Kapper's Hoel video
Kappa are water sprites thought to be native only to the freshwater rivers and streams of Japan. It is commonly believed that their current scarcity is due to the presence of pollution in the water sources so necessary for their existence, for the bowl shaped depression in the top of their head must be kept filled with pure water at all times. It is also well known that their favorite food is cucumber, possibly because of its association with coolness. For this reason sushi rolls made with cucumber are called kappa maki. As monsters go, kappa are relatively harmless, though their grotesque appearance, if suddenly encountered, could give a shock.
However, since almost all waterways today are quite polluted by human activities, there is little chance of such an encounter.
Folklarists were quite surprised to discover this startling amateur video
of a kappa made in the knob country of Kentucky, USA. The video shows
what appears to be a male kappa (though it must be confessed that little
is known about the sex lives of such monsters beyond the wildest speculation!)
emerging from a mudhole, mucking about in a tiny pond, eating a cucumber,
startled away by something (perhaps the sound of a passing motorist)
and hunkering on the pond bank grieving for the lost cucumber.
How the kappa, formerly known only in Japanese traditional lore, wound up in a pond in Kentucky is something of a mystery.
The possible solutions to this mystery can be narrowed to three: A. That the ancestors of the kappa came across the Bering Land Strait with the early americans. B. That the kappa came with more recent immigrants from Japan. C. That kappa occur naturally wherever there are sources of pure water and cucumbers.
It seems to me that solution A may be dismissed out of hand. If fresh water is abundant on glaciers, cucumbers are not. It is simply too hard to believe that the kappa could or would have made such a trek without an adequate supply of fresh cucumber.
Solution B is tantalizing. The tiny pond where the kappa was filmed is near an artist's studio frequented by Japanese visitors. Kappa maki was frequently served, and tea ceremonies, traditional Japanese art events associated with bowls, water, and purity, occurred with some regularity. It is not impossible that a kappa, traveling as cultural baggage, might have recognized the site, with a freshwater spring and a cucumber garden, as a suitable location to inhabit.
Solution C is problematic, but intriguing. Sources of fresh water, such as springs, have been universally attended by unidentified or supernatural presences.
This may be due to the importance of clean water in daily life, since without something to drink, the imagination, and its sustaining organism, tends to parch. Perhaps what we view in this video as a kappa is merely a representative of a type, generated as an early warning by our own desire to survive and thrive. For clearly, when there is no longer a source of clean water on this planet to fill the kappa's bowl, our own lives will be sullied and lost as well.
The video ends, perhaps inadvertently, with a glimpse of a white water lily (nymphaea odorata) growing out of the mud. This may be seen as symbolic. Although kappa predate the introduction of Buddhism to Japan, and may be associated with Shinto ideas of indwelling life forces in natural objects, the image of the water lily, or lotus, a symbol of enlightenment, (See the Buddha's "sermon of the flower" for example.) growing from the decomposition in the mud (It is interesting to note here that clay is composed of the smallest whole particles, and is in general the worn-down, saucer-shaped sum of the earth's crust.) spans the divide between not only earth and sky, but filth and purity as well.
The Text:
The text appears to be a mixture of phonetically rendered hill slang with amateur etymologilisms. What follows is a cursory gloss, as I lack the expertise to attempt a more thorough analysis of what the text might mean, and why the video maker transcribed it.
(note: reading the text out loud as you watch the video may help with comprehension.)
The title, Kapper's Hoel, might mean simply the hole the kappa comes out of or goes into. There may also be an inherent reference to orifices of the kappa body. As the kappa's body is anthropomorphic, we might infer that these resemble the usual functional orifices of the human body. If postmodern analysis of text has taught us anything however, it is wariness of inference concerning orifice functions.
"ena muctrid waller
hit slile, hit blee
critter defanure
henits aig."
ena = ( in a ) muctrid = ( muck + mucous + putrid ) waller = ( wallow
)
hit = ( it ) slile = ( slide + bile? ) blee = ( be + bleat + pee )
critter = ( creature ) defanure = ( defecate + manure )
henits = ( hen + in its ) aig ( egg + hill slang for testicle )
Thus: In the slimy wallow of its own excretion, the creature existed in its egg-like space. "In the beginning..."
"crawlt tu sleces
sinst erodeclysm hit
ena mutrid slumidity
sclept gud gud gud"
crawlt = ( crawled + craw (dad?) ) tu = ( to + intimate ) sleces = (
slime + feces )
sinst = ( since ) erodeclysm = ( erode + cataclysm ) hit ( it + hit )
slumidity = ( slum + humidity )
sclept = ( slept ) gud = ( good + germanic god? )
Thus: It crawled out of the intimate excreted space when conditions suddenly deteriorated from a former homey warmth and wetness in which it had slept the good sleep of an ancient god.
"shud, hit muv, shud
hit muvhenits aig"
shud = (should? + thud? obscene slang for sound of feces hitting ground?)
muv = ( move )
muvhenits = ( move in its )
Thus: Suddenly it moved in its enclosed space.
"peneslingle
shud shud slile
shrolin' cudn putregs"
peneslingle = ( penis + slime + dangle )
shrolin' = ( "shh" (hush) + rolling ) cudn = ( cud-chewing
) putregs = ( putrid + dregs )
Thus: With penis dangling in the slime, he quietly rolled himself and his decaying cud.
"gud gud gud
ethitscumber"
ethitscumber = ( ate its cucumber )
Thus: The cucumber was very good to eat. (or) He ate his good cucumber.
"hoo hoo scumbersclost
defastofscumber
scitterslud
drastin sump'n slile"
hoo hoo = ( sorrowful vocable ) scumbersclost = ( (the) cucumber is
lost )
defastofscumber = ( de (removal ) + fast ( quickly + abstain from food
) + ( of )
scitterslud = ( skitter + sudden sound (like feces dropping)
drastin = ( dreadedly drastic ) sumpn' ( something + sump (swamp-pit
))
Thus: Oh no! I've lost my cucumber because I was startled by a sudden noise.
"scumber
hitscung hoo hoo"
Thus: The cucumber is gone. (crying)