The term Sakasa-bashira (in these kyōka often shortened into saka-bashira) literally means "upside-down post." A wooden post or pillar, especially a house-post, should be set up according to the original position of the tree from which it was hewn,—that is to say, with the part nearest to the roots downward. To erect a house-post in the contrary way is thought to be unlucky;—formerly such a blunder was believed to involve unpleasant consequences of a ghostly kind, because an "upside-down" pillar would do malignant things. It would moan and groan in the night, and move all its cracks like mouths, and open all its knots like eyes. Moreover, the spirit of it (for every house-post has a spirit) would detach its long body from the timber, and wander about the rooms, head-downwards, making faces at people. Nor was this all. A Sakasa-bashira knew how to make all the affairs of a household go wrong,—how to foment domestic quarrels,—how to contrive misfortune for each of the family and the servants,—how to render existence almost insupportable until such time as the carpenter's blunder should be discovered and remedied.
Saka-bashira
Tatéshi wa tazo ya?
Kokoro ni mo
Fushi aru hito no
Shiwaza naruran.
[Who set the house-pillar upside-down? Surely that must have been the work of a man with a knot in his heart.]
Hidayama we
Kiri-kité tatéshi
Saka-bashira—