Who is Daidarabotchi?
Daidarabotchi is a giant told of in many parts of Japan, known by various names such as Deidarabotchi and Daidaraboshi depending on the region. Big enough to lift mountains and dig lakes, he has been told of as a being who shaped the land and its landscapes.
The giant who shaped the land
A famous Daidarabotchi legend says he dug up earth to make Mount Fuji, and the hole he left became Lake Biwa. Many other landscapes are told of as his work: mountains formed where he set down the mountain he carried on his back, hollows where he sat to rest, and ponds formed when his footprints filled with water. The Nara-period Hitachi no Kuni Fudoki tells of a giant living on a hill who ate shellfish from the sea, and of the shells piling up into a hill; this is said to explain a real shell mound (the Okushi shell mound).
Daidarabotchi in place names
One theory says that the place name Daita in Setagaya, Tokyo, comes from a hollow there said to be Daidarabotchi’s footprint. Legends of giants are thought to have arisen as people in the past tried to explain how great mountains, lakes and shell mounds came to be.
