Naosuke Ii would eventually be given the nickname “Chakapon.” Cha, the word for tea, referenced his love of sadō. Ka was in reference to waka, a classical style of Japanese poetry. Pon was the sound of a taiko drum, which pointed to his theatrical interests such as Noh and kyōgen. Naosuke mastered all of these arts, and his nickname was given to him as a sign for the respect people had towards him as a cultured man.

The sound “pon” is also used in reference to Japanese raccoon dogs, also known as tanuki. Naosuke had actually helped script a kyogen play titled “The Tanuki’s Belly Drum.” The story is as follows:

Long, long ago, in a certain village, there was a tanuki who would spend night after night raiding the village farms. In order to help the farmers, a man known for his tanuki-hunting skills arrives at the village. The night of his arrival, a certain tanuki transforms into the man’s aunt, who was a nun, and appears before him, lecturing him about how killing animals is wrong. In the middle of this lecture, a dog barks at the tanuki, scaring it. The tanuki transforms back into its animal form. Now that the ruse was up, the tanuki played its belly like a drum and ran away.

It’s quite a humorous tale. Now that you know the story he helped to write, what sort of person would you imagine Naosuke to be?

It is said that tanuki were actually seen on the property of Umoregi-no-ya. Perhaps the tanuki were good friends of Naosuke.

After he moved to Edo, Naosuke continued to decorate his spaces with statues of tanuki. What thoughts were in his mind when he gazed upon his tanuki decorations?