; 23. Jacobs 1959, 176; 24. Jacobs 2003, 187; 25.
Frachtenberg 1920, 67–91; 26. Frachtenberg 1913, 14–
19; 27. Jacobs 1939, 58; 28. Ward 1986. 27; 29. Dubois
1932, 261; 30. Spott & Kroeber 1942, 224–227; 31.
Kroeber 1976, 31a 174–177; 31b 460–465; 32.
Warburton and Endert 1966, 58–60.
NATIVE AMERICAN AND JAPANESE FOLKLORE 69
as early as the mid-1960s, seismologists initially
assumed that the CSZ was incapable of producing
great (megathrust) earthquakes. It is seismically
quiet, and no sizable earthquake has occurred on
it since European settlement began. As the theory
of plate tectonics matured, studies of subduction
zones worldwide identified characteristics associ-
ated with megathrust earthquakes. These earth-
quakes are most common in areas where hot,
young, buoyant crust is rapidly subducted (Heaton
& Kanamori 1984). Although the rate of subduction
in Cascadia is relatively slow, the subducted crust is
among the youngest and hottest anywhere.
Field investigations in the 1980s of the coastal
margins along the CSZ located geological evidence
of abrupt land-level changes characteristic of mega-
thrust earthquakes in ‘ghost forests’ of dead cedar
trees in coastal estuaries in Washington and
Oregon (e.g. Nelson et al. 1995). The cedars, orig-
inally above the limit of the tides, were killed when
their roots were suddenly plunged into salt water.
Beneath the surface of these same estuaries, soil
cores reveal layered deposits showing a repeated
cycle of slow uplift and rapid submergence. Pre-
liminary age estimates based on radiocarbon
dating (Nelson et al. 1995) and tree-ring studies
suggested that the most recent earthquake happened
about 300 years ago. A precise date, 26 January,
1700, was determined from Japanese historical
documents (Satake et al. 2003), and confirmed by
a close study of tree-ring patterns of ghost cedar
roots (Yamaguchi et al. 1997). The magnitude esti-
mate of 9.0, derived from the amplitude of the
tsunami that reached Japan, implies rupture along
the entire length of the CSZ (Satake et al. 2003).
Figure 1 shows the geographic extent of the likely
rupture area.
Native folklore from the Cascadia
subduction zone
This section examines Native stories from along the
Cascadia margin that are figurative and folkloric in
style, and not amenable to dating with any pre-
cision. Some of these stories appear to be of fairly
recent origin and possibly linked to the 1700 earth-
quake; others are apparently much older.
Native peoples have lived on the Cascadia coast
for thousands of years, transferring knowledge
from generation to generation through storytelling.
These Native groups spoke more than a dozen dis-
tinct languages (Thompson & Kinkade 1990), and
lived in a complex social landscape with both simi-
larities and differences between groups. Collection
and recording of Native stories began in the
1860s, almost 100 years after initial European
contact in Cascadia, resulting in losses of Native
70 R. S. LUDWIN & G. J. SMITS
Thunderbird and Whale are beings of superna-
tural size and power. A story from Vancouver
Island says that Thunderbird causes thunder by
moving even a feather, and that he carries a large
lake on his back from which water pours during
thunderstorms (Carmichael 1922). The same story
says that all creation rests on the back of a
mammoth whale and tells of an occasion when
Thunderbird drove his talons deep into the quivering
flesh of Whale’s back, and Whale dived and dragged
the struggling Thunderbird to the bottom of the
ocean; imagery suggestive of ground shaking and
ocean surges. In this story, three of the four original
thunderbirds were drowned in this manner, and one
remains alive. Other stories also have multiple
whales or thunderbirds (Fig. 1, stories 1d, 15b,
22b; Reagan 1934, p. 25; Spott & Kroeber 1942,
p. 227–232) that may refer to aftershocks.
Stories 5, 9, 14a and b, and 15a (see Fig. 1) further
tie the story of a supernatural battle to the flood, with
imagery that implies shaking—Thunderbird lifts the
massive Whale into the air and drops it on the land
surface. The flood description in story 15a is strik-
ingly similar to story 10, which hints at a historic
framwork by placing the event ‘A long time ago
… but not at a very remote period’.
