# Japan.je — full text > Japan.je is a free digital museum of Japanese culture, mythology and folklore, published by the Mashiyu Foundation. It covers yokai and kami, the myths of the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, festivals, samurai history, regional legends and Japanese aesthetics. Editorial policy: every article is written from cited sources (Japanese dictionaries and encyclopedias such as the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, Nipponica and Heibonsha via Kotobank; the Kokugakuin University Encyclopedia of Shinto; Nichibunken's Kaii-Yokai folklore database; translations of the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki; museum, library and government pages). Each page lists its sources. Where a popular claim has no early source, the page says so instead of repeating it, and where sources disagree both are given. Each section below is one page of https://japan.je. Cite the page URL given under its heading. --- # Yokai Encyclopedia URL: https://japan.je/yokai-encyclopedia.html # Yokai Encyclopedia: Japanese Yokai & Kami The supernatural beings and divine figures of Japanese folklore and mythology, from fearsome demons and mischievous spirits to the gods who shaped the islands of Japan ## What is a yokai? Yokai (妖怪) is the Japanese word for the strange: shape-shifting animals, haunted objects, monsters of the mountains and the sea, and the eerie happenings people blamed on them. The folklorist Michael Dylan Foster describes yokai as something that resists any neat definition — the word can cover a startling sound in an empty room as easily as a creature with a name and a face. In everyday Japanese you will also hear obake or bakemono, "things that change", older and more casual words for much the same territory. Yokai overlap with, but are not the same as, two neighbouring ideas. Kami are the gods and sacred powers of Shinto, honoured at shrines (see our guide to the Japanese gods) — though the line is porous: a yokai that is worshipped can become a kami, and a neglected or angry kami can behave like a yokai. Yūrei are ghosts, the spirits of particular dead people, often bound to the place or person tied to their death. Most yokai are nobody's ghost. Their history is long. Oni, foxes and serpents fill the tale collections of the Heian period (11th–12th centuries). In the Edo period, artists such as Toriyama Sekien — whose Gazu Hyakki Yagyō appeared in 1776 — catalogued them in illustrated encyclopedias, and after the Second World War the manga artist Mizuki Shigeru brought them back to life for a new generation in GeGeGe no Kitarō. ## Types of yokai Japanese folklore has no official taxonomy; scholars and illustrators have sorted yokai by where they appear (mountain, water, house, road) or by what they began as. The filters in this encyclopedia follow the second approach: Deities — kami and Buddhist-derived gods such as Amaterasu, Raijin, Fūjin and the Seven Lucky Gods: worshipped rather than feared, though some are fearsome. Dragons — serpent and dragon beings, from the sea god Ryūjin and the eight-headed Orochi to women transformed into great serpents, like Kiyohime of Dōjōji. Demons — oni and their kin, such as Shuten-dōji, the Hannya and the earth-spider Tsuchigumo: the monsters heroes fight. Spirits — ghosts and apparitions, from classical yūrei to modern urban legends like Kuchisake-onna and Hanako-san, proof that new yokai are still being born. Animal yokai — real creatures with uncanny powers: foxes, tanuki, cats and dogs were thought to gain the power to shape-shift or possess people as they grew old. Nature spirits — spirits of a place or force: tree spirits, mountain crones, sea giants and whirlwind weasels. Household yokai — the yokai of the home: tsukumogami (objects that come alive after a hundred years), lucky house spirits like Zashiki-warashi, and pests like the bathroom-licking Akaname. These boxes overlap — a cat yokai haunts a house, a fox can become a god's messenger — and many of the creatures pictured by Edo artists had no stories at all until later writers supplied them. Every entry below links to its own page, with its origins, its place in Japanese culture, and the sources behind it. Browse by guide: Types of yokai, grouped by kind · Guide to the Japanese gods ### Ryujin 龍神 The dragon god of water and the sea, who brings rain and rules the waves. Ryujin lives in the Dragon Palace (Ryugu-jo) beneath the sea and owns the jewels that raise and lower the tides. ### Susanoo 須佐之男命 The tempestuous younger brother of the sun goddess Amaterasu. Known for his wild behaviour, he was banished from heaven, then in Izumo slew the eight-headed serpent Yamata no Orochi and found the sacred sword Kusanagi. ### Amaterasu 天照大御神 The sun goddess and the highest deity in the myths of the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki. Born from Izanagi's left eye in the Kojiki's telling, she rules the heavens and is the divine ancestor of the Japanese imperial family. When her brother Susanoo's outrages drove her to hide in a cave, the world was plunged into darkness. ### Raijin 雷神 The god of lightning, thunder, and storms. Depicted as a fearsome demon-like figure surrounded by drums that he beats to create thunder. Often paired with Fujin, the wind god, as at Kyoto's Sanjusangendo temple. ### Inari 稲荷 The kami of rice, agriculture, foxes, fertility, and prosperity. Inari has no single fixed form — pictured as an old man carrying rice, or at Buddhist temples as a deity riding a white fox — and is served by fox messengers (kitsune). One of the most widely worshipped deities in Japan with thousands of shrines. ### Yamata no Orochi 八岐大蛇 A legendary eight-headed and eight-tailed dragon serpent of enormous size. Its body stretched across eight valleys and eight hills, and it was so massive that moss, cypress and cedar grew on its back. Slain by Susanoo to save Kushinada-hime. ### Nue A chimera-like yokai with the head of a monkey, body of a tanuki, legs of a tiger, and a snake for a tail. Its eerie cry sounds like the scream of a thrush bird and is considered an omen of misfortune and illness. ### Gashadokuro がしゃどくろ Giant skeletal spirits formed from the bones of people who died of starvation or in battle without proper burial. Towering many times taller than a human, they roam at night seeking to bite off the heads of travelers. ### Yatagarasu 八咫烏 The great crow sent from heaven to guide Emperor Jimmu's army through the mountains from Kumano into Yamato, later pictured with three legs. A divine messenger and symbol of guidance, now used as the symbol of the Japan Football Association. ### Nekomata 猫又 Cat yokai with forked tails that have lived so long they gained supernatural powers. They can shapeshift into humans and speak, and folk belief held that a cat passing over a corpse could make the body move. Often depicted as vengeful. ### Ushi-oni 牛鬼 An ox-demon of western Japan's coasts, river pools and waterfalls. Descriptions vary: an ox's head on a demon's body in old texts, a demon's head on an ox's body in many local legends. Most tales make it a killer of fishermen and travellers. ### Kitsune Fox spirits renowned for their intelligence, magical abilities, and shape-shifting powers. They can transform into beautiful women and are associated with Inari, the Shinto deity of rice and prosperity. ### Kappa 河童 Water-dwelling creatures resembling humanoid turtles with a water-filled dish on their heads. Known for their love of cucumbers and their dangerous habit of challenging humans to wrestling matches or pulling victims underwater. ### Tengu 天狗 Mountain-dwelling supernatural beings with both avian and human characteristics. They possess great martial skill and magical powers, and are depicted either red-faced with long noses or with the beak of a crow. ### Tanuki Raccoon dog yokai famous for their jovial nature, shape-shifting abilities, and prominent anatomy. They are often depicted as playful tricksters who use disguises and illusions to fool humans. ### Yurei 幽霊 Ghosts of the deceased who remain in the physical world due to powerful emotions or unfinished business. Typically appear in white burial kimono with long, disheveled black hair and no feet. ### Oni Fearsome demon-like beings with horns, sharp claws, and wild hair. They carry iron clubs and are known for their immense strength and cruel nature. Often depicted with red or blue skin. ### Tsukumogami 付喪神 Objects that have acquired spirits after existing for 100 years. They can be tools, household items, or musical instruments that come to life, sometimes benign, sometimes vengeful. ### Yuki-onna 雪女 A beautiful woman appearing during snowstorms, with pale skin and long black hair. She can freeze victims with her breath or touch and is associated with death by exposure in snowy mountains. ### Noppera-bo のっぺらぼう Faceless ghosts that appear as normal humans until they reveal their blank, featureless faces. They enjoy frightening travelers at night but are generally harmless. ### Jorogumo 絡新婦 Spider yokai that can transform into a beautiful woman to seduce men. After luring victims, she binds them in her spider silk and devours them. Edo-period tales such as the Taihei Hyakumonogatari tell of spider-women luring travellers to lonely houses and waterfalls. ### Rokurokubi 轆轤首 People who appear normal during the day but whose necks stretch to incredible lengths at night. A related type, the nukekubi, can detach its head entirely and send it flying through the night. ### Baku A dream-eating beast with an elephant's trunk, a rhinoceros's eyes, an ox's tail and a tiger's feet on a bear-like body. In Japan it devours nightmares and is a benevolent charm that protects sleepers from bad dreams. ### Kuchisake-onna 口裂け女 A tall woman in a surgical mask who stops a lone child on the way home and asks, "Am I pretty?" Whatever the answer, the mask comes down to reveal a mouth slashed from ear to ear, and the question is asked again. Folk wisdom offers escape routes: call her "average", toss her candy, or mutter "pomade" three times. ### Hannya 般若 The horned, grimacing face of a woman consumed by jealousy, best known as a Noh theatre mask. Gold-rimmed eyes glare with fury while the brow seems to grieve, so that rage and sorrow share a single face. On stage the mask marks the moment a wronged woman becomes a demon. ### Bakeneko 化け猫 An ordinary house cat that has lived too long or tasted something it shouldn't, and quietly become a monster. Bakeneko can walk on their hind legs, speak, take human form, and are said to lick lamp oil in the night. Some simply play tricks; others devour their owners and take their place. ### Hanako-san トイレの花子さん The ghost of a girl who haunts a school toilet, usually the third stall of a girls' bathroom on the third floor. Knock three times, ask "Hanako-san, are you there?", and a small voice may answer. In some versions a hand pulls you in; in others she is lonely, even kindly. ### Tamamo-no-Mae 玉藻前 A courtesan of dazzling beauty and learning who won the heart of a retired emperor, then was unmasked as a fox spirit with nine tails. Driven from the capital, she was hunted down on the plain of Nasu, where her body became a poisonous boulder that killed anything that touched it. ### Shuten-doji 酒呑童子 The king of the oni, a giant red demon with a taste for sake and for the young women he carried off from Kyoto to his mountain fortress. The warrior Minamoto no Raikō and his companions reached him disguised as mountain priests, drugged him with magic wine and struck off his head. ### Umibozu 海坊主 A vast, black, shaven-headed shape that rises out of a calm sea at night and towers over a boat. Sometimes it simply capsizes the vessel; sometimes it asks for a ladle and starts filling the boat with seawater. The trick, sailors said, is to hand over a ladle with the bottom knocked out. ### Seven Lucky Gods 七福神 A cheerful crew of seven deities of good fortune - Ebisu, Daikokuten, Bishamonten, Benzaiten, Fukurokuju, Jurōjin and Hotei - often shown sailing together on a treasure ship. Each has a speciality, from fishing and trade to music, wealth, longevity and contentment. ### Raiju 雷獣 The 'thunder beast', a small, fierce animal said to fall from the sky with lightning bolts and leave claw marks on trees and buildings. Descriptions vary widely - a wolf-like creature crackling with electricity, a cat, a weasel - and Edo-period writers recorded live 'raijū' shown in cages and even stuffed specimens. ### Kodama 木霊 The spirit that dwells in an old tree. Fell such a tree, and misfortune may follow - which is why ancient trees are often bound with sacred straw rope. The word kodama also means 'echo', the voice that seems to answer back from the forest. ### Nure-onna 濡女 A creature with a woman's head and the long body of a great snake, her hair always streaming wet. She appears by the sea and rivers; in western Japan she is paired with the ox-demon ushi-oni. ### Fujin 風神 The god of wind, a wild green figure who carries a great bag of air over his shoulders and lets the gales loose across the sky. He is almost always shown alongside his partner Raijin, the thunder god. ### Zashiki-warashi 座敷童子 A child spirit, often with a bobbed haircut and a red face, who lives in the inner rooms of an old house. It plays small pranks - footsteps at night, a pillow moved - and as long as it stays, the household prospers. When it leaves, ruin follows. ### Futakuchi-onna 二口女 A woman who seems to eat almost nothing, yet hides a second, ravenous mouth in the back of her skull beneath her hair. In the illustrations her hair snakes out to feed it; in the 1841 text the wound speaks and demands food. ### Kamaitachi 鎌鼬 A weasel with sickle-sharp claws that rides on whirlwinds and slices the legs of