Kuda-gitsune

Common card · No. 484261

The kuda-gitsune or kuda-kitsune (管狐, クダ狐), also pronounced kanko, is a type of spirit possession in legends around various parts of Japan. It may be known otherwise as osaki especially in the Kantō region, and also considered equivalent to the izuna. It was believed to assume the guise of a small mammal and able to fit inside a pipe or bamboo tube, but normally only its keeper or user (kitsune-tsukai) was able to see it. The user, through the power of the kuda, was believed capable of divulging a person's past or foretelling his future; this soothsayer was also capable of performing curses, bringing calamity upon targets. In regions where the superstition was held, a prospering household could be accused of achieving its prosperity because it was a house possessed by the spirit (kuda-tsuki). The fox (and its analogues by other names) was said to multiply in number each time a marriage took place, following the bride to her place of marriage, thus disseminating into more households.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Matsuura Seizan (松浦 静山, Japansese, *18000000, †1841), Public domain