What is Kagome Kagome?
Kagome Kagome is a children’s song sung in Japan since long ago, known together with the game of the same name. The child who is “it” crouches blindfolded in the middle, and the other children hold hands and circle around singing. When the song ends they stop, and “it” must guess who is standing directly behind.
Similar songs are recorded in Edo-period texts, and the words and melody differed by region. The best-known version today is thought to have spread from the Meiji era on.
The dark meanings of Kagome Kagome
The song’s words are full of puzzling images: a bird in a cage and when it will get out, “the night of dawn,” a crane and a turtle. For this reason, many “true meanings” have been proposed.
Representative ones include the theory that the caged bird represents a courtesan without freedom; that it represents a baby in the womb, and the song is about the tragedy of a pregnant woman pushed down and miscarrying; and that it represents a prisoner in jail or a criminal about to be beheaded. The final scene of guessing who is behind is sometimes said to be the horrifying image of an executed person’s head turned to face backward.
The Tokugawa treasure code theory
There is also a theory that the words are a code showing the hiding place of the Tokugawa buried treasure, interpreting the crane and turtle as decorations at Nikko Toshogu Shrine, but there is no solid basis for it.
Many children’s songs began as wordplay for games and have been sung on after their meaning was lost. Precisely because the meaning is unclear, people have let their imaginations run and created many stories. Similar dark rumors are told about Toryanse and Hanaichimonme.
