Daikoku going off ("hashiri"="fleeing" or "running") with his sack on his back, is used commonly for thief- catching, the picture being inverted and pins or needles being driven into the feet (and sometimes also into other parts) with the intention of causing the thief to become lame (or otherwise injured). While at the present time the picture seems to be regarded as representing the intended victim, there appears to me to be a considerable probability that the original idea of the majinai was that Daikoku should be forced, by the inversion and by the insertion of the pointed objects, to injure the intended victim.[1]
Another majinai in which a broom is, at least at present, used seemingly to represent a person who is to be disquieted, is one for causing a departed guest of a house of entertainment to return to the house and pay money he owes there. A figure is formed of a broom with a girdle round its middle and a towel round its brush (the description refers to inversion; although it does not make clear whether the broom or the figure is to be inverted, I think that we need not doubt that it is the broom), the operator complains to the figure that the guest's promise has not been fulfilled, and then, knocking the figure over, she tells it to bring the money the following day. The effect intended is that of causing the victim to dream of the operator's indignation, and as a result to come and pay his debt.[2] In this majinai, in the form recorded, the broom-image seems clearly intended to represent the departed guest. If we assume the majinai to have been primarily an operation of imitative magic worked upon an image, it is difficult to see why a broom should have been selected to represent the intended victim, unless for the reason that an inverted broom is used to represent, in the guest-removing majinai, the guest whose departure is desired. But if, instead, we take the majinai to be based
