Page "Biwa hōshi" Paragraph 28

According to Hugh de Ferranti, iconographic and literary sources generally portray biwa hoshi as solitary and pitiable figures, though wealthy and powerful individuals also exist in such representations.

Sometimes they are depicted as mysterious, frightening, and potentially dangerous individuals while in other sources, they are “ ridiculous ” characters “ to be made fun of, at times with unbridled cruelty ”.

Folklore links biwa hoshi to ghosts through their placation of wronged spirits and the chinkon ritual performance, accounts for their fearful quality.

However, kyogen plays called zatomono features deliberate tricking of a blind zato so that he becomes lost and disoriented, or suffers losses and misunderstanding.

Such action is provoked by sighted individuals for pure amusement, as in the stories of Saru zato and Tsukimi zato.

Picture scrolls marry this “ similar sense of biwa hoshi as bizarre, somewhat frightening figures who can nevertheless be taunted ”.

In these images, people “ look out from their houses at the biwa players and appear to be laughing or jeering at them ,” while children run away from and dogs bark at them.