Tanuki raccoon dogs have roamed the islands of the Japanese archipelago for probably hundreds of thousands of years. Tanuki are an ancient member of the Canidae (dog) family. They are obviously wild, although recently they have been showing up in suburban areas. Sometimes we even see them on the news, after they do something strange that affects people. They are one of the wild animals people in Japan feel an attachment for.

Actually, this affinity is not new. Tanuki have associated with the Japanese since ancient times. Their favorite habitat is the forest, near the coast or in the hills or low mountains—wherever there are worms and other small creatures to eat. Humans, too, liked low-lying woodlands and settled there many millennia ago, so they naturally came in contact with tanuki. After that first meeting, tanuki and people became accustomed to living close to one another. This relationship has manifested itself in a number of tanuki stories.

Many of these Japanese legends or fables tell about tanuki who disguise themselves to trick people. Folklore experts say that these stories were influenced by ancient Chinese stories about animals changing themselves into ghosts that did all kinds of strange things. In medieval times, these ghost stories changed a little—the raccoon dog became the typical animal that would change itself into a ghost, but the ghost would do ghoulish things, like eat an old woman and take her form, then kill more people than anyone wanted to count. These "old woman" horror stories were probably inspired by the fact that raccoon dogs are omnivorous, and will even dig up dead animals and eat them. We can assume that any folktale about animals is based partly on their actual behavior.

One well-known legend, and its variations, tells of a tanuki who changes himself into a fearsome giant with a shaven head and an unkempt beard, and haunts people at an old temple. It could be that the story started with an element of truth—perhaps a tanuki lived under the floor of some old, dilapidated temple and was scurrying around late at night, looking for a mouse to eat, just when a young monk walked up to the cavernous temple all alone, because he was told to make sure everything was OK. The young monk hears something and shivers with fright. But he knows he has to check things out, so he peeks inside the dark temple. And way up high, in the place where the statue of Amida Nyorai or Buddha usually sits, there is a horrible giant with a shaven head!

In a different story—and there are many such stories, supposedly true—a servant boy is in the moonlight late at night, clutching a ceramic saké bottle and a notebook with a record of how much customers owe for alcohol. The customers think he works for a saké merchant, and they get tricked out of their money. Eventually, the imposter is found out because he cannot hide his tail. In this case, perhaps some village youths were out too late and drank too much. They walked past a temple, scared, and thought they saw a servant boy heading out to deliver some saké. But it was just a tanuki scrounging for something to eat, then running away at the sound of footsteps. The youths were drunk and afraid, and that, we might say, was how the story began.

And then there is the often-heard tale of a ghost that strokes someone's face with a hairy paw. Again, we can assume this story was started by somebody who was drunk. Maybe he fell asleep in a field, and woke up alarmed to find a tanuki pawing him. As for the tanuki, perhaps it was accustomed to humans, and went toward one lying on the ground, going to sniff around and check for food. When people see something strange they cannot explain, or experience something they are ashamed of, one way out is to blame it on an animal.

Much time has passed since those days, and the way people interact with tanuki has changed a great deal. Of course, tanuki have not changed. But many wild animals are losing their habitat and shrinking in number, and the tanuki is now viewed as a special animal. For the Japanese, this animal is part of the human experience. We can only hope this will always be true.