namazu-e catfish-32 - from our story 'Farting Drums, Sex Gods And The Namazu Catfish Quakes Censored In Edo Japan'

namazu-e Japanese catfish disaster prints

In this print, a namazu tries to help a comrade escape from a trap by handing it a gourd. The image is a reference to the old Japanese expression "gourd and catfish" (meaning "slippery" or "elusive"), which originates from a famous 15th-century Zen painting of a man trying to catch a catfish with a gourd.

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