Ubasuteyama - Ubasuteyama

Japanese: 姥捨山 - うばすてやま

These are stories about children abandoning their parents. In one version, the parent abandons the elderly parent in the mountains, but the parent, worried about the child's return, breaks off a tree branch to use as a guidepost, and is so moved that the child decides to stop abandoning the parent. The famous legend of Obasuteyama in Nagano Prefecture is found in the Konjaku Monogatarishu. Another version is the tale of a country that abandons its elderly, in which a neighboring country challenges it with a difficult problem, and the parent who had been secretly raising the child solves the problem, and the country has since become one that respects the elderly. It is said that the core of Japan's tales of abandoning the elderly were imported from the continent. This custom was practiced by nomadic peoples such as the Eskimo and American Indians due to food shortages and the difficulty of accompanying the elderly, and can also be found in Hindu and Zoroastrian scriptures.
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Obasuteyama

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Source : Heibonsha Encyclopedia About MyPedia Information

Japanese:

子が親を捨てる話で，一つの型は年取った親を山に捨てるが，親が子の帰路を案じ木の枝を折って道しるべにしたことに感じ姥捨をやめる話。長野県姨捨山(おばすてやま)の伝説が有名で《今昔物語集》にも見える。もう一つの型は棄老国(きろうこく)説話で，棄老の掟(おきて)がある国に隣国から難題を出されたとき，隠し養っていた親がこれを解決，以来敬老の国となる。日本の棄老説話の骨子は大陸輸入という。その習俗はエスキモー，アメリカ・インディアンなどの移動民族の間で食糧欠乏や老人同伴の困難から行われたことがあり，ヒンドゥー教，ゾロアスター教の経典にも見える。
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