passers-by. The cuts are deep but strangely painless and bloodless. A popular modern retelling has three weasels working as a team; the older Hida tradition speaks of three gods. ### Ningyo 人魚 Japan's 'human-fish' is no glamorous mermaid: older accounts describe a fish with a human or monkey-like face, sometimes with a child's cry. Catching one could bring storms or disaster, but eating its flesh was said to grant extraordinary long life. ### Tsuchigumo 土蜘蛛 A gigantic earth spider that lurks in caves and ruined mansions, spinning illusions and webs of sickness. In the most famous tale it creeps to the bedside of the ailing warrior Minamoto no Raikō, who wounds it with his sword before it is tracked to its lair and slain. ### Kasa-obake 傘おばけ An old paper umbrella that has sprung to life, hopping about on a single leg, usually pictured today with one big eye and a long lolling tongue. It is more likely to startle and amuse than to harm. ### Yamauba 山姥 The old woman of the mountains, with wild white hair and a hungry mouth, who offers lost travellers shelter and then tries to eat them. Yet she can also be generous - rewarding the kind, helping in childbirth, and raising the strong boy Kintarō. ### Namazu A gigantic catfish living in the mud beneath Japan, whose thrashing causes earthquakes. The god of Kashima Shrine keeps it pinned with a great 'keystone' rock - and when his attention slips, the ground shakes. ### Inugami 犬神 A dog spirit that can be sent to possess people and bring sickness, pain or madness. Inugami were believed to be held by certain families, passed down the generations, and to act on their owners' resentments even unbidden. ### Amabie アマビエ A sea creature with long hair, a beak-like mouth, a scaly body and three fin-like legs, which appeared where a light had been seen in the sea and delivered a prophecy: years of good harvests, then an epidemic. Its advice was simple - copy my picture and show it to people. ### Daidarabotchi ダイダラボッチ A giant so huge that its footprints became ponds and its handfuls of earth became mountains. In local legend it carried peaks on its back, scooped out lakes, and left hollows across the countryside where it once stepped. ### Nurarihyon 滑瓢 An elderly gentleman with a strangely long, bald head, dressed in fine robes. In modern accounts he walks into other people's homes uninvited and helps himself to their tea as if he owned the place. Nobody quite notices him - and nobody can catch him. ### Akaname 垢嘗 A wild-haired, clawed creature with a long tongue, pictured by Toriyama Sekien beside a bathhouse. An earlier text says it is born from built-up grime in old bathhouses and lives by licking it. It does no harm, but nobody wants to find it there. ### Kiyohime 清姫 A woman (a widow in the earliest version) whose love for a travelling monk turned to fury when he broke his promise and fled. She became a great serpent - in later versions breathing fire and swimming the Hidaka River - and coiled around the temple bell in which he hid until he burned to death inside. ### No yokai found Try adjusting your search or filter criteria --- # Types of Yokai URL: https://japan.je/types-of-yokai.html *Yokai* (妖怪) is the Japanese word for the strange. The folklorist Komatsu Kazuhiko, writing in Heibonsha's *Sekai Daihyakka Jiten*, gives it two senses. In the broad sense it means any unusual thing or event beyond human understanding. In the narrow sense it is the general name for spirits and strange happenings that are not regularly worshipped, that frighten people and that can bring disaster. He adds that many yokai can change into other things, which is why they are also called *bakemono* or *obake*, "things that change". So a yokai can be a creature with a name and a face, or simply an eerie sound in the night. There is no official list of yokai types. In the Edo period, Toriyama Sekien's picture books, starting with the *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō* of 1776, worked as an illustrated encyclopedia of yokai, as the National Diet Library describes them. Modern reference works sort yokai in different ways. The Nipponica encyclopedia groups many of them by where they appear: on the road, in the mountains, in the water, at sea, in the snow, inside the house, and as fire, sounds, trees and animals. Komatsu instead looks at how yokai come about, in the folk ideas people held. Old foxes, old tanuki and old tools turn into yokai as they age. The living and the dead with too strong a grudge return as demons or ghosts. Sorcerers can make and send out animal spirits. This guide combines both approaches. It groups the yokai on this site by what they are and where they live. The groups overlap, so one yokai can sit in several of them: Nure-onna is a woman, a serpent and a creature of the water all at once. Every name links to a full, sourced article, and you can browse all of them in our [yokai encyclopedia](https://japan.je/yokai-encyclopedia.html). ## Animal yokai: shape-shifters and magical beasts Many of the best-known yokai are real animals with uncanny powers. Komatsu describes an old belief that a spirit dwells in everything in the world, and that when it grows old it becomes a yokai. His examples are the old fox and the old tanuki. Foxes, tanuki and cats are said to change into people. Others in this group never change shape at all. They are composite beasts such as the nue, or animal spirits that people were believed to keep and send against others, like the inugami. - [Kitsune (狐)](https://japan.je/yokai/kitsune.html): the fox, which can bewitch people and take human form, and which also serves as the messenger of the god Inari. - [Tanuki (狸)](https://japan.je/yokai/tanuki.html): the Japanese raccoon dog, a comic trickster that changes into people and objects and drums on its belly. - [Bakeneko (化け猫)](https://japan.je/yokai/bakeneko.html): a cat that gains magical powers when it grows old or large, or when it is wronged. - [Nekomata (猫又)](https://japan.je/yokai/nekomata.html): a monster cat with a forked tail, first a man-eating beast of the mountains and later an aged house cat. - [Jorogumo (絡新婦)](https://japan.je/yokai/jorogumo.html): a spider that takes the shape of an attractive woman to lure men. - [Kamaitachi (鎌鼬)](https://japan.je/yokai/kamaitachi.html): the "sickle weasel" blamed for sudden cuts that open on the skin, said to ride in on a whirlwind. - [Inugami (犬神)](https://japan.je/yokai/inugami.html): a dog spirit believed to be kept by certain families and to possess and sicken people. - [Raiju (雷獣)](https://japan.je/yokai/raiju.html): the "thunder beast" that Edo-period people believed fell to earth with lightning. - [Nue (鵺)](https://japan.je/yokai/nue.html): a chimera with a monkey's head, a tanuki's body, a tiger's limbs and a snake for a tail, shot down in *The Tale of the Heike*. - [Baku (獏)](https://japan.je/yokai/baku.html): an imaginary beast from China that came to be known in Japan as the eater of bad dreams. - [Namazu (鯰)](https://japan.je/yokai/namazu.html): the giant catfish beneath Japan whose thrashing causes earthquakes. ## Oni and demons The *oni* is the great monster of Japanese tradition, usually translated as "demon" or "ogre". Kokugakuin University's *Encyclopedia of Shinto* describes it as a misshapen visitor from the other world that can bring either disaster or blessing, and so was both feared and worshipped. Komatsu notes that people believed a person consumed by a grudge could become a vengeful spirit in the shape of an oni. He also lists the jailers of the Buddhist hells among the yokai who pass between that world and this one. Oni are also the monsters that heroes fight, as in the legend of Minamoto no Raikō and Shuten-dōji. - [Oni (鬼)](https://japan.je/yokai/oni.html): the horned, club-carrying demon, which has stood for plague spirits, hell's jailers and New Year visitors. - [Shuten-doji (酒呑童子)](https://japan.je/yokai/shuten-doji.html): the sake-drinking chief of the oni, beheaded by Minamoto no Raikō and his companions. - [Hannya (般若)](https://japan.je/yokai/hannya.html): a woman turned into a demon by jealousy or resentment, known above all as a Noh mask. - [Ushi-oni (牛鬼)](https://japan.je/yokai/ushi-oni.html): an ox demon of western Japan's coasts and river pools, and the name of a festival float in Uwajima. - [Tsuchigumo (土蜘蛛)](https://japan.je/yokai/tsuchigumo.html): the "earth spider", first a court insult for local people who would not submit, later a giant spider-demon slain by Raikō. ## Ghosts and spirits of the dead A *yūrei* is the ghost of a person who once lived. Most yokai are nobody's ghost. The *Mypedia* encyclopedia draws the line this way: a yurei seeks out a particular person, while a yokai appears in a particular place or at a particular time to anyone. According to Komatsu, people believed that the living or the dead who held too strong a grudge could wander this world as a ghost in the shape they had in life. The yurei article explains how a sudden death or neglected funeral rites could keep a soul from moving on. - [Yurei (幽霊)](https://japan.je/yokai/yurei.html): the ghost of a dead person, held in this world by a missing rite or a powerful emotion. - [Gashadokuro (がしゃどくろ)](https://japan.je/yokai/gashadokuro.html): a giant skeleton said to be made from the bones of the unburied dead, first described in print in 1966. - [Hanako-san (トイレの花子さん)](https://japan.je/yokai/hanako-san.html): the ghost girl said to answer from a stall in a school toilet. ## Yokai in human form: women, faces and necks Some yokai look like ordinary people until the moment they reveal themselves. The noppera-bō turns round to show no face. The rokurokubi's neck stretches while she sleeps. Others were once human and changed into something else, like the jealous Kiyohime who became a serpent. Animals in human shape belong here too, such as the fox Tamamo-no-Mae. Komatsu also points out that many yokai, such as the tengu, the yamauba and the kappa, seem to have been shaped from the strange images people held of mountain folk, river folk and religious figures such as mountain ascetics and shrine maidens. - [Yuki-onna (雪女)](https://japan.je/yokai/yuki-onna.html): the snow woman, a pale figure who appears out of winter storms. - [Rokurokubi (轆轤首)](https://japan.je/yokai/rokurokubi.html): a woman whose neck stretches at night, or in another version whose head flies off. - [Noppera-bo (のっぺらぼう)](https://japan.je/yokai/noppera-bo.html): a faceless apparition that frightens by revealing its blank face. - [Futakuchi-onna (二口女)](https://japan.je/yokai/futakuchi-onna.html): a woman with a second, hidden mouth at the back of her head. - [Kuchisake-onna (口裂け女)](https://japan.je/yokai/kuchisake-onna.html): the masked "slit-mouthed woman" who asks children if she is pretty. - [Yamauba (山姥)](https://japan.je/yokai/yamauba.html): the wild woman of the mountains, feared as a man-eater but also a bringer of good fortune. - [Nure-onna (濡女)](https://japan.je/yokai/nure-onna.html): the "wet woman", drawn with a woman's head on a huge snake's body. - [Tamamo-no-Mae (玉藻前)](https://japan.je/yokai/tamamo-no-mae.html): a court beauty exposed as a nine-tailed fox, whose spirit entered the Killing Stone. - [Kiyohime (清姫)](https://japan.je/yokai/kiyohime.html): the woman of the Dōjōji legend, who turned into a serpent to chase the monk who left her. ## Water and sea yokai Water is one of the oldest settings for yokai. Nipponica separates the yokai of fresh water, where the kappa is the most famous, from those of the sea, such as the ship-ghost *funa-yūrei* and the umibōzu. It says the ship-ghost is the ghost of someone who drowned and that the umibōzu is seen in the same way. The sea also brought omens. The ningyo and Amabie were creatures whose appearance foretold good or bad times. - [Kappa (河童)](https://japan.je/yokai/kappa.html): the child-sized river creature that drags people and horses into the water, yet keeps its promises. - [Umibozu (海坊主)](https://japan.je/yokai/umibozu.html): the round-headed "sea monk" that rises beside boats at night. - [Ningyo (人魚)](https://japan.je/yokai/ningyo.html): the Japanese "mermaid", originally a fish with a human face whose flesh was said to give long life. - [Nure-onna (濡女)](https://japan.je/yokai/nure-onna.html): a snake-bodied woman of the sea and rivers, often paired with the ushi-oni. - [Amabie (アマビエ)](https://japan.je/yokai/amabie.html): a creature that rose from the sea off Higo Province in 1846 to foretell an epidemic. - [Ushi-oni (牛鬼)](https://japan.je/yokai/ushi-oni.html): an ox demon of coasts and deep river pools. ## Mountain and forest yokai For villagers, the mountains were the edge of the human world. Nipponica names the tengu and the yamauba as typical yokai of the mountains. *Britannica Japan* describes mountain yokai as broken-down forms of belief in the god of the mountain. Echoes were part of the same picture. The kodama article explains that an echo was once thought to be the spirit of the trees, or of the mountain, answering a human voice. The older nekomata was a man-eating beast of the mountains too, and the Daidarabotchi was said to have made the hills themselves. - [Tengu (天狗)](https://japan.je/yokai/tengu.html): the winged, proud spirit of the high peaks, seen over the centuries as an enemy of Buddhism, a teacher of warriors and a guardian. - [Yamauba (山姥)](https://japan.je/yokai/yamauba.html): the mountain woman who lives beyond the edge of village life. - [Kodama (木霊)](https://japan.je/yokai/kodama.html): the spirit of a tree, and the word for an echo. - [Daidarabotchi (ダイダラボッチ)](https://japan.je/yokai/daidarabotchi.html): a giant whose footprints became ponds and whose dropped earth became hills. - [Nekomata (猫又)](https://japan.je/yokai/nekomata.html): in its