The struggle between Thunderbird and Whale is
unique to the Cascadia coast, and appears in stories
from Vancouver Island to northern Oregon. From
central Oregon south, Thunder or Whale figures
appear individually in stories describing earthquake
or tsunami themes. The central figures variously
appear in the form of Thunder, Thunderbird or
bird, and Whale, fish, or sea monster. In northern
California, the Yurok tribe has an ‘Earthquake’
figure with ‘Thunder’ as his companion. Stories
from Puget Sound and eastern Washington also use
similar motifs in conjunction with descriptions of
earthquake effects. Story 16, of the battle between
the double-headed eagle and the water-monster, is
about the creation of Agate Pass, a Puget Sound
waterway far from the outer coast, but adjacent to
the Seattle Fault, where a magnitude 7.4 earthquake
caused a Puget Sound tsunami (Moore & Mohrig
1994) about 1100 years ago (Bucknam et al. 1992).
are dateable, a few have vaguely historical time-
frames. In addition to describing earthquake
effects, Thunderbird and/or Whale stories have a
general association with landscape-forming
events, such as glacial moraines (Fig. 1, story
15b), icefalls (Reagan & Walters 1933), and land-
slides (Barbeau & Melvin 1943). Thunderbird also
appears in stories about thunder, lightning, and
rain. Thunderbird and Whale stories are part of a
systematic oral tradition that used symbolism and
mnemonic keys to condense and present infor-
mation in a format that could be remembered and
retold for generations. Native populations wit-
nessed multiple cycles of CSZ earthquakes; geo-
logical evidence indicates at least seven in the last
3500 years (Atwater & Hemphill-Haley 1997).
Artifacts depicting Thunderbird and Whale that
long predate the 1700 earthquake have been recov-
ered from coastal archeological sites (McMillan
2000). Knowledge of a repeating earthquake cycle
may be implied in a story where the Thunderbird
becomes a man and sends his Thunderbird
costume back to the sky saying: ‘You will not
keep on thundering, only sometimes you will
sound when my later generations will go (die).
You will speak once at a time when those who
will change places with me will go (die)’ (Boas
1935, p. 65).
theme in carved and painted art of the outer coast
and coastal fjords of Vancouver Island (Malin
1999) (Figs 2 & 3), where broad ocean openings
Fig. 2. Two interior ceremonial screens from Port Alberni, dating from the late nineteenth century. The screens
depict the Thunderbird, accompanied by the lighting serpent and wolf, carrying the Whale in its talons. Collection of
American Museum of Natural History; 16.1/1892 AB. The screens are said to commemorate a ‘chief’s encounter
with the supernatural while checking his sockeye traps at Sproat Falls’ (Kirk 1986). Sproat Falls is just above
the modelled extent of the 1700 tsunami (Clague et al. 2000).
NATIVE AMERICAN AND JAPANESE FOLKLORE 71
Fig. 3. Nootka Sound Memorial, erected 1902–1903 to
honour Chief Maquinna, who died in 1902. Thunderbird
and Whale are shown as similar in size to Conuma Peak.
Photo PN11478-A, taken by C.H. French and
reproduced with the permission of the Royal British
Columbia Museum.
funnel water into narrow waterways that run far
inland. Port Alberni, at the landward terminus of
Barkley Sound, 40 km from the ocean, experienced
tsunami run-up about six times larger than sites on
the open coast following the 1964 Alaska earth-
quake (Sokolowski Alaska Tsunami Warning
Centre). Clague et al. (2000) have documented
tsunami deposits from both the 1964 and 1700
earthquakes in Port Alberni and other fjord-like
inlets on Vancouver Island. Alert Bay, between
the northern end of Vancouver Island and the main-
land, also has prominent Thunderbird and Whale
artworks (Fig. 4) and story themes linking Thunder-
bird and flooding (Fig. 1, story 1a), and placing
flooding at the time of the winter ceremonial
(Fig. 1, story 1b).
Native stories, art, ceremonies, and naming pre-
serve memories of Cascadia subduction zone earth-
quakes. Ancient, recurring imagery describes
earthquake and tsunami effects and suggests aware-
ness of repetitive cycles of world-altering events.
Likewise, similarities in symbols and imagery
along the length of Cascadia suggest commonly
experienced events. We now take a closer look at
earthquake-related lore from the Puget Sound area.
A’yahos, the AD 900 Seattle earthquake and
earthquake lore from the Puget Sound area
along the Seattle fault
The Seattle fault is a multi-stranded east –west
striking reverse fault cutting across Puget Sound,
through downtown Seattle, and across Lake
Washington. Although geophysical evidence has
72 R. S. LUDWIN & G. J. SMITS
Blukis Onat 1987). Natives passed down knowl-
edge of these events in their oral tradition using
descriptive metaphors based on their cultural con-
cepts, often ascribing earth shaking to actions of
supernatural beings.
