畠主の案山子見舞小て戻りけり
hatakenushi kagashi ni oute modorikeri
the field owner
goes to check his scarecrow
then returns
—Buson
(trans. David LaSpina[1])
In the Edo period, the word for scarecrow was pronounced kagashi, and meant something that smells horrible; this is because farmers of the time would hang up rotten fish, hides from animals, wild boars, etc, and let them rot. Sometimes they hang up dead crows or even small wild boars to let them rot. Yuck! These days I see very simple scarecrows in the fields, often no more than a stick holding a hat, but luckily the trend of making a stinky scarecrow seems to be long gone. Unfortunately, some farmers do another trend that can be as annoying—they put a bird clappers or other noise devices triggered by movement to scare the crows away.
Buson was a painter first and foremost, and that may have influenced his idea of haiku and led him to tell simple pictures with his words. This in turn influenced Shiki when he came around later and set out to reform the small verse. Shiki considered Buson to be the finest haiku poet and a great model, much more so than Bashō, who shiki thought was overrated. Buson often would include paintings with his haiku, a combination which is called haiga. I'm not sure if he did a painting for this one, but I thought the woodblock print fit the verse pretty well.
Scarecrow is a season word for all of autumn.
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| David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. |
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