oldest form, a man-eating cat-beast of the mountains. ## Household yokai and tsukumogami (object yokai) Yokai do not live only in the wild. Nipponica lists the zashiki-warashi as a yokai that appears inside the house, and *Britannica Japan* suggests that many house yokai are household gods in decline. The best-known group of house yokai are the *tsukumogami*, everyday objects that come alive. The standard dictionary definition is a spirit that lodges in a tool more than a hundred years old. In the Muromachi-period *Tsukumogami* scroll, the old tools turn into monsters because they were thrown away without thanks. The scroll's hundred years is best read as "very old" rather than as an exact rule. - [Tsukumogami (付喪神)](https://japan.je/yokai/tsukumogami.html): household objects, from brooms to lutes, that gain a spirit with great age. - [Kasa-obake (傘おばけ)](https://japan.je/yokai/kasa-obake.html): the one-legged umbrella ghost, usually counted among the tsukumogami. - [Zashiki-warashi (座敷童子)](https://japan.je/yokai/zashiki-warashi.html): a child spirit of the inner rooms whose presence makes a house prosper. - [Akaname (垢嘗)](https://japan.je/yokai/akaname.html): the "grime-licker" said to lick the dirt from bathtubs. - [Nurarihyon (ぬらりひょん)](https://japan.je/yokai/nurarihyon.html): a bald old man who, in modern descriptions, walks into people's homes and drinks their tea. - [Bakeneko (化け猫)](https://japan.je/yokai/bakeneko.html): the house cat turned monster, frightening because it lives inside the home. ## Japanese dragons and serpent yokai Snakes and dragons sit on the border between monster and god. Kokugakuin's *Encyclopedia of Shinto* says that Chinese ideas shaped Japanese dragon worship, but the dragon that people actually worshipped was a deified snake, the symbol of a water god. Komatsu gives an example from the *Hitachi Fudoki*: some of the dragon-snakes called *yato no kami* that troubled the people were killed, and the rest were given a shrine and became protectors. The *Kojiki* (712) and *Nihon Shoki* (720) both tell how the god Susanoo killed the eight-headed serpent of Izumo. - [Ryujin (龍神)](https://japan.je/yokai/ryujin.html): the dragon god of water, who brings rain and rules a palace beneath the sea. - [Yamata no Orochi (八岐大蛇)](https://japan.je/yokai/yamata-no-orochi.html): the eight-headed, eight-tailed serpent slain by Susanoo. - [Kiyohime (清姫)](https://japan.je/yokai/kiyohime.html): the woman who became a great serpent and burned a monk inside the bell of Dōjōji. - [Nure-onna (濡女)](https://japan.je/yokai/nure-onna.html): the serpent with a woman's head. ## Modern yokai and urban legends New yokai are still being made. Kuchisake-onna grew out of a rumour that the usual account traces to Gifu Prefecture at the end of 1978. The folklorist Iikura Yoshiyuki describes how it spread through schools and cram schools, and it frightened children across Japan in 1979. Hanako-san is a school ghost. Japanese writers trace her to an account from about 1948, and she became a national figure in the "school ghost story" boom of the 1990s. Other yokai are modern in a less obvious way. The gashadokuro was invented for a girls' magazine in 1966. Amabie is known from a single print of 1846 but only became famous in 2020. The nurarihyon's role as boss of the yokai goes back to a caption of 1929. - [Kuchisake-onna (口裂け女)](https://japan.je/yokai/kuchisake-onna.html): the slit-mouthed woman of the 1979 rumour panic. - [Hanako-san (トイレの花子さん)](https://japan.je/yokai/hanako-san.html): the ghost of the school toilet, spread by children's storytelling. - [Gashadokuro (がしゃどくろ)](https://japan.je/yokai/gashadokuro.html): the giant skeleton, often presented as ancient, which first appeared in print in 1966. - [Amabie (アマビエ)](https://japan.je/yokai/amabie.html): an Edo-period prophetic creature revived during the COVID-19 pandemic. - [Nurarihyon (ぬらりひょん)](https://japan.je/yokai/nurarihyon.html): an Edo-period picture whose fame as "supreme commander" of the yokai is a twentieth-century addition. ## Gods and divine creatures (kami) Kami are the gods of Shinto. They are worshipped, so strictly speaking they are not yokai. The line between the two is thin, though. Komatsu notes that the folklorist Yanagita Kunio thought yokai were gods who had fallen from worship. Komatsu's own view is that yokai have existed alongside gods in every age, and that a feared spirit could become a kami if people worshipped it. Several gods also look like monsters, such as the oni-like thunder god Raijin. Our [guide to the Japanese gods](https://japan.je/japanese-gods.html) tells their stories in full. - [Amaterasu (天照大御神)](https://japan.je/yokai/amaterasu.html): the sun goddess, ruler of heaven and ancestor of the imperial house. - [Susanoo (須佐之男命)](https://japan.je/yokai/susanoo.html): Amaterasu's unruly brother, who killed Yamata no Orochi. - [Raijin (雷神)](https://japan.je/yokai/raijin.html): the thunder god with his ring of drums. - [Fujin (風神)](https://japan.je/yokai/fujin.html): the wind god with his bag of wind, nearly always paired with Raijin. - [Inari (稲荷)](https://japan.je/yokai/inari.html): the kami of rice and harvest, whose messengers are foxes. - [Seven Lucky Gods (七福神)](https://japan.je/yokai/seven-lucky-gods.html): the seven gods of good fortune, only one of them native to Japan. - [Yatagarasu (八咫烏)](https://japan.je/yokai/yatagarasu.html): the divine crow that guided the legendary Emperor Jimmu. - [Ryujin (龍神)](https://japan.je/yokai/ryujin.html): the dragon god of the sea and of rain. ## Frequently asked questions ### How many types of yokai are there? There is no fixed number and no official classification. Edo-period artists such as Toriyama Sekien catalogued yokai in illustrated books, and modern encyclopedias sort them in different ways. Nipponica, for example, groups them by where they appear: road, mountain, water, sea, snow, house, fire, sound, tree and animal. This guide uses ten broad groups, and many yokai belong to more than one. ### What is the difference between yokai, yurei and kami? Yokai is the broad word for strange beings and happenings. A yurei is the ghost of a particular dead person, and the *Mypedia* encyclopedia notes that a yurei seeks out a particular person, while a yokai appears at a set place or time to anyone. Kami are the gods of Shinto, who are worshipped. The boundary is not sharp: a feared spirit could become a kami once people worshipped it. ### What are the most famous yokai? No one keeps a ranking. Komatsu Kazuhiko names the oni, the tengu, the kappa, the yamauba and the one-eyed boy *hitotsume-kozō* as yokai still well known today, along with possessing spirits and ghosts. The fox, the tanuki and the modern Kuchisake-onna are also very familiar. Amabie became famous across Japan in 2020. ### Are yokai evil? Not always. Komatsu describes yokai as basically hostile to people, but says they can also help. In tales and rituals the yamauba, the kappa and the oni sometimes help a hero, bless people or make a family rich. The zashiki-warashi brings prosperity to a house, and some yokai are simply startling, like the umbrella ghost. ### What does yokai mean? *Yokai* is written 妖怪. In its broad sense it means anything unusual beyond human understanding. In the narrower sense used by folklorists, it means frightening spirits and strange happenings that are not regularly worshipped. Older everyday words for much the same thing are *bakemono* and *obake*. ## Sources - [妖怪: Heibonsha *Sekai Daihyakka Jiten* (Komatsu Kazuhiko), Nipponica (Ōtō Tokihiko), *Mypedia* and Britannica Japan entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%A6%96%E6%80%AA-145561) - [National Diet Library Image Bank: the world of yokai in Toriyama Sekien's yokai picture books](https://www.ndl.go.jp/imagebank/column/sekienyokai) - [Oni, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9979) - [Ryūjin shinkō (dragon-kami faith), Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=8979) - [付喪神: *Digital Daijisen* and Heibonsha *Sekai Daihyakka Jiten* entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%BB%98%E5%96%AA%E7%A5%9E) - [Kyoto University Library: illustrated synopsis of the *Tsukumogami* scroll](https://rmda.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/item/rb00013599/explanation/otogi_05) - [木霊: *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten*, Heibonsha, Nipponica and Britannica Japan entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%9C%A8%E9%9C%8A-65111) - [*Kojiki*, tr. B. H. Chamberlain (1882), Section 18: "The Eight-Forked Serpent" (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_18) - [*Nihongi*, tr. W. G. Aston (1896), Book I (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nihongi/Book_I) - [Iikura Yoshiyuki, "Japanese Urban Legends from the 'Slit-Mouthed Woman' to 'Kisaragi Station'" (nippon.com)](https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/g00789/) - [Yoshioka Kazushi, interview on school ghost stories (nippon.com, Japanese, 2023)](https://www.nippon.com/ja/japan-topics/g02322/) - [Real Sound Book: the roots of Hanako-san, Kokkuri-san and Kuchisake-onna (2024)](https://realsound.jp/book/2024/05/post-1670048.html) - [Gashadokuro feature, *Wa-raku* (Japanese)](https://intojapanwaraku.com/rock/culture-rock/10655/) - [Kyoto University Rare Materials Digital Archive: *Higo no kuni kaichū no kai (Amabie no zu)*](https://rmda.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/item/rb00000122) - [Satō Kenji on the Amabie boom, University of Tokyo (2020)](https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/ja/features/z1304_00096.html) - [How the nurarihyon became a yokai boss, with Michael Dylan Foster and Zack Davisson (National Geographic)](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/nurarihyon-yokai-japanese-folklore-demon-slayer) --- # Japanese Gods URL: https://japan.je/japanese-gods.html The Japanese word for a god is *kami* (神). Kokugakuin University's *Basic Terms of Shinto* defines it as a name for the objects of worship in Shinto, and as an honorific word that praises the sacred authority of spiritual beings. Nobody is sure where the word comes from. In the eighteenth century the scholar Motoori Norinaga argued that *kami* meant any being with extraordinary power or virtue that inspires awe, and he pointed out that this included evil beings as well as good ones. The same dictionary says kami can range from the spirits who brought heaven and earth into being, through the great ancestors of people, to plants, rocks, birds, beasts and fish. Shinto is often said to have "eight million gods", *yaoyorozu no kami* (八百万の神). The number is not a count. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* defines *yaoyorozu* as "a number without limit, countless", and its earliest example is from the *Kojiki* (712), where the gods meet on the riverbed of the Heavenly Yasu River. Chamberlain's 1882 translation of that scene calls them "the eight hundred myriad Deities". Kokugakuin's *Basic Terms* glosses the phrase as "ever-increasing myriad deities". Kokugakuin's *Encyclopedia of Shinto* adds that the most important of these kami are the ones in the classics: the *Kojiki*, the *Nihon Shoki* (720), the *Fudoki* provincial records and the *Man'yōshū*. Many shrines also honour real people, such as the scholar Sugawara no Michizane, and kami formed by mixing native belief with Buddhism, Daoism and Chinese yin-yang lore. The encyclopedia counts Ebisu, Daikoku and the Seven Lucky Gods among the gods of folk religion, although most of the Seven came from India and China. Kami are not the same as *yokai*, the monsters and spirits of folklore, but the line between them is thin. The folklorist Yanagita Kunio thought yokai were gods who had fallen from worship. Komatsu Kazuhiko, writing in Heibonsha's encyclopedia, argues that yokai have existed alongside gods in every age. He also notes that a dangerous spirit could be turned into a kami by worshipping it. In the *Hitachi Fudoki*, some of the dragon-snake *yato no kami* who plagued the people are killed, and the rest are given a shrine and become protectors. This guide covers the best-known Japanese gods and links to our full articles on each. ## The gods of creation The *Kojiki* opens with a line of gods who appear in heaven while the earth is still drifting "like oil" on water. The last pair are *Izanagi* (伊邪那岐) and *Izanami* (伊邪那美). Kokugakuin's encyclopedia explains the names as coming from *izanau*, "to invite", with *gi* meaning male and *mi* female. They are the seventh generation of gods, but the first to do anything in the story. Standing on the Floating Bridge of Heaven, they stir the sea with a jewelled spear. The brine that drips from its tip becomes the first island, Onogoro. They go down to it, marry, and give birth to the islands of Japan and then to gods of the sea, wind, trees, mountains and fields. Izanami dies giving birth to the fire god Kagutsuchi. Izanagi follows her to Yomi, the land of the dead, breaks her command not to look at her, and finds her body rotting. He flees and blocks the pass to Yomi with a boulder. Izanami swears to kill a thousand people a day, and Izanagi answers that he will cause fifteen hundred to be born. Kokugakuin's encyclopedia says this story was told as the origin of human life and death. The *Nihon Shoki* tells much of this differently. In its main text Izanami does not die, and the visit to Yomi appears only in its variant accounts. The full story, with both versions, is on our page [Izanagi and Izanami](https://japan.je/kojiki/izanagi-and-izanami.html). ## The three noble children When Izanagi comes back from Yomi he washes in a river to remove its pollution. In the *Kojiki*, three gods are born as he washes his face. Izanagi