In 1985, prior to published evidence of the AD
900 earthquake on the Seattle fault, an article in
the Seattle Weekly (Buerge 1985) mentioned a
Native American ‘spirit boulder’ associated with
earthquakes and landslides located near the Fauntle-
roy ferry dock in west Seattle. The proximity of this
location to the Seattle fault invited investigation and
we discovered that the Fauntleroy Spirit boulder is
associated with a supernatural being called
a’yahos. Native stories often describe a’yahos in a
way that could refer to earthquake effects,
especially landslides. A’yahos is a shape-shifter,
often appearing as an enormous serpent, sometimes
double headed with blazing eyes and horns, or as a
composite monster having the fore-quarters and
head of a deer and the tail of a snake (Mohling
1957). A’yahos is a ‘Doctor’ spirit power; reserved
for shamans. It is one of the most powerful personal
spirit powers; malevolent and dangerous to encoun-
ter. A’yahos is associated with shaking and rushes
of turbid water and comes simultaneously from
land and sea (Smith unpublished notes). ‘At the
spot where a’yahos came to a person the very
earth was torn, landslides occurred and the trees
became twisted and warped. Such spots were recog-
nizable for years afterward.’ (Smith 1940)
specific places in the central Puget Sound, along
the Hood Canal, and on the Strait of Juan de Fuca
as far west as the Elwha River. A total of 13
a’yahos sites are mentioned in various stories
(Fig. 5a, b), and these locales coincide with
shallow faults around Puget Sound, including the
Little River fault along the strait of Juan de Fuca,
the Tacoma fault, and the Price Lake scarps
(Haugerud et al. 2003). Five of the a’yahos story
sites are located very close to the trace of the
Seattle Fault (Fig. 5b). Four of the Seattle locales
can be associated with landslides or reports of
land-level changes that might have been caused
by the AD 900 Seattle earthquake. Additional Native
stories related to shaking, landsliding, or land-level
change are associated with three of these sites.
A’yahos stories along the Seattle fault
The west Seattle a’yahos spirit boulder mentioned
by Buerge (1985) is located on the beach immedi-
ately south of Fauntleroy Ferry Dock (Fig. 5b:1),
Fig. 5. (a) Map of Puget Sound and eastern Olympic Peninsula. Boxed area indicates location of larger-scale map
shown in Figure 5b. Dashed lines show locations of some shallow faults (after Haugerud et al. 2003); LR F, Little River
fault; T F, Tacoma Fault; DDM FZ Darrington Devil’s Mtn fault zone; PL S, Price Lake Scarps; FC S Frigid Creek Scarps.
Numbers in Figure 5a indicate sites outside the Seattle fault area associated with a’yahous stories. 1, Elwha River; 2,
Dungeness River; 3, Dabob Bay; 4, Bald Point also known as Ayers Point; 5, Tahuya River; 6, Medicine Creek (Nisqually
Delta); 7, American Lake; 8, Black Diamond Lake (1–5 from Elmendorf, 1993; 6 and 8 from Waterman 2001; 7 from
Smith, 1940). (b) Larger-scale map showing the Seattle fault zone, a’yahos story localities (indicated by black circles),
other stories that have apparent connection to earth shaking or landsliding (indicated by grey circles), and archaeological
sites (white circles). 1, Fauntleroy; 2, Alki Point; 3, Lake Washington a’yahos site; 4, South Point, Mercer Island; 5,
Madison Park; 6, Three Tree Point; 7, Agate Passage; 8, Bremerton; 9, Moore Point; 10, Portage Bay; 11, West Point; 12,
Duwamish Site No. 1. LIDAR images of Fauntleroy (1) and Three Tree Point (6) are shown in Figure 6.
NATIVE AMERICAN AND JAPANESE FOLKLORE 73
below what appears to be a very large landslide of
undetermined age clearly visible in LIDAR
images (Fig. 6a) but not shown on existing geologi-
cal maps. Long term local residents Mory Skaret
and Judy Pickens pointed out the boulder; Water-
man (2001) indicated a location further south,
near Brace Point. Stories of a’yahos spirit power
are told about both the Fauntleroy boulder (Water-
man 2001) and Alki Point (Smith unpublished
notes), immediately to the north and uplifted
during the AD 900 quake. Stories about Alki Point
speak of shaking, rocks exploding, and the power
coming from sea and land simultaneously (Smith
unpublished notes).
The second place in Seattle associated with
a’yahos is by the shore of Lake Washington (Fig.
5b: 3). According to elders who worked with T.T.
Waterman, ‘On the lake shore opposite the north
end of Mercer Island … an enormous supernatural
monster … lived’ (Waterman 2001, p. 102). Large
block landslides dated to AD 900 slid into Lake
Washington from the southern end of Mercer
Island and at Madison Park (Karlin & Abella
1992), about 2 km south and north, respectively,
Fig. 6. LIDAR images (from the Puget Sound LIDAR
Consortium 2000) showing apparent landslides at
localities said to be a’yahos dwelling places; (a) Fauntleroy
Cove in West Seattle (b) Three tree point in Burien.
74 R. S. LUDWIN & G. J. SMITS
The description of the widened channel could
reflect permanent ground level change, and the
sense of ground motion suggested by the story is
accurate; Agate Passage is on the down-thrown
northern side of the Seattle fault. However, geologi-
cal evidence suggests that the AD 900 earthquake
produced mainly uplift on the southern side, with
the north side down only slightly; the correspon-
dence between the story and reality is approximate
rather than exact. We note, however, that some
‘drift’ seems reasonable in a story that may be a
thousand years old and has been preserved through
extreme cultural destruction. This story, set in an
undated ‘long ago’, is strikingly similar to the
stories from the outer coast of Cascadia that use
the struggle of a supernatural bird and water-beast
to refer to earthquakes on the Cascadia subduction
zone (Ludwin et al. 2005a). The ‘long ago’ time
frame suggests an origin more ancient than 1700.
