IV

Ashitaka: Wisdom of a Monk

That night, we make camp by the ruins of a village. The monk has a small pot, and he stirs the rice I have just bought as I tell him of the Tatari-gami. Even with his pudgy face, red nose, and an equally red pimple on his forehead, I get the feeling that I can trust him. He also does not seem surprised when I take off my hood, revealing my face. It is as if he knew I am a young man right from the start.

"So the boar became a monster," he mutters.

"I followed his footprints, but just as I came to that village, I lost him."

"That's to be expected," he says nonchalantly. "See over there?" He points to the landscape outside of the fallen tree where we have set up camp. There is nothing but mud, debris, and ruins of a temple. "Last time I was here, that was a fine village. Floods, mudslides…many people must have died, no doubt."

He takes out a bowl and starts to fill it with the rice gruel. "War, poverty, sickness, starvation; the human world is crowded with the dead, who died swallowing their resentment. A curse, you say? This world is a curse itself."

He blows and tastes the rice. "Hmm, delicious!"

I look down and say quietly, "I made a mistake going down to that village. I killed two men."

"No, but you saved me." He motions with his hand. "Hand me your bowl. You must eat first. People die anyhow. It's just sooner or later." Looking carefully at my red ceramic bowl, he adds, "Hmm, what an elegant bowl.

"Looking at you reminds me of a people of ancient times, told about in old writings. The heroic Emishi clan said to exist in the far Eastern lands, sitting astride red elks, using arrowheads of stone..."

I look at him, alarmed. But surely my faraway homeland won't come to any harm from him. I cast my gaze back to my bowl filled with gruel and begin to eat small bites.

"But first, you must avoid death. That was something my old teacher used to say. It is your rice, eat up!"

Instead I take the iron bullet from my pouch and show it to him. "Would you happen to know what this is?"

The monk looks up, interested. He takes the ball in his chopsticks and examines it. "This is…?"

"It came from within the boar's body," I explain. "It is what gave the gigantic boar the deadly wound."

He gives the ball back to me and continues eating, lost in his thoughts. I look at him, waiting for a reply.

"As you travel farther and farther west from here, within the mountains, there is a deep forest that bars humans." He states. "It is the forest of the Shishi-gami."

"The forest of the Shishi-gami…" I murmur. The forest of the Deer God.

"I've heard that the animals that inhabit the forest are all enormous, and exist as they were in ancient times," the monk confirms.

I decide at once that venturing into that forest might give me a hint on how to lift the curse. Fixed on a destination, I lift up my bowl and eat the rest of my meal.

Early the next morning, I leave the snoring monk and mount Yakkuru. The land is still foggy with early morning haze. We journey onward to the far west.

Editor's Note: Hello! This is Eve, Princess Mononoke's Argentine editor! The author told me that we got a viewer from Argentina, so I just wanted to drop by and say ¡Hola!

Anyway, enjoy the story!