Anthropological Approach to Vulnerability and Major Hazards - Vulnerability of Coastal Ecosystems and Adaptation - page 286

7.4.3. Victims and profit-makers
The rational based on an economy of ki (vital breath) is a
cosmological scheme for the general interpretation of disasters in the
Japanese milieu. It does not come down to circulation of a pecuniary
kind but is depicted by analogy with all exchanges, for example the
distribution of good or bad fortune. This ambivalence is also present
in the numerous prints. It is clearly illustrated by one of them, the
most famous.
A varied population is shown here (courtisans, clients, inhabitants
of the quarter and children), who attack at the same moment, each
according to his means - some with hairpins, some with fists, one with
a cane, one with a club, a knife, a head-rest or a shamisen - a giant
catfish ( Namazu ). He warns them: “I am delighted that all these
beauties are climbing on my back. If others come again, I could shake
again”. But the image also shows (Figure 7.6) carpenters and firemen
who, having profited from the event, run over and ask for mercy, for
its agressors to leave it alive. “They cry: 'Wait! Wait! Wait!', 'Stop!
Stop! Stop!' 'Hey, Hey, Hey! Don't hit it like that! Don't hit it like
that! Don't hit it like that!'”.
Figure 7.6. “Controlling the giant Namazu of New-Yoshiwara”
(Shin Yoshiwara dai namazu yurai), Miyata and Takeda, 14-15,
impression no. 46 (source: [CAR 08, p. 157])