Dance · date unknown · Central & East Asia
Kagome Kagome
かごめかごめ / Kagome Kagome
A Japanese circle game song: children walk round a friend with covered eyes, who must guess who stands behind when the song stops.
- Words
- anonymous
- Music
- anonymous
- Culture
- Japanese children
- Language
- Japanese
- Place
- Japan
- Date
- traditional
- Type
- Dance
- The words
- Public domain (traditional)
The story
"Kagome Kagome" is a Japanese children's game and the song (warabe uta) that goes with it. One player is chosen as the Oni, a word that means a demon or ogre but here plays the part of "it" in tag, and sits blindfolded or with eyes covered. The other children join hands and walk in a circle around the Oni while they sing. When the song stops, the Oni tries to name the child standing directly behind.
Who wrote the words and the tune, and what the words were first meant to say, is not known. The song is usually written as a single line without punctuation, its phrasing is odd and several of its words have more than one meaning, so it is unclear which phrases belong together. The words also vary from region to region, and many variants have been recorded in writing over time.
Its puzzling words have drawn much interest from scholars and the public, and many readings of each phrase have been proposed. The opening word kagome has been read as the woven pattern of a bamboo basket, as a corruption of words meaning "surround" or "crouch" called out in the game, as a hexagon or hexagram, as a "basket woman", meaning a pregnant woman, and as a shrine maiden. The theory adopted by Japanese dictionaries holds that the words describe the game alone, the creature shut in being the child who is "it"; even there, one phrase is often explained only as filling the rhythm.
Other theories read darker stories into the song: the sorrow of a prostitute without freedom, a pregnant woman pushed on the stairs during a quarrel over an inheritance, a prisoner awaiting escape or execution, or a person's spiritual awakening. None of them has been proved, and children across Japan still play the game with the song.
What it says
The words are a riddle sung around the blindfolded child. They speak of something shut in and waiting to come out, set at a time of day that cannot exist, and end by challenging the child in the middle to guess who stands behind. Their play on words with more than one meaning leaves the song open to many readings.
The words
かごめかごめKagome kagomeKagome, kagome,
籠の中の鳥はkago no naka no tori wathe bird inside the cage,
いついつ出やるitsu itsu deyaruwhen, oh when will it come out?
夜明けの晩にyoake no ban niIn the evening of the dawn,
鶴と亀と滑ったtsuru to kame to subettathe crane and the tortoise slipped.
後ろの正面だあれ？ushiro no shōmen dāre?Who is it, right behind you?
Original: Traditional; the commonest version, as quoted in Wikipedia's article (Japanese Wikipedia). Text from Wikipedia; public domain.
The romanization is the Institute’s own (modified Hepburn).
The English is the Institute’s own translation, made from the original for this page.
Notes on the translation (5)
- line 1: 'kagome' has no agreed meaning: it is read as 'kago me', the eyes or mesh of a basket, as 'kagame', crouch down, or as 'kakome', surround (the children circle the one in the middle); kept untranslated.
- line 3: 'deyaru' is an old or dialect form of 'deru', to come out.
- line 4: 'yoake no ban', 'the evening of the dawn', is a contradiction in the original and is kept as one.
- line 5: the crane and the tortoise are emblems of long life; why they 'slipped' is unexplained.
- line 6: literally 'the face-front of behind, who is it?': the person standing directly behind the child in the middle, who must guess the name.
Listen
On YouTube, from the channel ボンボンアカデミー. Pressing play loads YouTube’s player. Watch on YouTube
What it drew on
- Children's song of Kyotoone theory holds a phrase of the song is a variant of its words
People, places and events
Sources
- Wikipedia, "Kagome Kagome", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kagome_Kagome
Cite this page
- APA
- The Epoch Institute. (2026). Kagome Kagome. In Songs in History. https://the-epoch-institute.org/songs/kagome-kagome
- MLA
- “Kagome Kagome.” Songs in History, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/songs/kagome-kagome. Accessed .
- Chicago
- The Epoch Institute. “Kagome Kagome.” Songs in History. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/songs/kagome-kagome.
- Harvard
- The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Kagome Kagome’, Songs in History. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/songs/kagome-kagome (Accessed: ).