Onamazu: Japan's Earthquake Causing Catfish

I’ve lived my entire life nestled in between the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers, so all my life I’ve heard the stories of the giant catfish, some as big as school buses, that inhabit the two rivers.  Aside from scaring the heck out of a few underwater welders doing bridge work (and MAYBE being responsible for the Kanawha River being known as the River of Evil Spirits), our tri-state catfish seem to be pretty tame. Japan hasn’t been so lucky.

The Land of the Rising Sun is home to a catfish creature known as the Onamazu.

Obviously, I cannot fully explain Shintoism adequately in one blog post, but the important thing to note is that Shinto is a traditional Japanese religion dating back to the 8th century. It incorporates the worship of ancestors and nature spirits and a belief in sacred power ( kami ) in both animate and inanimate things. -Source: Google Dictionary