Shīsā (シーサー) (Okinawan: siisaa) (alternative spelling shishi or shisaa)

Shisa legend
(adapted from Legends of Okinawa by Chizue Sesoko)

When a certain emissary to China returned from one of his voyages to the court at Shuri Castle, he brought with him as a gift for the king a necklace decorated with a small figurine of a shisa-dog. The king found it charming and wore it underneath his clothes. Now it happened that at the Naha Port bay, the village of Madanbashi was often terrorized by a sea dragon who ate the villagers and destroyed their property. One day, the King was visiting the village, and one of these attacks happened; all the people ran and hid.
The local noro had been told in a dream to instruct the king when he visited to stand on the beach and lift up his figurine towards the dragon; she sent the boy, Chiga, to tell him the message. He faced the monster with the figurine held high, and immediately a giant roar sounded all through the village, a roar so deep and powerful that it even shook the dragon. A massive boulder then fell from heaven and crushed the dragon's tail. He couldn't move, and eventually died. This boulder and the dragon's body became covered with plants and surrounded by trees, and can still be seen today. It is the "Gana-mui Woods" near Naha Ohashi bridge. The townspeople built a large stone shisa to protect it from the dragon's spirit and other threats.


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Shīsā (シーサー) (Okinawan: siisaa) (alternative spelling shishi or shisaa) is a traditional Ryukyuan decoration, often found in pairs, resembling a cross between a lion and a dog, from Okinawan mythology. Many people put a pair of shisa on their rooftops or flanking the gates to their houses. Shisa are wards, believed to protect from various evils. When found in pairs, the shisa on the left traditionally has a closed mouth, and the one on the right an open mouth. The open mouth to ward off evil spirits, and the closed mouth to keep good spirits in.

Originally pairs like these were called "shisa and guardian dogs": the right with its mouth opened is the guardian, the left with its mouth closed is the shisa. Some people believe that one is male and the other is female, and provide various justifications for which is which; for example, "the female has her mouth shut as she should" or "the male has his mouth shut to hold in all the family's good fortune".

The shisa, like the koma-inu (lion dogs), is a variation of the guardian lions ("fu dogs") from China. The shisaa, or lion dog, is an Okinawan cultural artifact. In miagic typology, they might be also be classified as gargoyle beasts. They are traditionally used to ward off evil spirits.