A fifth place, on the Kitsap Peninsula near
Bremerton (Fig. 5b: 8), is said to be another spot
where shamanistic spirit-power could be acquired
(Waterman 2001, pp. 206 – 207; Smith unpublished
notes). Sam Wilson, born in 1861, and grandson of
Chief Seattle told Marian Smith, ‘it comes from
land and sea at same time’ (Smith unpublished
notes). No obvious geological features were noted
at this site, though it is situated between several
strands of the Seattle fault. On the Puget Sound
shore of Kitsap Peninsula just east of this locality,
at Moore Point near Illahee State Park (Fig. 5b: 9),
is a spot named ‘to have a chill’ or ‘to feel a
tremor’ (Waterman 2001, pp. 206 – 207). A com-
parison of earth tremors to feverish chills was
made by Aristotle (Leet 1948) and it is possible
that the Natives of Puget Sound drew a similar con-
nection. Although the origin of the name ‘to feel a
tremor’ is uncertain, shaking was a central
element in Puget Sound Native medical practices
and ceremonials, and a’yahos was a potent source
of shamanistic ‘Doctor’ power, as discussed below.
Native ‘Doctor’ or shaman power was a particu-
larly strong form of spirit power. Throughout the
region, individuals sought personal spirit powers to
guide their lives and bring them luck and skill.
A’yahos was one of the most powerful of these per-
sonal spirit powers, though it was also malevolent,
dangerous, and possibly fatal to encounter (Smith
1940). A’yahos ‘Doctor’ spirit power was one of
only two powers (a’yahos and sta ́dukw’a) reserved
exclusively for shaman, and descriptions of both
these shamanistic powers include shaking or land-
sliding imagery (Elmendorf 1993; Smith unpub-
lished notes; Smith 1940; Waterman 2001).
Shaman were believed to hold the power to cure
certain illnesses, and also the power to cause illness
and even death (Suttles & Lane 1990). The name
of James Zackuse, a Duwamish Indian Doctor who
lived in Seattle on Lake Union’s Portage Bay
during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centu-
ries, translates to ‘trembling face’; rooted in ‘dzakw’,
the Puget Lowland Native word for earthquake
(Miller & Blukas Onat 2004, pp. 78–85).
Puget Sound Salish ceremony, when ritual objects
filled with spirit power and became self-animated
(Miller 1999, p. 133; Elmendorf 1993, p. 192 – 198;
Haeberlin & Gunther 1930, p. 79). An early white
settler noted a specific connection between cer-
emony and earthquake shaking as early as 1893:
During the past thirty-three years I have on many occasions endea-
vored to gather from the oldest and most intelligent Indians some-
thing of their earlier recollections; for instance, as to when the
heaviest earthquake occurred. They said that one was said to
have occurred a great many years before any white man had
ever been seen here, when mam-ook ta-mah-na-wis was carried
on by hundreds. This is the same performance they go through
when they are making medicine men, and consists of shouting,
singing, beating on drums and sticks and apparently trying to
make as much noise as they can. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer 1893)
Salish earthquake stories from outside Puget Sound
also draw a connection between ceremony and
shaking (Fig. 1, stories 8 and 22b; Ludwin et al.
2005b).
Earthquake lore from Puget Sound in the
context of regional earthquake motifs
Although the a’yahos name appears to be specific to
central Puget Sound, the double-headed serpent is
widely known and depicted in NW cultures, and
may have been similarly linked to earth changes.
The Quileute, a non-Salish group living on the NW
Washington Coast, have artifacts depicting a two-
headed horned snake with the forelegs of a deer.
Although not clearly linked to a’yahos, stories
describe it as a vicious guardian spirit (Powell &
Jensen 1976). Another two-headed snake, the
Sisiutl, is a figure well known from stories and
ceremonial artifacts of northern Vancouver Island.
the subterranean world in the same way that snakes
do) appear in many Pacific Northwest coastal
stories that describe ground shaking and/or
tsunami-like floods, probably related to earthquakes
on the Cascadia subduction zone (Ludwin et al.
2005a). Whales per se are not prominent in
stories from the Seattle fault area, though the
water-serpent of Agate Pass is analogous to a
whale. However, in southern Puget Sound where
damaging earthquakes centred deep underground
are relatively common (occurring in 1949, 1965,
and 2001), several stories mention whales trapped
inland and thrashing their way out, sometimes
through underground channels (Ballard 1929).
