Even Monkeys and Kappa …
KAPPA ARE CURIOUS BEASTS of Japanese mythology. With the body of a human and the shell and beak of a turtle, they live — legend has it — in streams and rivers. Kappa attack people, particularly children, the stories go, and disembowel them in a particularly gruesome fashion.
You can envision the origin of such creatures: to serve as a deterrent to children who are tempted to go swimming or wading. The proverb about kappa being taken downstream, like the one about the monkey, is a reminder that even something that lives in streams
