ELKA_025 ENDEL LEPA KURGIAED / KAPPA AND CUCUMBER _ UTAGAWA KUNIYOSHI / ENDEL LEPP

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kappa_(folklore)#/media/File:Kuniyoshi-HonchoKendoRyakuden-Keyamura_no_Rokusuke(Waseda).jpg 

Keyamura no Rokusuke and kappa.―Utagwa Kuniyoshi, Honchō kendō ryakuden series (c. 18431–1847). Held by Waseda University. 

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kappa_(folklore)#  

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Cucumber

Folk beliefs claim the cucumber as their traditional favorite meal.[118][9][174] At festivals, offerings of cucumber are frequently made to the kappa.[175] Sometimes the kappa is said to have other favorite foods, such as eggplant, soba (buckwheat noodles), adzuki bean, or kabocha (Japanese pumpkin).[176] Already in the Wakan sansai zue (1712) it is stated that kawatarō "steals squashes, eggplants, and cereals from the fields",[23][84] while the Honzō kōmoku shakugi records its favorite foods as cucumber[u] and Saijō-gaki [ja] (variety of persimmon).[19]

During the observance of Obon, the shōryō uma ("spirit horse") and "spirit cattle" crafted from cucumbers and eggplants are placed on altars for appeasing ancestral spirits. In most places (outside of Kantō Region) these vegetable effigies end up being sent afloat on the river or at sea.[177] Whereas in Edo, superstitious folk used to buy cucumbers and send them down the river in order to appease the kappa, so as to avoid drownings or water accidents.[178] Within Tokyo, there still remained in some places the custom of writing names of family members on the cucumbers being floated to beg especially their children from getting their shirikodama extracted.[179]

In some regions, it was customary to eat cucumbers before swimming as protection, but in others it was believed that this act would guarantee an attack.[175]

The origin of cucumber preference according to one explanation is that the kappa is a debased form of the water god,[181] and the first harvest of the cucumber was always considered an indispensable offering to the water god.[182] The tradition has continued into the modern day that the first harvest must first be offered on 1 June or 15 June at the altars and coves for the kappa before humans are allowed to eat it, and some regions consider it as a gift to the Suijin water god.[183] 

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