Thunder, also common in coastal stories of
NATIVE AMERICAN AND JAPANESE FOLKLORE 75
shaking and flooding, appears occasionally in
stories from Puget Sound (Ludwin et al. 2005b).
Figure 7 shows two versions of a Salish ceremo-
nial dance mask and costume linked to earthquakes
(Le ́vi-Strauss 1979), whirlwind (American
Museum of Natural History catalog), and thunder
(Jenness 1955). The Sxwayxwey (also Swai’xwe
and many alternate spellings) masks sometimes
include a two-headed snake (Jenness 1955). The
mask’s origin is relatively recent, probably some-
time after 1500 (Ludwin et al. 2005a), and is
described in a number of Salish stories that use
Fig. 7. Salish Swai’xwe masks associated with shaking,
whirlwind, thunder and the two-headed snake (Jenness
1955). The two open-mouthed protuberances above the
forehead likely represent snakes. (a) Mask from
mainland British Columbia, collection of American
Museum of Natural History; 16/9222A. (b) Mask from
Vancouver Island, photo by Edward Curtis (2001).
76 R. S. LUDWIN & G. J. SMITS
Fig. 8. Non-Salish Cascadia Native representations of
two-headed snakes. Neither of these figures has yet been
explicitly linked to earthquakes, but they likely represent
the same spirit power as a’yahous. Both have horns,
representing spirit power. (a) Quileute ceremonial
representation of t’abale, a vicious guardian spirit on the
northwestern Washington coast (Powell & Jensen 1976).
(b) Kwakwaka’wakw Sisiutl mask, from the northern end
of Vancouver Island, photo by Edward Curtis (2001).
Cannibal the additional names Rolling-Down,
Great-Mountain, Rock-Slide and Coming Down.
The two-headed Sisutl of the Kwakwaka’wakw is
similar in form to the two-headed supernatural
serpent a’yahos of Puget Sound, and its blood trans-
forms the child of the Thunderbird/Dzonoqwa into
the earthquake-related figure Stone-Body. The
inclusion of multiple earthquake-related mythic
figures (Thunderbird, Dzonoqwa, Stone-Body,
Sxwayxwey, Sisiutl) in a story about the foundation
of the great houses of the Kwakwaka’wakw
suggests that earthquakes deeply affected their
culture. The use of earthquake imagery from the
adjoining Salish and Haida cultures suggests earth-
quake events that were felt across tribal boundaries.
Non-geological evidence for the Cascadia
subduction zone earthquake of 1700 from
Cascadia and Japan
The precise dating of the Cascadia subduction zone
earthquake of 1700 is an example of how local lore
and other non-geological evidence can enhance
conventional geological knowledge. The 1700
earthquake was initially dated through Japanese his-
torical documents, and the date was confirmed inde-
pendently through Native American oral traditions
and dendrochronology.
(Fig. 1, stories 1c, 3, 4, 6, 7, 13, 17, 27 and 28)
have sufficient information for estimating a date
range since an event associated with shaking and/
or flooding (two stories with both, three with
shaking only, and four with flooding only). Two
stories, told between 1860 and 1964, tell of a grand-
parent who saw a survivor of the flood, and one of a
great-grandparent who survived it. Figure 9 tabu-
lates the accounts, and gives date ranges. Date
range minima and maxima are 1400 and 1825. All
estimates span the interval between 1690 and
1715, and the average value of the midpoints of
the date ranges is 1690. Discarding the earliest
and latest midpoints yields an average midpoint
date of 1701. This finding is remarkably consistent
with the 1700 date of the most recent CSZ earth-
quake determined from Japanese historical
documents.
of floods could possibly be reports of tele-tsunamis
(i.e. those arriving from distant earthquakes).
Alaskan and South American earthquakes produced
notable tsunamis on the Cascadia coast in the
twentieth century (Lander et al. 1993). Although
we do not know the history of Alaskan earthquakes
around 1700, tsunamis from South American earth-
quakes were recorded in Japan in 1730, 1751 and
1780 (Watanabe 1998). Japanese earthquakes
have not produced significant tsunamis in Cascadia
since at least 1806 (Lander et al. 1993), but locally
generated tsunamis damaged the Japanese coast in
1611, 1707, and 1771 (Watanabe 1998).
the 1700 earthquake are mostly straightforward
descriptions of flooding and/or shaking. Of these
stories, the clearest and most complete is from the
outer coast of Vancouver Island, recorded by
Chief Louis Nookmis following the 1964 Alaskan
earthquake. It describes a night-time earthquake
quickly followed by a tsunami that destroyed the
Pachena Bay people:
They had practically no way or time to try to save themselves. I
think it was at nighttime that the land shook … . I think a big
wave smashed into the beach. The Pachena Bay people were
lost … . But they who lived at Ma:lts’a:s, ‘House-Up-
Against-Hill’ the wave did not reach because they were on high
ground … Because of that they came out alive. They did not
drift out to sea with the others. (Fig. 1, story 7, Arima et al. 1991)
Huu-ay-aht First Nation and descendent of Chief
NATIVE AMERICAN AND JAPANESE FOLKLORE 77
Fig. 9. (a) Tabulation of story elements for stories listed in Figure 1; effects, figurative motifs, and environmental
setting. Brackets by story numbers group stories from a common geographic locale. Symbols are as in Figure 1.
