Fleas and lice

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Fleas (nomi) Lice (shirami)

***** Location: Japan, worldwide
***** Season: All summer
***** Category: Animal

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Explanation

fleas, nomi　蚤　(のみ)
bite of a flea, red spot after a bite蚤の跡　(のみのあと)

There are many types of fleas, some suck on people, some on cats or dogs or other big animals. Together with the lice (shirami) they are the oldest pests who dine on the human blood. During the times of war it was difficult to get rid of them, but in our modern times they are not such a threat any more.

At the temple Toshodaiji (Tooshoodai-Ji　唐招提寺) there is a special scripture for the salvation of fleas in the afterlife, since all creatures are to be revered equally.

Since the male is slightly smaller than the female, a Japanese proverb talks about a "flea couple" nomi no fuufu 蚤の夫婦, when the husband is a bit smaller than his wife.

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louse, lice, shirami 虱 しらみ
..... hanpuushi 半風子（はんぷうし）
kigo for late summer

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Flea is the common name for any of the small wingless insects of the order Siphonaptera (some authorities use the name Aphaniptera because it is older, but names above family rank do not follow the rules of priority, so most taxonomists use the more familiar name).

Fleas are external parasites, living by hematophagy off the blood of mammals and birds, and genetic and morphological evidence indicates that they are descendants of the Scorpionfly family Boreidae, which are also flightless; accordingly it is possible that they will eventually be reclassified as a suborder within the Mecoptera. In the past, however, it was most commonly supposed that fleas had evolved from the flies (Diptera), based on similarities of the larvae.

© More in the WIKIPEDIA

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Lice (singular: louse), also known as fly babies, (order Phthiraptera) are an order of over 3,000 species of wingless phthiraptra. They are obligate ectoparasites of every mammalian and avian order, with the notable exceptions of Monotremata (the duck-billed platypus and the echidna or spiny anteater) and Chiroptera (bats).

A louse egg is commonly called a nit. Lice attach their eggs to their host's hair with specialized saliva which results in a bond that is very difficult to separate without specialized products. A nit comb is a comb with very fine close teeth that is used to scrape nits off the hair.

© More in the WIKIPEDIA

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Worldwide use


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Things found on the way

A play with words

蚤（ノミ）過ぎは体にわルイべ
nomisugi wa karada ni warui be

Drinking too much (nomi sugi) is bad for your health.


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HAIKU

蚤虱 ( のみしらみ ) 馬の 尿 ( ばり ) する枕もと
nomi shirami uma no bari suru makuramoto

fleas and lice
and a horse pissing
next to my pillow

Matsuo Basho
(Tr. Gabi Greve)


Quote

Here Basho was on his best-known pilgrimage ..recorded in 'The Narrow Way Within' .. at the northern turn of his travels. In a mountainous region, about to pass the barrier between two provinces, he was obliged by bad weather to spend three days at the home of a barrier guard. He counted himself lucky to have any accommodation at all in such a remote place, but the comforts were meager.

Most translators of this haiku interpolate some feeling of disgust. Donald Keene, who usually can be trusted to translate dispassionately, renders the verse:

Plagued by fleas and lice
I hear a horse stalling
what a place to sleep!

That is not what basho said or meant at all, for he was using that suffering; he was not used by it. Not a single syllable in his original words reflects self-pity. It was just Nip! Ouch! Pshhh!

How does one understand suffering?
Our practice in the Diamond Sutra is not easy. But if there are the tears of sincere pain, they carry precious virtue. Self-pity sullies this virtue, and when self-pity is projected, we have needless dissension in the sangha, the community. The virtue itself shines forth with incisive spirit that drives through the darkness. The pain itself is just that pain.

© Henro Tracks, a Basho Bash
Henro Tracks discusses pain in the haiku of Basho.

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . Issa and his fleas and lice


大川へはらはら蚤を御祓哉
oogawa e hara-hara nomi o misogi kana

to the great river
fleas go flitting...
rite of purification

This haiku refers to a Shinto purification ritual that takes place in Sixth Month in the traditional Japanese calendar. One of the observances is to launch special shrine boats in water; see Kiyose (Tokyo: Kakugawa Shoten, 1984) 162. Shinji Ogawa adds that the most popular forms of the ritual involve (1) entering a shrine through the chinowa (a large ring made of woven reeds) or (2) going to a river and releasing a paper boat containing a paper doll (katashiro). As the doll drifts away it is thought to take "all unclean things with it."
Summer Purification Ceremony (nagoshi, harae, misogi and haiku)



横町に蚤のござ打月夜哉
yokochoo ni nomi no goza utsu tsuki yo kana

in an alley
beating fleas off a mat...
a bright moon




よい月や内へ這入れば蚤地獄
yoi tsuki ya uchi e haireba nomi jigoku

good moon--
but going inside
a hell of fleas

Issa
(Tr. David Lanoue) .. More flea haiku !

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uku (flea) lele (flying)

a spotted dog
plays the ukulele
scratch scratch

shanna moore, hawaii





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Related words

***** Pissing (shooben) Basho and others ...

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