Early Modern Japanese Talismanic Practices for Treating Horses: The Uma (“Horse”) Manuscript Talismans

This article provides rare insights into day-to-day horse healing medicine that makes use of talismans (gofu 護符) and amulets (omamori 御守り), by introducing and analyzing an early modern undated manuscript titled Uma 馬, “Horse.” An unknown horse healer produced the manuscript over the course of some years, presumably in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. The manuscript, which is part of David Ramey’s private collection, has slightly more than two hundred pages and seems to have, on occasion, served as a quick reference work when treating horses both out in the field and at stables. It gives us glimpses into a lost world of horse medicine as practiced by a devout Buddhist when the importance of horse breeding for the military had increased due to civil war-like conditions. I will focus on the twenty-eight talismans contained in the manuscript and provide a new assessment of Uma and similar manuscripts in light of the present special issue, building on my earlier research and the recently published English translation of the full text of Uma by Dan Sherer, with contributions by Katja Triplett (2024).