In Uonuma City, where I live, there was an unfortunate death due to an avalanche. Let me share that story with you here.
○ There once was a family of farmers living in a village. The head of the household was fifty years old, his wife was just turning forty, their son was twenty years old, and their daughters were eighteen and fifteen. They were a bunch of righteous kids. One year, in the beginning of February, the father went out for an errand in the morning, but by sundown had yet to return home. It wasn't a particularly time-consuming task, so the family found it odd. The son took his servants to the place where his father's errand was and asked about him, but they said, "Your father hasn’t been here today." They looked high and low, but there was no sign of his father. The son and his servants went back home and relayed the news to his mother. “This is very unlike my husband,'' she said. Unsatisfied, the mother went around town looking for answers on her own-- also to no avail.
By the time both the son and his mother searched as far as they could, it was already 2AM and their father was still nowhere to be found. Rumors quickly spread across the village and people gathered to figure something out. It was at this time that an unfamiliar old man visited and said:
“It seems you cannot find your husband. I have some information, so I came here to tell you.”
The wife and children filled with joy to hear this.They thanked the old man. The old man continued:
“This morning I passed your husband as I was walking along the foothills of Mt. Nishi. I asked him where he was going, and he answered ‘Inakura Village’ and moved along. On my way home, I heard the sound of an avalanche off in the distance. The avalanche must have occurred on Mt. Nishi. While I was relieved I had avoided the avalanche, I was worried about the man I had just passed on the foothills of Mt. Nishi. The fact that he hasn’t come home yet, makes me wonder if the avalanche might have gotten him... ”
The family’s smiling faces quickly turned into tears as they listened to the old man's story. The old man frowned as he left. The villagers who heard this story said, "Let's go to the site of the avalanche and check for ourselves." They prepared their torches.
"Wait, wait. If my husband has gone far, it only makes sense that he hasn’t returned yet. That old man doesn’t know my husband like I do- he would never be so careless as to get caught up in an avalanche! I should have never let that old man worry everyone like that”.
The villagers were encouraged to hear this, and they decided to stay and enjoy some drinks together. Everyone was relaxed, drinking sake around the fire. Later on, the ones who traveled far had returned, but still the father of the house was nowhere to be seen.
○ By the following morning, the rumors had spread to the neighboring villages about the missing farmer. They all gathered at the farmer’s house and ventured out to the site that the old man mentioned. It wasn’t a very large avalanche by the looks of it, maybe 40 meters or so. But if someone was buried here, there‘d be no way to find out. At a loss for what to do next, the group of villagers turned to the old man. “I have a good idea,” he said. The old man then went to a nearby village and came back with a bunch of chickens. He released them on the avalanche snow, fed them, and let them walk around. Suddenly, one of the roosters started to crow, and the other chickens gathered together and began crowing as well. This is a technique often employed to search for dead bodies in the water.
The old man said with conviction, “Your farmer is here. Let’s start digging.” The group of villagers all started to dig at once, making a huge hole where the avalanche was. But even after digging through 2 meters, they still couldn’t find anything. Just as they were about to run out of energy, they found snow dyed red with blood. A bit deeper in they found a body with a missing arm and no head. Next came the severed arm, but not the head. When they were about to give up hope, they had finally found the head, looking as if it were still alive, preserved by the snow.
When the wife and children saw this, the wife held the husband's head, and the child cried out as they embraced the dead body. All the villagers wept with sorrow. But they had to clean up. The wife wrapped her husband's head in the coat she wore, and the son took off his kimono and placed his father's corpse in it. The villagers ran to get a wooden box to carry the remains and helped with the transportation, and the family of the farmer followed behind, in tears the whole way.
This story was written down as it was told to me when I was young by a person involved in the incident. And this is not just the only instance; there are many people who lose their lives this way. Houses may also be crushed by avalanches. Such horror is unspeakable. When the avalanche struck the farmer, it tore the head and arms clean off his body.