The ‘Whale’ motif is enclosed in quotes to cover a variety of sea-monsters appearing in the stories. (b) Date
range estimates and quotes used to calculate date range estimates. Date range estimates used the following
assumptions: a ‘generation’ is no fewer than 15 and no more than 40 years, events before age 5 are not remembered,
the maximum lifespan is 100 years, flood survivors were ‘old’ when seen, and an ‘old’ person is at least 40.
Louis Nookmis, has discovered previously unpub-
lished information that allows us to estimate a
date at between 1640 and 1740. This new infor-
mation comes from a comprehensive transcription
and translation of the 1964 recordings undertaken
by the Huu-ay-aht First Nation.
A second datable story that includes flooding and
shaking elements is from the northern margin of the
Olympic Peninsula in northwestern Washington. It
combines information from three independent
sources (Fig. 1, stories 11– 13) to yield a tale indi-
cating winter flooding with accompanying strong
shaking. A tradition that cannot be dated but
vividly describes strong night-time shaking, from
78 R. S. LUDWIN & G. J. SMITS
abandoned following the 1700 earthquake and
tsunami (Minor & Grant 1996; Hutchinson &
McMillan 1997; Losey 2002; Cole et al. 1996),
supporting the possibility that flooding stories
may reflect this event.
As we mentioned earlier, Japanese textual data
were instrumental in precisely dating the CSZ earth-
quake of 1700. The exact date and approximate time
of this earthquake (9 pm on 26 January 1700) were
determined from a variety of Japanese historical
documents such as domain (han) records, merchant
records, and the records of village headmen that
reported the arrival of a tsunami with no reports of
associated shaking (Satake et al. 2003). In addition
to recording the 1700 earthquake, Japan has a rich
folklore related to earthquakes and written and
graphic documentation that allows us to observe
how that folklore developed and interacted with
other aspects of Japanese culture. Earthquake
imagery in Japanese folklore has distinct similarities
to Cascadia imagery, and we explore this, particu-
larly through the example of 1855 Ansei earthquake,
which was followed for a few months by a brief but
abundant output of ‘namazu-e’ (catfish picture-
prints) that combined earlier earthquake folklore
with incisive observations on both earthquake
effects and current events.
Halfway to the present and halfway around
the world—The 1855 Ansei earthquake
in Japanese folk images
Japanese documents used to date the 1700 earthquake
focus on straightforward descriptions of areas flooded
by the 1700 tsunami and resultant damage and do not
touch upon the origin of the event. However, Japan
lies in an area of especially vigorous seismic activity
and it is not surprising that we can find abundant
earthquake-related data expressed both as written
records describing the effects of specific events and
in folk culture ideas about their cause. The long
written history available in Japan enables us to
track changing conceptions of earthquakes and
offers an interesting comparison to the earthquake
stories from the oral traditions of Cascadia. For
example dragons and other serpent-like creatures
associated with water were prominent in Chinese
and Japanese folk beliefs concerning earthquakes.
Figure 10 shows a broadsheet entitiled ‘The cause
of earthquakes and tsunamis’ published c. 1650. In
Japan, the serpent figure gradually gave way to that
of a giant catfish (namazu), a belief that parallels
the many shaking-related whale stories found in the
Pacific Northwest (Ludwin et al. 2005a).
The link between earthquakes and giant catfish
developed gradually over several centuries from
native Japanese folk beliefs with some influence
Fig. 10. ‘Earthquakes and Tsunamis Explained’,
c. mid-seventeeth century. On the outer edges of the
circled dragon are written the months of the year. What
appears to be a small sword is just above and touching
the dragon’s head. Below this sword is written
‘kaname-ishi’, (foundation stone). Inside the dragon are
the ‘the 60 plus islands of Japan and the various foreign
countries’. The last line of text inside the dragon
explains that all of these places should be regarded as
existing above the dragon. In other words, the dragon
resides under the earth. Normally, it is pinned down and
made immobile by the deity of the Kashima Shrine, who
presses down on a boulder (the foundation stone), which
presses down on the dragon’s head. The deity’s sword is
a substitute for the boulder. Sometimes, however, the
deity dozes or is otherwise distracted, and he lets up on
the boulder. The dragon is thus able to wiggle around
under the earth, which causes earthquakes (from Miyata
& Takada 1995, p. 54).