rejoices that "at my final begetting" he has "gotten three illustrious children" (Chamberlain's translation). In the main text of the *Nihon Shoki*, Izanagi and Izanami produce them together instead. ### Amaterasu, the sun goddess *Amaterasu Ōmikami* (天照大御神) is born from Izanagi's left eye and given the Plain of High Heaven to rule. She is the highest deity in the court myths and the ancestral deity of the imperial house. Her main shrine is the Inner Shrine of Ise Jingū. When her brother Susanoo wrecks her rice fields and weaving hall, she shuts herself in the Heavenly Rock Cave and the world goes dark, until the other gods lure her out with a mirror, jewels and a dance. That mirror became one of the three imperial regalia. Read our full article on [Amaterasu](https://japan.je/yokai/amaterasu.html) and the story [Amaterasu and the Heavenly Rock Cave](https://japan.je/kojiki/amaterasu-cave.html). ### Tsukuyomi, the moon god *Tsukuyomi* (月読命) is born from Izanagi's right eye. The Kokugakuin encyclopedia says his name is thought to refer to "reading" (*yomu*) the phases of the moon (*tsuki*), and that he is usually taken as a male god. The *Kojiki* gives him the realm of night and then never mentions him again. A variant in the *Nihon Shoki* tells how he killed the food goddess Ukemochi, so that Amaterasu refused ever to see him again, which is why the sun and moon live apart. See [Tsukuyomi's Banishment](https://japan.je/kojiki/tsukuyomi.html). ### Susanoo, the unruly brother *Susanoo no Mikoto* (須佐之男命) is born from Izanagi's nose. He is often called a storm god, but the Kokugakuin encyclopedia says only that he "has been associated with wind and rain". He weeps instead of ruling the sea, runs riot in heaven and is thrown out. On earth he becomes a hero: in Izumo he kills the eight-headed serpent [Yamata no Orochi](https://japan.je/kojiki/yamata-no-orochi.html) and finds the sword Kusanagi in its tail. Later he was identified with the plague god Gozu Tennō and worshipped at the Gion shrine in Kyoto, now Yasaka Shrine. Read our full article on [Susanoo](https://japan.je/yokai/susanoo.html). ## Gods of the land: Izumo Many of the earthly myths in the *Kojiki* take place in Izumo, in what is now Shimane Prefecture. Their central figure is *Ōkuninushi* (大国主神), "Great Lord of the Land". Kokugakuin's encyclopedia lists many other names for him, including Ōnamuchi and Yachihoko. It suggests that Ōnamuchi was first a local land-making god of Izumo, later written into the court myths. The *Kojiki* makes him Susanoo's descendant in the sixth generation, and the *Nihon Shoki* main text makes him Susanoo's son. His story is one of trials. He helps the skinned White Hare of Inaba, is killed twice by his eighty jealous brothers and brought back to life, and survives Susanoo's tests in the underworld with the help of Susanoo's daughter, Suseri-hime. With Susanoo's sword and bow he defeats his brothers. Then, with the tiny god Sukunabikona, he shapes the land. Finally the heavenly gods demand the land for Amaterasu's descendants, and Ōkuninushi gives it up, asking only for a great dwelling. The Kokugakuin encyclopedia says he then withdrew to the "world of shade", the hidden world. He is enshrined at Izumo Taisha. From the medieval period he was also identified with Daikokuten, one of the Seven Lucky Gods, because their names share the same Sino-Japanese reading. His whole story is on our page [Ōkuninushi's Trials](https://japan.je/kojiki/okuninushi.html). ## Gods of sea, storm and sky ### Watatsumi and Ryūjin The sea god of the *Kojiki* is Watatsumi (綿津見神), whose name the Kokugakuin encyclopedia explains as "holder of the sea". In the best-known myth, the prince Hoori goes down to Watatsumi's palace, marries his daughter Toyotama-hime and returns with jewels that rule the tides. Through her, the chronicles trace the imperial line to the sea as well as to the sun. Watatsumi is not called a dragon in the chronicles. *Ryūjin* (龍神), the dragon god of the Dragon Palace, formed later. Nipponica describes him as an old native faith in water gods merged with dragon beliefs from China and Buddhism. Fishermen prayed to him for good catches and farmers for rain. See our article on [Ryujin](https://japan.je/yokai/ryujin.html) and the story [Ryujin's Palace](https://japan.je/kojiki/ryujin-palace.html). ### Raijin, the thunder god *Raijin* (雷神) is the god of thunder and lightning, called *Kaminari-sama* in everyday speech. The oldest thunder gods in Japanese myth are the eight born in Izanami's rotting body in Yomi. The familiar figure with a ring of drums comes from Buddhist art. The Kokugakuin encyclopedia dates that image to around the Kamakura period (1185–1333). Thunder was feared, but it also brought the rain that rice needs, and the encyclopedia notes that *inazuma*, a word for lightning, contains *ina*, "rice". After Sugawara no Michizane died in exile in 903, lightning strikes in Kyoto were blamed on his angry spirit, and he was worshipped as a fire-and-thunder deity. Read our full article on [Raijin](https://japan.je/yokai/raijin.html). ### Fūjin, the wind god *Fūjin* (風神) carries a great bag of wind and is nearly always paired with Raijin, most famously in the Kamakura-period statues at Sanjūsangendō and in Tawaraya Sōtatsu's seventeenth-century screens. His image came from Buddhist art, and Nipponica traces it back to Central Asia. Japan's own wind kami in the chronicles are Shinatsuhiko and Shinatobe, and no images of them were made. No classical text makes Fūjin and Raijin brothers. Read our full article on [Fūjin](https://japan.je/yokai/fujin.html). ### Takemikazuchi *Takemikazuchi* is born from the blood on Izanagi's sword when he kills the fire god. The Kokugakuin encyclopedia describes him as the envoy who comes down to Izumo and persuades Ōkuninushi to hand over the land. In the *Kojiki* he also defeats Ōkuninushi's son Takeminakata in a trial of strength. He is worshipped at Kashima and Kasuga shrines. In popular belief the god of Kashima holds down the earthquake catfish with a buried stone, the *kaname-ishi*. The Kokugakuin encyclopedia's entry on earthquake kami notes that the chronicles give no god a clear role against earthquakes. His earthquake role grew later, out of legends about the stone. See our article on the [Namazu](https://japan.je/yokai/namazu.html). ## Gods of everyday fortune ### Inari *Inari* (稲荷) is the kami of rice and the harvest, and one of the most widely worshipped deities in Japan. Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto, the head shrine, says there are around 30,000 Inari shrines in the country, and dates the god's enshrinement on Mount Inari to 711. Over the centuries Inari came to bring business success and household safety too. "Inari" is really a name for a group of kami. The main one is Ukanomitama, the spirit of rice. The shrine is clear that Inari is not a fox: the stone foxes at Inari shrines stand for the god's messengers. Read our full article on [Inari](https://japan.je/yokai/inari.html). ### The Seven Lucky Gods The *Shichifukujin* (七福神), the Seven Gods of Good Fortune, are Ebisu, Daikokuten, Bishamonten, Benzaiten, Fukurokuju, Jurōjin and Hotei. They show how Japanese religion combined traditions. Only Ebisu is native to Japan. Daikokuten, Bishamonten and Benzaiten came from India through Buddhism, and Fukurokuju, Jurōjin and Hotei came from China. Nipponica dates the group to the early Muromachi period, citing a procession of people dressed as the seven in Kyoto in 1420. They are best known aboard the *takarabune*, the treasure ship, whose picture is placed under the pillow at New Year for a lucky first dream. Read our full article on the [Seven Lucky Gods](https://japan.je/yokai/seven-lucky-gods.html). ## Divine messengers Some creatures are not gods themselves but serve them. The best known is *Yatagarasu* (八咫烏), the great crow sent from heaven to guide the legendary first emperor, Jimmu, through the mountains of Kumano. The two chronicles disagree on who sent it. The *Kojiki* names the heavenly deity Takamimusubi, and in the *Nihon Shoki* Amaterasu promises the crow to Jimmu in a dream. Neither chronicle mentions its legs. The three legs it has today, on Kumano shrine charms and on the badge of Japan's national football teams, came from the Chinese crow that lives in the sun. Read our full article on [Yatagarasu](https://japan.je/yokai/yatagarasu.html). The fox, or *kitsune*, plays the same role for Inari. Kokugakuin's encyclopedia traces several threads behind the link, including a farming belief that a fox led the mountain kami down to the rice fields in spring. Popular belief has often blurred messenger and god, but shrine priests have long discouraged it. See our article on the [kitsune](https://japan.je/yokai/kitsune.html). ## Quick list of Japanese gods - **Izanagi and Izanami** (伊邪那岐・伊邪那美): the creator couple who made the islands of Japan. [Story](https://japan.je/kojiki/izanagi-and-izanami.html) - **Amaterasu** (天照大御神): the sun goddess, ruler of heaven and ancestor of the imperial line. [Article](https://japan.je/yokai/amaterasu.html) - **Tsukuyomi** (月読命): the moon god, who rules the night. [Story](https://japan.je/kojiki/tsukuyomi.html) - **Susanoo** (須佐之男命): Amaterasu's unruly brother and slayer of the eight-headed serpent. [Article](https://japan.je/yokai/susanoo.html) - **Ōkuninushi** (大国主神): the Great Lord of the Land, god of Izumo Taisha. [Story](https://japan.je/kojiki/okuninushi.html) - **Ryūjin** (龍神): the dragon god of the sea and of rain. [Article](https://japan.je/yokai/ryujin.html) - **Raijin** (雷神): the thunder god with his ring of drums. [Article](https://japan.je/yokai/raijin.html) - **Fūjin** (風神): the wind god with his bag of wind. [Article](https://japan.je/yokai/fujin.html) - **Inari** (稲荷): the kami of rice, harvest and prosperity. [Article](https://japan.je/yokai/inari.html) - **The Seven Lucky Gods** (七福神): the seven gods of good fortune. [Article](https://japan.je/yokai/seven-lucky-gods.html) - **Yatagarasu** (八咫烏): the divine crow that guided Emperor Jimmu. [Article](https://japan.je/yokai/yatagarasu.html) ## Frequently asked questions ### Who is the most important Japanese god? Amaterasu, the sun goddess, is the highest deity in the court myths of the *Kojiki* and *Nihon Shoki*. She rules heaven and is the ancestor of the imperial line, and her shrine at Ise has a special rank. Shinto has no single creed, though, and local shrines and households honour many other kami. Inari, for example, has around 30,000 shrines. ### How many gods are in Shinto? There is no fixed number. Shinto is said to have *yaoyorozu no kami*, "eight million gods", but the phrase means "countless". New kami can also be added, including the spirits of real people. Kokugakuin University's *Encyclopedia of Shinto* selected almost two hundred kami from the classics that have clearly described roles. ### What is the difference between kami and yokai? Kami are worshipped as gods. Yokai are the monsters, spirits and strange happenings of folklore. The line is not sharp. The folklorist Yanagita Kunio thought many yokai were gods who had lost their worshippers, and a feared spirit could become a kami if people gave it a shrine. Gods such as Raijin are also included in yokai collections. ### Who is the Japanese god of thunder? Raijin, also called Kaminari-sama, usually shown as a demon-like figure beating a ring of drums. The *Kojiki* also has eight thunder gods born in the body of the dead Izanami. The scholar Sugawara no Michizane was later worshipped as a fire-and-thunder deity. ### Are the Seven Lucky Gods Japanese? Only one of them is. Ebisu is native to Japan. Daikokuten, Bishamonten and Benzaiten came from India by way of Buddhism, and Fukurokuju, Jurōjin and Hotei came from China. They were grouped together in Japan, probably by the early Muromachi period. ## Sources - [Kami, Jingi, Tenshin chigi, Kokugakuin University *Basic Terms of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/bts/detail/?id=3779) - [Introduction: Kami, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9163) - [八百万: *Digital Daijisen* and *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%85%AB%E7%99%BE%E4%B8%87-647572) - [八百万の神: *Digital Daijisen* entry (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%85%AB%E7%99%BE%E4%B8%87%E3%81%AE%E7%A5%9E-647573) - [妖怪: Heibonsha *Sekai Daihyakka Jiten* (Komatsu Kazuhiko) and Nipponica entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%A6%96%E6%80%AA-145561) - [Izanagi, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9385) - [Izanami, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9384) - [Amaterasu, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9440) - [Tsukuyomi, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9136) - [Susanoo, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9152) - [Ōkuninushi, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9965) - [Ōnamuchi, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9168) - [Takemikazuchi, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9145) - [Nainokami (earthquake kami), Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9641) - [Watatsumi, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9733) - [Ryūjin shinkō (dragon-kami faith), Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=8979) - [竜神: *Digital Daijisen*, Nipponica, Heibonsha and Britannica Japan entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%AB%9C%E7%A5%9E) - [Raijin, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9976) - [Tenjin Shinkō, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=8880) - [風神: *Daijisen*, *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten*, Nipponica, Heibonsha and *Mypedia* entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%A2%A8%E7%A5%9E-615852) - [Fūjin and Raijin statues, Sanjūsangendō (official site, Japanese)](https://www.sanjusangendo.jp/statue/fujinraijin/) - [Inari Shinkō, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9027) - [About Fushimi Inari Taisha (official site)](https://inari.jp/en/) - [FAQ, Fushimi Inari Taisha (official site)](https://inari.jp/en/faq/) - [Shichifukujin, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9974) - [七福神: Nipponica, Heibonsha and *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%B8%83%E7%A6%8F%E7%A5%9E-74197) - [Yatakarasu, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9722) - [Japan Football Association FAQ: the meaning of the JFA emblem](https://www.jfa.jp/documents/faq/inquiry.html) - [*Kojiki*, tr. B. H. Chamberlain (1882), Section XI: Investiture of the Three Deities (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_11) - [*Kojiki*, tr. B. H. Chamberlain (1882), Section XVI: The Door of the Heavenly Rock-Dwelling (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_16) - [*Nihongi*, tr. W. G. Aston (1896), Book I (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nihongi/Book_I) - [Izumo Ōyashiro (official site, English)](https://izumooyashiro.or.jp/en/) - [Wikipedia: Kami (pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kami) --- # Japanese Mythology: the Kojiki Chronicles URL: https://japan.je/kojiki-chronicles.html # Japanese Mythology: The Kojiki Chronicles Records of Ancient Matters • The Myths That Shaped Japan ## The Divine Constellation Select a myth to begin your journey through Japan's ancient tales. Each story connects to form the tapestry of divine history recorded in the Kojiki. ### Yamata no Orochi The Eight-Headed Serpent The storm god's legendary battle ### Amaterasu's Cave The Hidden Sun When darkness covered the world ### Izanagi & Izanami Birth of the Islands The creation of Japan ### Ryujin's Palace The Dragon King Mysteries beneath the waves ### Tsukuyomi's Banishment The Moon God A divine separation ### Ōkuninushi's Trials The Nation Builder From suffering to sovereignty ## About the Kojiki The Kojiki (古事記, "Records of Ancient Matters") is Japan's oldest surviving book. It was compiled by the court official Ō no Yasumaro from traditions recited by Hieda no Are, and presented to Empress Genmei in 712. Its first book tells the age of the gods, from the creation of the islands to the descent of the imperial line; eight years later the Nihon Shoki (720) retold many of the same myths, often in several variant versions. The stories below follow the Kojiki and say plainly where the Nihon Shoki tells it differently. ### The myths, in the order they happen - Izanagi & Izanami — Izanagi and Izanami stir the sea to make Onogoro, bear the islands of Japan, and part forever at the gate of Yomi. Retold from the Kojiki, with sources. - Tsukuyomi's Banishment — The moon god Tsukuyomi slays the food goddess Ukemochi and Amaterasu vows never to see him again — a Nihon Shoki myth, and the Kojiki's other version. - Amaterasu's Cave — When Susanoo's outrages drive the sun goddess into Ama-no-Iwato, the gods lure her out with a mirror, jewels and Ame-no-Uzume's dance. From the Kojiki. - Yamata no Orochi — Susanoo slays the eight-headed serpent of Izumo with eightfold sake, saves Kushinada-hime and finds the Kusanagi sword. Retold from the Kojiki. - Ōkuninushi's Trials — Ōkuninushi heals the White Hare, survives his brothers, outwits Susanoo, builds the land and yields it to heaven — the Kojiki myth behind Izumo Taisha. - Ryujin's Palace — Hoori loses his brother's fishhook and finds the sea god Watatsumi's palace, the tide jewels and Toyotama-hime, as told in the Kojiki. Who are all these gods? Our guide to the Japanese gods introduces the kami of these myths, from Izanagi and Izanami to Amaterasu, Susanoo and Ōkuninushi, and the gods of thunder, rice and good fortune. --- # Japanese Festivals URL: https://japan.je/festivals.html 祭 り と 伝 統 # Japanese Festivals & Living Traditions Japan's festivals are living links to ancient beliefs, seasonal cycles, and the enduring bonds of community. Through matsuri, the sacred and the everyday become one. ## The Rhythm of the Seasons For over a thousand years, the Japanese calendar has been measured not only in days and months but in festivals. Each matsuri marks a turning point in nature's cycle, an occasion to honor the kami (gods and spirits), give thanks for harvests, remember ancestors, and celebrate the bonds that hold communities together. Festivals large and small fill the year in every corner of the country, from intimate village rituals to spectacles that draw millions. Together, they form a living tapestry of belief, beauty, and belonging that has no parallel anywhere on earth. Planning a visit? The dates for the year ahead are gathered in our Festival Calendar 2027. ## Spring — Haru 春 Renewal, purification, and the fleeting beauty of blossoms ### Setsubun 節分 — "Seasonal Division" Setsubun marks the day before the beginning of spring in the traditional Japanese calendar. On this night, families perform mamemaki, the ritual of scattering roasted soybeans while shouting "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!" ("Demons out! Fortune in!"). The custom descends from tsuina, a Chinese demon-expelling rite first recorded at the Japanese imperial court in 706 CE, and is rooted in the belief that the boundary between seasons is when evil spirits are most likely to enter the human world. At major temples like Sensoji in Tokyo, celebrities and sumo wrestlers throw beans to enormous crowds, while Kyoto's Yoshida Shrine hosts one of the country's great Setsubun fairs. Many families also eat ehomaki, an uncut sushi roll, while facing the year's lucky direction in complete silence, a practice that began in Osaka and has spread nationwide since the late 1990s. ### Hinamatsuri 雛祭り — "Doll Festival" / Girls' Day Hinamatsuri celebrates the health and happiness of young girls. Families display elaborate tiered platforms (hinadan) covered in red felt and adorned with ornamental dolls (hina-ningyo) dressed in the court costumes of the Heian period (794-1185 CE). The top tier holds the Emperor and Empress dolls, with attendants, musicians, ministers, and guards arranged on lower tiers. The custom evolved from an ancient Chinese purification ritual in which paper dolls were set afloat on rivers to carry away misfortune and illness. By the Edo period (1603-1868), the dolls had become expensive works of art, passed down through generations. Families serve chirashizushi (scattered sushi), clam soup symbolizing marital harmony, hishimochi (diamond-shaped rice cakes in pink, white, and green), and shirozake (sweet white sake). Tradition holds that the dolls must be put away promptly after March 3, or the daughter's marriage will be delayed. ### Takayama Matsuri 高山祭 — Float Festival of Hida Takayama Twice a year the old merchant town of Takayama brings its treasures into the street. The yatai are festival floats of lacquer, gilded metalwork, carved wood, and embroidered silk, built by the town's carpenters and craftsmen in the Edo period: twelve appear in spring and eleven in autumn. Several carry karakuri, mechanical puppets worked by strings from inside the float. At set times the puppets perform, flipping, dancing, and changing costume as if alive. In the evenings the floats are hung with lanterns and drawn slowly through the narrow streets of the old quarter. The spring festival (Sanno Matsuri, at Hie Shrine) prays for a good harvest, and the autumn festival (Hachiman Matsuri, at Sakurayama Hachimangu) gives thanks for it. The floats belong to the Yama, Hoko, Yatai group on UNESCO's list (2016). When the festivals are over, many of the floats can still be seen year-round in the town's float exhibition hall. ### Hanami 花見 — "Flower Viewing" Hanami, the contemplation of cherry blossoms, is perhaps the most iconic of all Japanese cultural practices. The tradition dates to at least the Nara period (710-794 CE), when the aristocracy gathered to admire plum blossoms; by the Heian period, cherry blossoms (sakura) had become the preferred flower. The practice was democratized during the Edo period when Tokugawa Yoshimune planted cherry trees along the Sumida River for ordinary citizens to enjoy. At its heart, hanami embodies mono no aware, the bittersweet awareness of impermanence. The sakura bloom for only about two weeks before their petals fall, a poignant reminder that beauty is fleeting and all the more precious for it. Today, hanami season transforms Japan. Private forecasters such as the Japan Meteorological Corporation track the "cherry blossom front" (sakura zensen) as it sweeps northward from Okinawa in January to Hokkaido in May, while the Japan Meteorological Agency records the official first-bloom and full-bloom dates. Families, friends, and colleagues spread blue tarps beneath the blossoming trees in parks like Ueno, Maruyama, and the grounds of Himeji Castle, sharing food, drink, and song from morning until well after dark. Evening hanami (yozakura) beneath illuminated trees has its own ethereal quality. ### Golden Week ゴールデンウィーク Golden Week is a cluster of four national holidays within a single week, creating one of Japan's longest holiday periods. It includes Showa Day (April 29, commemorating Emperor Hirohito's birthday), Constitution Memorial Day (May 3), Greenery Day (May 4, celebrating nature), and Children's Day (May 5, formerly Boys' Day). When one of these holidays falls on a Sunday, a substitute holiday stretches the break further, as on May 6, 2026. On Children's Day, families fly koinobori, carp-shaped streamers, outside their homes. The carp symbolizes strength and perseverance because it swims upstream, and each streamer represents a family member. Inside, families display samurai helmets (kabuto) and warrior dolls to wish boys courage and resilience. The week is one of Japan's three great travel peaks, alongside Obon and the New Year, with bullet trains and airports operating at full capacity as families travel to ancestral homes or vacation destinations. ### Kanda Matsuri 神田祭 — Festival of Kanda Myojin Kanda Myojin protects central Tokyo, and in the Edo period its festival was a "Tenka Matsuri," a festival the shogun himself watched. It is held in mid-May around the shrine's grand rite on May 15, but the full festival (honmatsuri) comes only in odd-numbered years; in even years a smaller "shadow festival" (kage-matsuri) is held instead. In a full year the shrine's deities leave in a day-long Shinkosai procession: phoenix-crowned palanquins and courtiers in Heian dress pass office towers, the old fish-market district, and the electric glow of Akihabara, with floats and costumed tableaux (tsuke-matsuri) trailing behind. The following day, neighborhood associations carry their own mikoshi up to the shrine in a long, boisterous procession of shouting bearers. Together with Kyoto's Gion and Osaka's Tenjin, Kanda is counted among Japan's three great festivals. ### Aoi Matsuri 葵祭 — Hollyhock Festival The oldest of Kyoto's three great festivals is also its quietest. More than five hundred people in Heian court dress process for about eight kilometers from the Imperial Palace to the two Kamo shrines, Shimogamo and Kamigamo, with 36 horses, 4 oxen, and an ox-drawn carriage hung with wisteria. Everyone in the procession wears sprigs of aoi (leaves of the futaba-aoi plant, usually translated as "hollyhock"), the token of the Kamo deities that gives the festival its name. At the center rides the Saio-dai, a young Kyoto woman chosen each year to play the imperial priestess who once served the shrines. She is carried in a palanquin and layered in twelve robes. The festival is traditionally dated to about 1,500 years ago, when rites were offered to calm storms that were ruining harvests. There are no floats and no shouting: the experience is closer to watching a scroll painting unroll. ### Sanja Matsuri 三社祭 — Festival of the Three Shrine Founders Asakusa's great spring festival honors the three men linked to Senso-ji's founding legend: two fishermen who drew a statue of Kannon from the Sumida River, and the local headman who enshrined it. It runs from Friday to Sunday on the weekend built around the third Saturday of May. On Friday a costumed procession of musicians, geisha, and dancers opens the festival. Saturday belongs to the neighborhoods. About a hundred mikoshi from Asakusa's 44 parish districts are blessed at the shrine and then carried, bounced, and shaken through the streets by teams chanting in rhythm. Before dawn on Sunday comes the miyadashi, when the shrine's three main mikoshi are hoisted out into a dense crowd of bearers. They spend the day touring the parish and return at night. It is one of Tokyo's loudest, most crowded, and most joyful weekends, and the heavily tattooed bearers have become one of its best-known images. ## Summer — Natsu 夏 Fire, water, starlight, and the spirits of the departed ### Tanabata 七夕 — "Star Festival" Tanabata celebrates the once-yearly meeting of two celestial lovers, Orihime (the weaving princess, represented by the star Vega) and Hikoboshi (the cowherd, represented by Altair). According to legend, the two were so deeply in love that they neglected their duties, angering the Sky King, who separated them on opposite sides of the Milky Way (Amanogawa). They are permitted to meet only on the seventh night of the seventh month, provided the skies are clear. If it rains, the magpies cannot form the bridge across the celestial river, and the lovers must wait another year. During Tanabata, people write wishes on small strips of colored paper called tanzaku and tie them to bamboo branches. The