Inoshishi Blues
What would be your first thought if you saw a baby Inoshishi (wild boar) in your backyard?
Yesterday afternoon our dog went a little bit crazy and was barking up a storm. I took a quick look out the window to see if she was just taking offense to the old woman next door, or perhaps a poor unsuspecting delivery man, but there was nobody there. I just filed it away into the “that crazy dog” category, and went back to my book. A few moments later I heard an odd sound from the side window, that persisted long enough to raise my interest., so I set down the book and went over to take a look. Now, the window in question is opaque, it is a rather common design that you see in most Japanese homes, the glass is decoratively frosted to allow you a hint of daylight, but not an actual look at it. So I pushed to window aside to see what the neighbor’s cat, or my neighbor for that matter, was up to out beside my house. As I looked out the window, I was shocked as I saw the cutest little Inoshishi just browsing through the leaves for a snack. I called to my wife, and we scrambled for a camera, which was a mess as we had to decide between video/digital/or 35-mm, but soon we were all hanging out this small first floor window mere feet away from this baby Inoshishi. He snuffed along there beside the house for about a half an hour as we watched on and took rather dull video of him. (Not many naturalist photographers got there big break by showing off top down footage of animals foraging…)
Eventually the little piggy decided to move on, and worked his way around the front of the house. My wife, sister-in-law, and son seemed to lose interest at this point, but I ran off to the front of the house to see what would happen. I ended up watching the little guy snuff around our garden, and dig amongst the fallen leaves in the gutter behind the house for about an hour. At one point, I was standing just over him as I looked over the fence to the gutter, yet he seemed to take no notice of me at all. Occasionally, I would make a small grunt to get him to look up and present himself for a photo, but beyond that I just did not exist to him. Eventually I decided to just let him graze our yard in safety, and went back inside to share the details.
A few hours later, I was upstairs reading a book when I heard my wife talking to the woman next door. They were swapping stories about the Inoshishi and I listened on. Tho old woman next door was talking about chasing it down and catching it to put it in her Nabe (cooking pot). This gave me instant visions of Cruella DeVille, and shocked me to the core. Here was this cute little piggy, apparently separated from its mother, and this woman wants to throw it in her cooking pot??? As the conversation continued, the Inoshishi came walking right into the picture, as if on cue. It slowly walked right up to our dog Kiki, who was just outside the window beneath my wife, and proceeded to snuff snouts with Kiki. Kiki took one whiff and then went to take a bite, apparently from the same school as our next door neighbor, and the piggy ran off.
Later that night, as my sister-in-law returned from the Onsen, she told us that all the customers there were all talking about how they almost caught the Inoshishi, and how they dearly wanted to cook it in their Nabe pots. I thought that this was a bit over the edge when I heard it last night, but when my wife came home today, she topped it what she had seen. As she was turning up the hill to the house, a car with Hiroshima plates came down the hill with as our Inoshishi was grazing in a pile of leaves by the river. The driver of the Hiroshima car swerved to a stop, almost hitting my wife’s car, and dove out to chase the Inoshishi.
Does this seem odd to anybody else? If you saw a wild animal on the side of the road, would you ever think of trying to catch it with your bare hands to bring home for the wife to throw in a pot? Am i missing something????
December 1st, 2003 at 3:19 pm
I can totally see where they were coming from with the desire to catch it and eat it. I wouldn’t have thought about hunting it down and eating it myself (I haven’t had a desire for pork in about 6 years.. nothing political, just don’t see where the benefits outway the negatives), but I can’t really draw a distinction between their reaction and my own when I am kayaking and see a lot of muscles on the sea-bed, or paddling up to a lobster-boat or salmon boat and haggling for some of their catch.
For some reason, these taste so much better. Sure they are a little fresher than in the store, but that’s not it. It’s all about the satisfaction of having done something more than just pushing a cart through a supermarket.
In fact, sometimes when it actually tastes worse, somehow it’s better. I’m thinking about the bamboo-shoots found when riding a bike through the forest. Digging up our own, and cooking it outself was a huge failure. It tasted like crap, but for some reason it was just as good or better than getting it ar a restraunt.
I would have been scared to death of the pig though. Sure it’s just a cute baby, but I’m sure it’s mama is fierce. Not something I want to run across in a fenced in yard.
December 1st, 2003 at 8:00 pm
Kevin,
I see your point, but I still see a big difference between snagging some shellfish while kayaking and tackling a warm-blooded mammal as it happens across the street.
I am not going to argue against the fact that we are the top of the food chain, and that pigs do fall somewhat below us, but jumping a wild animal, especially a baby, just seems odd to me. It just seem so backward and/or hickish (blatant ethnocentricity?). I think that you could buy inoshishi meat in the store for a few thousand yen, but I can’t imagine the work that would go into skinning, prepping, and cooking one from “scratch”. Not to mention the horror of having to club it do death.
Count me out.
BTW I had the same thought about the mother being not to far off, which is why I cut my observation short. ;o)
December 2nd, 2003 at 2:00 pm
Here in what is either one of the most beautiful states in the U.S. or one of the most embarassing, our legislature passed what is widely known as the “road-kill law.” It was meant to delineate what one could or couldn’t do with a deer after having it jump fast first into your cars grill (possibly coining the hip-hop phrase “all off up in my grill). Prior to the law’s passage, such roadkill had to be left on the road. However, often times the deer is killed but not mangled. Dead deer, decent food to some ways of thinking.
With the passage of the roadkill law, you can now pack said deer into your trunk with out having a hunting license or having the deer count against your annual bag limit.
I suppose the same would apply to all matter of wild boar, muskrat, wharf rats, nutria or any other animal that makes the unfortunate decision to want to try and see what’s on the other side.
So far, no stories in the newspaper of crazed hunters plowing through the woods tyring to run over deer, but it’s only a matter of time.