of Chinese ideas. The basic view was that a giant
namazu lived in the subterranean waters below the
Kashima Shrine in Hitachi Province (present-day
Ibaraki Prefecture, slightly north of Tokyo). A
large boulder called the foundation stone
(kaname-ishi) pinned the namazu down and kept
it largely immobile. The weight of the foundation
stone itself, however, was insufficient to suppress
the namazu’s movements, and the system depended
on the Kashima deity (Kashima daimyo ̄jin, often
known simply as Kashima) pressing down on the
stone. During the tenth month of each year
Kashima had to leave his post and travel south to
Ise to attend a meeting of the major Japanese
deities. In his absence, Kashima would leave the
local deity Ebisu in charge of pressing down on
the foundation stone. Whether owing to negligence
by Kashima himself or to Ebisu’s inability to
perform the namazu suppression tasks, earthquakes
took place when the lack of pressure on the
foundation stone allowed the giant namazu to
wiggle around under the earth. The severity of
shaking depended on the extent of the namazu’s
movements.
NATIVE AMERICAN AND JAPANESE FOLKLORE 79
This basic understanding of the namazu-based
cause of earthquakes was subject to many variations
because it was enmeshed in the broader network of
Japanese folk religion. Cornelis Ouwehand’s
detailed, structuralist study of namazu images situ-
ates their themes within the broader matrix of folk
religion (Ouwehand 1964). One twist on the basic
motif was that Kashima often worked in close associ-
ation with the thunder deity and sometimes other
local deites of Edo. Namazu-e sometimes depicted
Kashima, Ebisu, and the thunder deity as being
jointly responsible for the devastation of a major
earthquake. Also, most early nineteenth-century
Japanese people associated earthquakes with water.
The namazu, of course, was a water-dwelling crea-
ture and the thunder deity manifests himself in
storms. Indeed, most popular newspaper accounts
of earthquakes also mention the presence of thunder-
storms associated with them (e.g. Kitahara 1999,
pp. 32–33, 36–37).
Although the namazu-based explanation of earth-
quakes had become widely known throughout
Japan by the early nineteenth century, it was not
the only way of describing the mechanism of earth-
quakes. The Ansei kenmonroku (Accounts of the
Ansei [1854 – 1859] era) contains a typical alterna-
tive, based on a widely known view of cosmic trans-
formation whereby the five primary agents of yin
and yang—fire, metal, wood, earth, water—
interacted to create the material world and to
embody the forces that govern it. With respect to
earthquakes, normally water ( purely yin) over-
comes fire (purely yang). Furthermore, water is
the agent normally holding sway in the subterra-
nean environment. Earthquakes result from the
occasions when fire overcomes water underground,
thus reversing the normal state of affairs. A broad-
sheet issued just after the Ansei earthquake of
1855 explained its cause in terms of both yin and
yang forces and the movements of namazu, but it
called the namazu-based explanation an ‘unsophis-
ticated theory’. (Wakamizu 2003, pp. 16 – 17).
Popular newspapers often started their accounts of
earthquakes with a simple, brief statement of yin
and yang forces being out of balance. For
example, the text of an account of the Ise earth-
quake (14th day, 6th month, 1854) explains that a
clash of yin and yang forces resulted in thunder in
the skies and shaking of the earth. An account of
an earthquake in Odawara (2nd day, 2nd month,
1853) employs verbatim the same explanation
(Kitahara 1999, pp. 32 – 33).
The key point here is that in nineteenth-century
Japan, multiple theories of earthquake causality
co-existed. Most of these theories postulated an
imbalance in the cosmic forces, expressed in
terms of the five agents (gogyo ̄) of yin and yang
or the subterranean movement of a giant creature.
80 R. S. LUDWIN & G. J. SMITS
Fig. 11. Untitled namazu-e showing (1) the
co-existence of two modes of thinking regarding the
causes of earthquakes and (2) the namazu as an agent of
world rectification ( yo-naoshi). Three members of the
construction trades, identified by their tools, are
celebrating their newfound wealth (the gold coins
apparently falling from the sky) by drinking with the
namazu. The foundation stone appears to be floating in
the air. On jacket of the man in the left foreground is the
character for earth ( ), while the jacket of the man in
the right foreground reveals the character for fire ( ).
The character for water ( ) forms the pattern of the
namazu’s robes, and the character for wood ( ) does
the same for the jacket of the man behind the namazu.
The airborne gold coins stand for metal ( ), whose
character also means gold or money. Earth, fire, water,
wood, and metal are the five agents of yin and yang,
whose imbalance was the cause of earthquakes in many
premodern theories throughout East Asia. The shaking
of the earthquake rectifies this imbalance, both in an
abstract sense and in more specific ways. In this case, the
tradesmen are receiving metal (gold, money) from the
wealthy members of society. Here the namazu can be
viewed as a literal cause of earthquakes, as a metaphor
for earthquakes, and as a symbol of social rectification
(from Wakamizu 2003, p. 69).
in the forces of yin and yang. Nevertheless, the
close link between namazu (or anything similar)
and earthquakes never developed in China.