five colors come from Chinese five-element philosophy, and their meanings vary from source to source; one common interpretation gives blue/green for growth, red for gratitude, yellow for friendship, white for duty, and purple/black for academic achievement. The largest celebrations are in Sendai (held August 6–8), where enormous handmade streamers called fukinagashi transform the shopping arcades into tunnels of cascading color, attracting over two million visitors each year. ### Hakata Gion Yamakasa 博多祇園山笠 — Fukuoka's Racing Floats Fukuoka's summer festival is a race. For two weeks, towering decorated floats (kazari-yamakasa) stand on display around Hakata. Meanwhile the seven neighborhood teams, called nagare, train with the kaki-yamakasa, floats that are carried rather than wheeled by men in short happi coats and loincloths. In the dark before dawn on July 15, the drums sound and the first team bursts out of Kushida Shrine at 4:59 a.m. The others follow at intervals, sprinting through the streets of Hakata while spectators throw water over the runners to cool them, and every team's time is recorded. The festival's best-known origin story tells of the monk Enni (Shoichi Kokushi), who in 1241 was carried through plague-stricken Hakata sprinkling holy water; historians treat this account as tradition rather than documented fact. ### Tenjin Matsuri 天神祭 — Osaka's Great Festival Held in honor of Sugawara no Michizane (845-903 CE), the deified patron of scholarship enshrined at Osaka Tenmangu, the Tenjin Matsuri is usually dated to 951 CE and is one of Japan's three great festivals. On July 24, in the hoko-nagashi shinji, a sacred halberd (kamihoko) is set adrift on the Okawa River; in former times, the place where it washed ashore fixed the landing place for the procession. On July 25, the main event begins with a massive land procession of about 3,000 participants in Heian-period costumes, followed by a spectacular river procession (funatogyo) of more than 100 illuminated boats carrying shrine palanquins, musicians, and revelers along the Okawa River. The festival culminates in a fireworks display of about 3,000 shells launched above the river while the boats float below, their reflections dancing on the water. It is one of the great summer nights of Osaka, and the riverbanks fill with spectators. ### Gion Matsuri 祇園祭 — Kyoto's Grand Festival The Gion Matsuri is widely regarded as the most famous festival in Japan and one of the three great festivals (along with Tenjin Matsuri and Kanda Matsuri). Its origins date to 869 CE, when a devastating plague struck Kyoto. The Emperor ordered prayers at the Yasaka Shrine (then called Gion Shrine), and 66 halberds, one for each province, were erected at the Shinsen-en garden to appease the gods and halt the disease. When the plague subsided, the ritual became an annual event. The centerpiece is the Yamaboko Junko, a procession of 34 enormous floats (yamaboko); the Takayama float rejoined the parade in 2022 after an absence of 196 years. Some rise over 25 meters high and weigh up to 12 tons, requiring teams of dozens of men to pull them through Kyoto's narrow streets. The floats are adorned with centuries-old textiles from Flanders, Persia, India, and China, among them a 16th-century Belgian tapestry on the Koiyama float that is an Important Cultural Property, earning them the nickname "moving art museums." The night before each procession is Yoiyama, when the floats are illuminated by paper lanterns and the streets become a vast outdoor festival with food stalls, music, and nearly a million visitors. In 2009, the Gion Matsuri's float ceremony was inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list, and since 2016 it has formed part of UNESCO's wider listing of Japan's float festivals. ### Hanabi Taikai 花火大会 — Summer Fireworks Festivals Japan's most famous fireworks tradition, that of hanabi (literally "fire flowers") on the Sumida River in Edo (Tokyo), dates to 1733. The year before, famine and epidemic disease had claimed many lives, and the shogunate held a water-god rite (suijinsai) to console the spirits of the dead. In 1733 the restaurants along the river at Ryogoku launched fireworks with official permission,. This spiritual purpose set Japanese fireworks apart from mere entertainment. After a pause from 1962 to 1977, the display was revived in 1978 as the Sumida River Fireworks Festival, and it remains one of Tokyo's biggest summer nights. Japanese fireworks are renowned for their artistry. Hanabi craftsmen (hanabi-shi) are considered artists, and families have passed down techniques for generations. Japanese shells are uniquely spherical (as opposed to the cylindrical shells common elsewhere), producing the perfectly round, multi-layered bursts that are the hallmark of Japanese pyrotechnics. The Omagari National Fireworks Competition in Akita, held for the 98th time in 2026, is considered the premier showcase, where master craftsmen compete to create the most beautiful displays. Summer yukata-clad crowds along riverbanks are one of the defining images of Japanese summer. ### Aomori Nebuta Matsuri ねぶた祭 — Festival of Illuminated Warriors For six summer nights the streets of Aomori fill with giant warriors made of light. Each nebuta is a paper sculpture built over a wire-and-wood frame and painted in blazing reds, blues, and golds. The subjects are generals, gods, and heroes from history and kabuki, lit from within so that they glow against the dark. Teams spend most of the year building one float, which is wheeled through the city by its crew. Around each float swirl hundreds of haneto, dancers in flowered robes and straw hats who leap and chant "Rassera!" to flutes and thundering drums; visitors who rent or buy the costume may join them. The festival is thought to descend from nebuta-nagashi, an old summer rite of floating away drowsiness and ill fortune before the harvest, and it was designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1980. On the last day the finest floats go out to sea on boats, followed by fireworks. ### Akita Kanto Matsuri 竿燈まつり — Festival of Lantern Poles Akita's summer festival is a feat of balance. A kanto is a bamboo pole up to twelve meters long, with crossbars hung with dozens of candle-lit paper lanterns; the largest, the owaka, carries 46 lanterns and weighs about fifty kilograms. Performers raise these swaying towers and balance them on an open palm, a forehead, a shoulder, or the small of the back, adding bamboo extensions until the lanterns tower overhead, while taiko drums and flutes keep time. Seen from a distance, roughly ten thousand lanterns become a field of golden rice ears, which is exactly what they represent: a prayer for a full harvest. The festival grew out of nemuri-nagashi, a midsummer rite for sending away sickness and drowsiness, and a travel account of 1789 already describes long poles hung with lights as a custom peculiar to Akita. Daytime skill contests let visitors see the techniques up close. ### Obon お盆 — Festival of the Dead Obon is a Buddhist custom more than 1,300 years old (the Nihon Shoki records a midsummer rite in 606 and an urabon-e ceremony at Asuka-dera in 657), in which the spirits of deceased ancestors are believed to return to the world of the living for a brief visit. Families clean and decorate graves, prepare special altars (shoryodana) with offerings of fruit, vegetables, and the ancestors' favorite foods, and light mukaebi (welcoming fires) at the household entrance to guide the spirits home. During Obon, communities gather for bon odori, folk dances performed in a circle around a raised wooden platform (yagura) where musicians play. The dances vary by region and range from simple to elaborate, but all serve to welcome and entertain the visiting spirits. At the festival's close, families light okuribi (sending fires) or float paper lanterns (toro nagashi) on rivers and the sea to guide the spirits back to the other world. The most spectacular okuribi is Kyoto's Gozan no Okuribi on August 16, when enormous kanji characters and shapes are lit ablaze on five mountains surrounding the city, the most famous being the daimonji (the character "dai," meaning "great") on Daimonji-yama, a western spur of Mount Nyoigatake. Obon is also one of Japan's three major travel periods, as people return to their ancestral homes. ### Awa Odori 阿波おどり — Tokushima's Great Bon Dance Japan's largest bon dance turns Tokushima into a stage for four nights. Dancers march in groups called ren, some of them professional troupes and some from schools, companies, and neighborhoods, driven by shamisen, flutes, bells, and drums in a two-beat rhythm that is impossible to ignore. Women dance upright and precise under half-moon straw hats, while men move low and loose with their arms raised. The festival's own song pokes fun at onlookers: since the dancers are fools and the watchers are fools too, you may as well dance, and many ren welcome visitors to join in. The dance is usually said to be more than four hundred years old and is often linked to the founding of Tokushima Castle. Historians caution that this story first appears in print only in the twentieth century, but the festival's place in the Obon calendar goes back centuries. ## Autumn — Aki 秋 Harvest gratitude, moonlit contemplation, and the fire of changing leaves ### Tsukimi 月見 — "Moon Viewing" Tsukimi, the autumn moon-viewing festival, has its roots in the Heian aristocracy, who gathered to compose poetry and admire the full moon reflected in ponds and sake cups. The practice was influenced by the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival but developed its own distinctly Japanese character. The harvest moon (chushu no meigetsu) is considered the most beautiful moon of the year. Because it follows the lunar calendar, its date moves: it fell on October 6 in 2025 and September 25 in 2026, and falls on September 15 in 2027. On this night, families set up moon-viewing platforms decorated with silver grass (susuki), which resembles rice stalks and symbolizes a bountiful harvest. The central offering is tsukimi dango, small round rice dumplings stacked in a pyramid. Fifteen dumplings are traditional, corresponding to the fifteenth night. Other offerings include seasonal produce such as sweet potatoes, chestnuts, persimmons, and edamame, as well as sake. In Japanese folklore, the rabbit in the moon (tsuki no usagi) is pounding mochi in a mortar rather than the Western "man in the moon" image. This legend, originally from Chinese and Indian Buddhist traditions, has become deeply embedded in Japanese culture and appears throughout art, literature, and even commercial branding. A lesser-known "second moon viewing" (nochi no tsuki) takes place approximately one month later. ### Jidai Matsuri 時代祭 — Festival of the Ages Kyoto's "Festival of the Ages" is a walking history book. About two thousand residents in carefully researched costume process from the Imperial Palace to Heian Shrine, travelling backwards through a thousand years. The parade opens with Meiji Restoration loyalists and fife-and-drum bands, passes through the Edo, Momoyama, and Muromachi periods, and ends with Heian courtiers of the Enryaku era. Along the way come samurai generals, Edo-period women, poets, and court ladies, with armor, textiles, and props made by the city's craftsmen. The festival is young by Kyoto standards: it began in 1895, alongside the founding of Heian Shrine, to mark 1,100 years since the capital moved to Heian-kyo, a deliberate act of civic pride at a time when Kyoto had lost the emperor to Tokyo. The full procession takes about two hours to pass any point. If it rains, the procession moves to October 23. ### Shichi-Go-San 七五三 — "Seven-Five-Three" Shichi-Go-San is a rite of passage for children at the ages of three, five, and seven, marking milestones of growth that were historically perilous given high rates of infant mortality. In the Heian period, children at age three underwent kamioki, the ceremony of letting their hair grow (previously, children's heads were shaved). At five, boys wore hakama (formal trousers) for the first time in the hakamagi ceremony. At seven, girls replaced the simple cord tying their kimono with an adult obi sash in the obitoki ceremony. Today, parents dress children in their finest kimono or formal Western clothes and visit local shrines to pray for their continued health and prosperity. Priests perform blessings, and children receive chitose-ame, "thousand-year candy," long thin sticks of red and white candy in bags decorated with cranes and turtles, both symbols of longevity. The candy's length symbolizes the wish for a long, prosperous life. Photography studios do brisk business, and the sight of tiny children in elaborate traditional dress walking carefully through shrine grounds is one of autumn's most endearing scenes. ### Momijigari 紅葉狩り — "Autumn Leaf Hunting" Momijigari is the autumnal counterpart to spring's hanami, a centuries-old tradition of seeking out the most spectacular autumn foliage. The practice dates to the Heian period, when nobles would travel to the mountains to admire the turning leaves and compose poetry. The word "gari" (hunting) reflects the active pursuit of beauty, treating the experience as something to be sought out rather than passively observed. Like the cherry blossom front in spring, a "foliage front" (koyo zensen) tracks the progression of autumn color from the mountains of Hokkaido in September southward to Kyushu in December. The Japanese maple (momiji) is the star, turning vivid shades of red, orange, and gold. Famous viewing spots include Tofukuji temple in Kyoto, where a sea of crimson maples frames the Tsuten Bridge; Nikko's Irohazaka winding mountain roads; and the Oirase Gorge in Aomori. Many temples and gardens offer special evening illuminations (light-up) during peak season, where carefully placed spotlights transform the foliage into a luminous dreamscape reflected in still ponds. ## Winter — Fuyu 冬 Reflection, renewal, and the sacred threshold of a new year ### Shogatsu 正月 — New Year Shogatsu is the single most important holiday in the Japanese calendar, a time of deep spiritual renewal and family reunion. Preparations begin in late December with osoji, a thorough house-cleaning to purify the home and welcome the toshigami, the deity of the incoming year. Homes are decorated with kadomatsu (paired arrangements of pine and bamboo at the entrance), shimekazari (sacred straw rope with citrus and fern), and kagami mochi (stacked rice cakes topped with a bitter orange). On New Year's Day, families gather for osechi ryori, an elaborate meal of dozens of dishes, each carrying symbolic meaning. Black soybeans (kuromame) represent health, herring roe (kazunoko) symbolizes fertility, shrimp (ebi) signifies longevity (their curved backs resembling the elderly), and sweet rolled omelette (datemaki) represents scholarship. The dishes are arranged in tiered lacquer boxes (jubako), and their preparation allows the cook to rest during the holiday. Ozoni, a mochi soup whose style varies by region (clear broth in eastern Japan, white miso in Kyoto), is eaten on the morning of January 1. The first shrine visit of the year, hatsumode, draws enormous crowds. Meiji Shrine in Tokyo has historically drawn over three million visitors in the first three days; the last official count, published by the National Police Agency for 2009, was 3.19 million. At the shrine, people purchase new omamori (protective charms), draw omikuji (fortune slips), and offer prayers for the coming year. Children receive otoshidama, small envelopes containing gift money from relatives. The atmosphere is one of quiet optimism, gratitude, and fresh beginnings. ### Chichibu Yomatsuri 秩父夜祭 — Chichibu Night Festival On a freezing December night in the mountains west of Tokyo, enormous festival floats hung with lanterns and covered in carving and brocade are hauled through the streets of Chichibu. The pullers shout, the drums pound, and winter fireworks burst overhead. Some floats sprout side stages on which townspeople perform kabuki. The festival is the annual rite of Chichibu Shrine, with December 2 as the festival eve (yoimiya) and December 3 as the main day. Its float rites and kagura are designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property, and the festival is part of the UNESCO-listed Yama, Hoko, Yatai group of float festivals. ### Omisoka 大晦日 — New Year's Eve Omisoka, the last day of the year, is a time of completion and transition. As midnight approaches, Buddhist temples across Japan ring their great bells 108 times in a ceremony called joya no kane. The number 108 represents the 108 worldly desires (bonno) in Buddhist teaching that cause human suffering. With each strike, one desire is symbolically extinguished, purifying the listener and allowing them to enter the new year with a clean spirit. Many temples begin ringing at 11:00 PM so the final bell sounds just after midnight. The deep, resonant tones of the temple bells carry across neighborhoods in the cold winter air, a profoundly moving experience. The traditional meal of the evening is toshikoshi soba, "year-crossing noodles." The long, thin buckwheat noodles symbolize longevity and the hope for a long life. Their easy breakability also represents the desire to cut away the hardships of the past year. Families often watch NHK's Kohaku Uta Gassen, the annual song contest between red and white teams, before heading to temples or shrines at midnight. It began in 1951 as a New Year radio special and moved to New Year's Eve, and to television, in 1953. ### Sapporo Yuki Matsuri さっぽろ雪まつり — Snow Festival The Sapporo Snow Festival began modestly in 1950 when six local high school students built snow statues in Odori Park. Today it is one of Japan's most popular winter events, drawing over two million visitors to Hokkaido's capital over eight days. The festival spans three sites: Odori Park, where massive snow sculptures up to 15 meters high and 25 meters wide depict famous buildings, characters, and scenes with astonishing detail; the Susukino entertainment district, where translucent ice sculptures are illuminated at night; and the Tsudome community site, which features snow slides and snow rafting. The largest sculptures require about a month to build and use snow trucked in from the surrounding mountains. Teams from Japan's Self-Defense Forces have participated in the construction since 1955, contributing engineering expertise and manpower. International teams also compete in an ice sculpture contest. The festival has become a symbol of Hokkaido's embrace of its harsh winters and a testament to the Japanese ability to transform even the coldest season into an occasion for art and community. ## Festival Calendar 2027 Many festivals keep the same date every year, but others follow the moon, the bloom of the cherry trees, or a weekday rule. Here is the year ahead at a glance. Dates marked TBA had not been announced by the organizers when this calendar was compiled in October 2026; the usual pattern is shown instead. Lunar and seasonal dates follow the almanac of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. Always confirm with the organizer before you travel. ## Sacred Traditions & Ceremonies Beyond the seasonal festivals, Japan maintains a constellation of refined practices, each elevated to a "way" (do or michi) that integrates physical discipline, aesthetic sensitivity, and spiritual cultivation into a single path of lifelong learning. Katsushika Hokusai, A Shinto Priest, Three Women and a Child. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. ### Shinto Ritual 神道の儀式 — Shinto no Gishiki At the foundation of Japanese festival culture lies Shinto, Japan's indigenous spiritual tradition. Before any sacred activity, participants undergo harai (purification), often by washing hands and rinsing the mouth at a temizuya basin. Shrine priests perform norito (ritual prayers) and present shinsen (food offerings) to the kami. Visitors observe a specific etiquette: bow twice, clap twice, pray silently, then bow once more. The torii gate marks the boundary between the profane and sacred worlds. Shinto ritual permeates daily life in ways often unnoticed, from the ground-breaking ceremonies (jichinsai) held before construction to the blessing of new automobiles. Kubo Shunman, Set of Utensils for the Tea Ceremony, 1810s. The Met, CC0. ### Tea Ceremony 茶道 — Chado, "The Way of Tea" Chado, codified by Sen no Rikyu in the 16th century, is far more than the preparation of matcha. It is a spiritual practice built upon four principles: wa (harmony between host and guest), kei (respect for all things), sei (purity of heart and space), and jaku (tranquility that emerges from the first three). Every element of the tea room is deliberate, from the hanging scroll (kakemono) chosen to reflect the season, to the single flower arrangement (chabana), to the placement of each utensil. The tea room itself, often just four and a half tatami mats, requires guests to enter through a low doorway (nijiriguchi), symbolically leaving rank and status outside. Rikyu taught that each gathering is unique and unrepeatable, captured in the phrase "ichigo ichie" (one time, one meeting). Hashimoto Chikanobu, Chiyoda Inner Palace: Flower Arranging in Turn, August 1895. The Met, CC0. ### Ikebana 生け花 — "Living Flowers" Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement, originated from Buddhist floral offerings (kuge) in the 6th century and evolved into a sophisticated artistic discipline. Unlike Western floral arrangement, which tends to emphasize abundance and color, ikebana values asymmetry, negative space, and the sculptural qualities of branches, leaves, and even withered materials. The oldest school, Ikenobo, was founded in the 15th century by the priest Ikenobo Senkei and remains active today. A proper arrangement follows the principle of three main stems representing heaven (shin), earth (soe), and humanity (hikae), reflecting the relationship between the cosmos, the natural world, and the human spirit. Seasonal appropriateness is paramount; the practitioner must understand which flowers, branches, and grasses belong to which time of year. Hon'ami Kōetsu, Autumn Poem by Lady Kunaikyō, mid-1620s. The Met, CC0. ### Calligraphy 書道 — Shodo, "The Way of Writing" Shodo transforms the act of writing into a meditative art form. Using the "four treasures of the study" (fude, the brush; sumi, the ink stick; suzuri, the inkstone; and kami, the paper), the calligrapher grinds ink, composes the mind, and executes each stroke in a single irreversible gesture. There is no erasing or correcting; the result is an honest record of the artist's breath, posture, and mental state at the moment of creation. Major styles include kaisho (block script), gyosho (semi-cursive), and sosho (cursive grass script). Kakizome, the first calligraphy of the new year performed on January 2, is a beloved tradition in which people write auspicious words or poems to set intentions for the coming year. Shodo is taught in Japanese schools from elementary level onward. Unknown (Japanese lacquer workshop), Ten-round incense game set, 1856. The Met, CC0. ### Incense Ceremony 香道 — Kodo, "The Way of Fragrance" Kodo is the least known of Japan's three classical arts of refinement (alongside chado and kado/ikebana), yet it may be the most ancient. The tradition of appreciating fine incense arrived in Japan in 595 CE, when a log of fragrant aloeswood (jinko) washed ashore on Awaji Island. By the Muromachi period (1336-1573), incense appreciation had been formalized into an art. In kodo, participants do not "smell" incense; they "listen" to it (monko, literally "listening to incense"), reflecting the attentive, almost reverential quality of the experience. The ceremonial game kumiko involves identifying different fragrances, often themed around classical literature such as the Tale of Genji. The rarest incense woods, particularly kyara (the finest grade of aloeswood), are valued at many times their weight in gold. ## The Matsuri Experience Every Japanese festival, regardless of size, follows a rhythm shaped by centuries of tradition. Understanding its structure is the key to appreciating the layers of meaning beneath the spectacle. ### Preparation — Junbi (準備) Days or even weeks before the main event, the community comes together for preparation. Sacred spaces are purified. Floats are assembled, costumes are checked, and ritual implements are polished. In many rural festivals, this preparation phase is considered as spiritually important as the event itself, because it is the act of communal effort that draws the kami's attention and favor. Local businesses and households contribute funds, food, and labor. Young people who have moved to cities often return to their hometowns specifically to help with festival preparations, renewing family and community ties that might otherwise weaken. ### Procession — Gyoretsu (行列) The heart of most matsuri is the procession, during which the kami is carried through the community in a mikoshi (portable shrine). The mikoshi is an ornate, gilded palanquin weighing anywhere from 500 kilograms to over two tons, borne on the shoulders of dozens of bearers who chant "wasshoi, wasshoi!" as they move. The deliberate jostling and swaying of the mikoshi is believed to energize the kami inside and spread its blessings over the territory. In some festivals, the mikoshi bearers run, plunge into rivers, or charge up steep stone steps. The procession often includes musicians playing traditional instruments (taiko drums, flutes, bells), children in costume, and elaborately decorated floats (dashi). The route itself is significant, often tracing ancient boundaries or connecting important landmarks. ### Entertainment — Engei (演芸) Festivals are joyful occasions, and entertainment has always been inseparable from worship. Kagura (sacred dance) is performed before the kami to ensure good harvests and ward off evil. Taiko drumming ensembles provide the festival's pulse. Street performers, food vendors, and game stalls line the approach to the shrine, creating a lively atmosphere called ennichi. Many festivals include competitive elements: tug-of-war contests, racing floats, or the spectacular kenka matsuri (fighting festivals) in which rival neighborhoods crash their mikoshi together with extraordinary violence, believing that the kami enjoys the display of vigor. ### Conclusion — Shuketsu (終結) As the festival draws to a close, the kami is ceremonially returned to the shrine. Closing rituals restore the boundary between the sacred and the everyday. In many communities, participants gather for a final feast (naorai), during which the food and sake that had been offered to the kami is consumed by the worshippers, completing the cycle of divine communion. The festival grounds are cleaned, decorations are carefully stored for next year, and daily life resumes. But the community has been renewed, debts of obligation have been honored, and the bonds between neighbors, between the living and the dead, and between humanity and the kami have been strengthened for another year. #### The Mikoshi — Carrying the Sacred The mikoshi (portable shrine) is perhaps the most powerful symbol of Japanese festival culture. When the kami is placed inside and carried through the streets, the entire neighborhood becomes temporarily sacred ground. The physical effort required to carry the