Perhaps the most significant Chinese influence on
Japanese views of earthquakes came from the
ancient idea of heaven’s mandate (tianming). In
this view, which could accommodate both abstract
and anthropomorphic conceptions of the cosmic
forces, heaven (the cosmos) bestows on rulers a
mandate to govern based on their moral fitness.
Earthquakes, floods, famine, epidemics, and other
natural calamities were signs of heaven’s displea-
sure. This idea became the bedrock of classical
Chinese political theory. It was also influential in
Japan, especially in the notion that the cosmic
forces periodically rectify a social order gone
awry ( yonaoshi, ‘world rectification’). Earthquakes
were a major tool for bringing about such rectifica-
tion, and in this sense, they were not random occur-
rences. The print described above in which the
earthquake redistributes wealth reflects this way
of thinking. Earthquakes, therefore, necessarily
had political significance in premodern Japan, and
commentary on them could easily become com-
mentary on the state of society and government.
The namazu-e (catfish picture prints):
Japanese responses to the Ansei earthquake
For Japan, a particularly well documented example
of how folk beliefs intersected with contemporary
political and social culture is the Ansei earthquake
of 1855. On the second day of the tenth month
(November 11 in the solar calendar), a magnitude
6.9 earthquake with a shallow focus shook Edo
(present-day Tokyo) and a wide surrounding area.
Aftershocks continued for the next nine days.
Estimates of the number killed in the greater Edo
area range from 7000 to 10 000 (4000 – 5000 for
the downtown area), but the precise figure is uncer-
tain. This death toll amounted to roughly 1 in 170
Edo residents, and shaking and subsequent fires
destroyed 1 in 3 non-military houses and other
structures (Inagaki 1995, p. 64). The injured were
especially numerous, and fires burned for days
throughout the city.
geography, and politics magnified the psychologi-
cal impact of this earthquake in such a way as to
make it appear as a direct attack on the heart of
the bakufu, Japan’s military government based in
Edo. The distribution and severity of damage was
not uniform. Some areas suffered severe devas-
tation and loss of life, whereas other parts of the
city came through the ordeal with nearly all build-
ings and people shaken but intact. The damage
was less a function of proximity to the epicentre
than it was a function of topography and soil con-
ditions. The Yamanote Tablelands, an extension
of the Musashino Plateau, wound their way
through parts of the heart of Edo, constituting
modest upland areas. These upland areas were not
NATIVE AMERICAN AND JAPANESE FOLKLORE 81
always obvious because of erosion and past filling
with soil or debris of low-lying areas. In 1590,
when Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542– 1616) made the
fishing village of Edo his base of operations,
human engineers and construction workers began
to reclaim the marshy flats around Edo Castle.
This process accelerated rapidly during the early
seventeenth century, after Edo became the de
facto political capital of Japan. Edo Castle itself
was on natural high ground, but much of the
prime land around the castle had been part of a
river drainage basin of Edo Bay a mere two or
three centuries earlier.
When the earthquake struck, it shook the whole
city, but structures on the firm foundation of the
uplands generally fared better. The severe damage
occurred in low-lying areas, especially areas of
land reclaimed from marshes and waterways. As
fate would have it, the most prominent neighbour-
hood of samurai residences, home to the bakufu’s
closest supporters among the domain lords,
leading bakufu officials, and several key bakufu
offices, was located at a place that during the
sixteenth century had been the Hibiya Inlet of Edo
Bay. The earthquake devastated this neighbour-
hood, as if it had targeted the government for
destruction. One residential zone further out from
the castle, the area adjacent to the elite neighbour-
hood, was home to commoners. Built on a firm
foundation, it suffered only moderate damage and
stood in stark contrast to the elite neighbourhood’s
collapse. In the eyes of commoners and elite alike,
the cosmic forces made a strong statement that
night (Noguchi 1997, pp. 73 – 108).
As if to add insult to injury, there was one more
odd twist to the earthquake damage. In the com-
moner neighbourhood of Kitachi-ku, for example,
not one main building collapsed. Nearly all the
serious injuries from this neighbourhood were the
result of falling roof tiles or eaves from collapsed
storehouses, built as separate structures from the
main buildings. Many other neighbourhoods reported
the same pattern, and all visual evidence points to
storehouses sustaining much worse damage than
any other type of structure. These rigid, heavy, mud
walled, tile-roofed storehouses tended to vibrate at
the same frequency as the high-frequency seismic
waves generated by the shallow-focus earthquake.
The irony is that the bakufu ordered this rigid,
heavy storehouse design in 1842 as a fire-prevention
measure (Noguchi 1997, pp. 118–120). In this way
too, the earthquake seemed to be paying especially
close attention to the government in its destruction.
Within two days of the initial shaking, printers
set up makeshift facilities in the relatively less
damaged areas and began to produce namazu-e
for sale through street vendors. Namazu-e sold
briskly for approximately two months before