heavy mikoshi is itself an offering, and the exhaustion of the bearers is a form of devotion. In Tokyo's Sanja Matsuri alone, over 100 mikoshi from the neighborhoods surrounding Asakusa are paraded through the streets over three days, each representing a different block's pride and identity. The mikoshi tradition dates to at least the Nara period and shows no sign of diminishing. ## Festival Food — Yatai no Aji No matsuri is complete without the yatai (food stalls) that line the streets. These beloved festival foods are as much a part of the experience as the rituals themselves. #### Takoyaki Octopus balls, Osaka's gift to festival food culture #### Yakisoba Stir-fried noodles with savory sauce and pickled ginger #### Kakigori Shaved ice with syrup, the essential summer cooler #### Taiyaki Fish-shaped pastry filled with sweet red bean paste #### Ikayaki Grilled squid brushed with soy sauce glaze #### Wataame Cotton candy in character-printed bags #### Ramune Marble-topped soda in the iconic Codd-neck bottle #### Okonomiyaki Savory pancake with cabbage, meat, and sweet sauce #### Yakitori Skewered grilled chicken with tare or salt #### Dango Rice dumplings on skewers, often with sweet soy glaze #### Yukata — The Festival Kimono The yukata, a lightweight cotton kimono, is the unofficial uniform of the summer festival. Originally a bathrobe worn in the Edo period, the yukata has become synonymous with natsu matsuri (summer festivals). Women typically choose colorful floral patterns and pair them with a decorative obi sash and geta wooden sandals. Men wear simpler, darker patterns. Putting on a yukata and joining the evening crowds along lantern-lit streets is one of the most cherished summer rituals, a sensory experience that connects the wearer to centuries of tradition. ## Spiritual Foundations Japanese festivals emerge from a worldview in which nature, the divine, and human society are not separate domains but a single interwoven fabric. Understanding these spiritual underpinnings reveals the deeper meaning of every matsuri. ### Kami — The Sacred Everywhere 神 — Gods, Spirits, Sacred Presence The Shinto concept of kami does not map neatly onto Western notions of "god." Kami are the sacred presences that dwell in all things: in mountains and rivers, in ancient trees and weathered stones, in the wind and the rain, in ancestors and remarkable people. The scholar Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801) wrote that anything which inspires awe, wonder, or a sense of the extraordinary possesses kami nature. Festivals exist to honor and commune with these presences. When a community carries its mikoshi through the streets, it is literally bringing the kami among the people, allowing the sacred to permeate the ordinary world. Japan's approximately 80,000 shrines are the permanent homes of kami, but during matsuri, the boundaries dissolve. ### Buddhist Influence 仏教 — Bukkyo Buddhism arrived in Japan in the 6th century and profoundly shaped the festival calendar, particularly around death and the afterlife. Obon, the most important Buddhist festival, reflects the teaching of filial piety and the belief that the spirits of the dead can be aided by the prayers and offerings of the living. The Joya no Kane bells at New Year embody the Buddhist teaching of the 108 bonno (worldly desires) that bind humans to suffering. For most of Japanese history, Shinto and Buddhism coexisted in a syncretic blend called shinbutsu-shugo, with shrines and temples often sharing the same grounds. Though the Meiji government forcibly separated them in 1868, the two traditions remain deeply intertwined in festival practice and in the spiritual lives of ordinary Japanese people, who may visit a shrine for birth and a temple for death without perceiving any contradiction. ### Ma — Sacred Interval 間 — Space, Pause, In-Between Ma is one of the most important and least translatable concepts in Japanese aesthetics. It refers to the interval between things, the negative space that gives form its meaning. In festival context, ma manifests as the charged pause between drum beats, the silence before a shrine bell rings, the empty space around a lone flower on a festival altar. During matsuri, ordinary time is suspended and a different kind of time takes hold, one measured not by clocks but by ritual rhythm. The festival creates a ma in the flow of daily life, a sacred interval in which the community steps out of the mundane and into the mythic. This is why festivals feel timeless even as they unfold in a specific place and hour: they open a doorway into ma, the space where the sacred dwells. ### Seasonal Awareness 季節感 — Kisetsukan No culture on earth has a more refined awareness of the seasons than Japan. The traditional calendar recognized not four but 24 solar terms (sekki) and 72 micro-seasons (ko), each named for a specific natural phenomenon: "East wind melts the ice," "The bush warbler sings in the mountains," "Paulownia trees bear seeds." This hypersensitivity to the passage of time underlies the entire festival calendar. Each celebration is inseparable from its season: cherry blossoms belong to spring and would be meaningless in winter; Obon is a summer ritual because the heat itself recalls the flames of the Buddhist underworld. The food, the flowers, the colors, the very emotions associated with each festival are tuned to a specific moment in nature's cycle. To attend a Japanese festival is to participate in a conversation between human beings and the living earth that has been ongoing for millennia. ## Living Culture Japanese festivals are not museum pieces preserved under glass. They are dynamic, evolving traditions that continue to shape communities and inspire new generations. ### Continuity and Change Many of Japan's greatest festivals have been celebrated continuously for over a millennium. The Gion Matsuri has been held every July since 869 CE, interrupted only rarely by war and disaster. The Tenjin Matsuri is generally dated to 951 CE. These are not re-enactments or revivals; they are unbroken chains of tradition maintained by successive generations of community members who have inherited the knowledge, skills, and responsibilities of keeping the festival alive. Yet festivals also change. New elements are absorbed over centuries; old ones are adapted to modern circumstances. The Awa Odori in Tokushima, originally a simple bon dance, has grown into a spectacular four-day event with professional dance troupes (ren) performing highly choreographed routines. The Nebuta Matsuri in Aomori has transformed its traditional paper lantern floats into enormous illuminated sculptures depicting warriors and mythological figures, using modern wiring and LED technology alongside washi paper and bamboo frames. In each case, the spirit of the festival endures even as its form evolves. ### UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Japan's festival traditions have received significant international recognition through UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage program. These designations acknowledge not just the festivals themselves but the communities, craftsmanship, and knowledge systems that sustain them. - Yama, Hoko, Yatai, Float Festivals in Japan — The float ceremony of Kyoto's Gion Matsuri was inscribed in 2009. In 2016 it was enlarged into a group listing of 33 float festivals across 18 prefectures, including Takayama and Chichibu, and in December 2025 the listing was extended to 37 festivals with the addition of the Otsu Matsuri, the Hitachi-Otsu Ofune Matsuri, the Murakami Matsuri, and the float rites of Hojozu Hachimangu. It recognizes the construction techniques for massive festival floats, the weaving and maintenance of centuries-old tapestries, and the musical traditions of hayashi ensembles. - Nachi no Dengaku — Inscribed 2012. A ritual performing art presented at the Nachi Fire Festival in Wakayama every July 14, with dances performed to flutes and drums beneath Nachi Falls, whose 133-meter plunge is the tallest single uninterrupted drop in Japan. By tradition, dengaku performers from Kyoto brought the art to Nachi in the Oei era (1394-1428) of the Muromachi period. - Raiho-shin, Ritual Visits of Deities in Masks and Costumes — Inscribed 2018. Ten rituals in Tohoku, Hokuriku, Kyushu, and Okinawa in which masked and costumed visiting deities call on communities, among them the Namahage of Oga in Akita, who visit homes on New Year's Eve, Toshidon of Koshikijima (itself listed in 2009), Paantu of Miyako, and Boze of Akusekijima. Their fearsome masks link this tradition to the world of the yokai. - Furyu-odori, Ritual Dances Imbued with People's Hopes and Prayers — Inscribed 2022. Forty-one community dances in 24 prefectures, including bon dances such as the Nishimonai Bon Odori and Gujo Odori, the living heirs of the dances that welcome the ancestors each summer. - Washi (Japanese Handmade Paper) — Inscribed 2014, extended 2025. While not a festival per se, washi craftsmanship is essential to countless festival traditions: paper lanterns, tanzaku wish strips, shide (zigzag paper streamers at shrines), and the construction of Nebuta floats. - Washoku (Japanese Cuisine) — Inscribed 2013. The seasonal culinary traditions that form the backbone of festival food culture, from osechi ryori at New Year to moon-viewing dango at Tsukimi. - Traditional Sake-Making with Koji Mold — Inscribed 2024. The brewing knowledge behind the sake offered to the kami and shared among worshippers at the naorai feast that closes a festival. ### Experiencing Matsuri Japanese festivals are not spectator events; they are participatory experiences that welcome visitors. Understanding a few customs will deepen any encounter with matsuri. #### Shrine Etiquette At the temizuya basin, wash your left hand, then right, then rinse your mouth. At the altar, bow twice, clap twice, pray, then bow once more. These gestures are not religious requirements for visitors but signs of respect. #### Timing Matters Arrive early for processions to secure a good vantage point. Many festivals have quiet morning rituals that are deeply moving and far less crowded than the main events. Evening festivals (yomatsuri) have a magical atmosphere with lanterns and firelight. #### Join the Dance At bon odori and other communal dances, onlookers are often warmly invited to join the circle. The steps are typically simple and repetitive, designed for community participation rather than performance. Do not be shy. #### Regional Discovery While Kyoto, Tokyo, and Osaka host the most famous festivals, some of the most extraordinary matsuri take place in small towns and rural areas: the Nozawa Fire Festival in Nagano, the Owara Kaze no Bon in Toyama, and the Chichibu Night Festival in Saitama are transformative experiences that few international visitors witness. #### Festival Souvenirs Omamori (protective charms), ema (wooden prayer plaques), and festival-specific tenugui (cotton hand towels) make meaningful keepsakes. Many festivals sell limited-edition items available only during the event. #### Respect the Sacred While festivals are joyful, remember that they have religious roots. Ask before photographing ritual ceremonies. Do not touch mikoshi or sacred implements unless invited. Remove shoes when entering shrine buildings. Dispose of waste properly; Japanese festival-goers typically carry their trash home. In every season, in every corner of the archipelago, the matsuri renews the ancient promise: that the gods are listening, that the ancestors are near, that the community endures, and that beauty will return with the turning of the year. ## Image credits Images are historical works released into the public domain by their museums, or photographs used under the licences shown. - Setsubun: “Beans for Tossing During Setsubun Exorcism Ceremony,” from the series Ise Calendars for the Asakusa Group (Asakusa-gawa Ise goyomi) From the Spring Rain Collection (Harusame shū), vol. 2, Kubo Shunman, 1810s. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929. Public domain (CC0 1.0), Met Open Access · Source - Hinamatsuri: The Festival of Dolls (Third Month), Ishikawa Toyomasa, ca. 1767. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP851). Public domain (CC0 1.0), Met Open Access · Source - Takayama Matsuri: Takayama Matsuri float moving through the streets of Takayama, Chme82, 2017-04-30. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source - Hanami: Young Ladies Viewing Cherry–blossoms at Asukayama, Torii Kiyonaga, ca. 1780s (undated in Met record). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP1735). Public domain (CC0 1.0), Met Open Access · Source - Golden Week: Boy’s Day Carp Streamer and Shōki Banner, Kawanabe Kyōsai 河鍋暁斎, before 1870. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Friends of Asian Art Gifts, 2018. Public domain (CC0 1.0), Met Open Access · Source - Kanda Matsuri: Kanda Matsuri procession entering the shrine, 2023, 江戸村のとくぞう, 14 May 2023, 11:12:2. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source - Aoi Matsuri: People walking with ox-drawn carriage at Aoi Matsuri, Kyoto, Sherwin John Carlquist (1930–2021), 1963 (catalogue date June 1963). Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 4.0 · Source - Sanja Matsuri: Main mikoshi carried through Asakusa, Sanja Matsuri 2006, Torsodog, 2006-05. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source - Tanabata: The Tanabata Festival in the Flourishing City (Shichū han'ei Tanabata matsuri), from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei), Utagawa Hiroshige, 1857. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP62). Public domain (CC0 1.0), Met Open Access · Source - Hakata Gion Yamakasa: Kakiyama, Hakata Gion Yamakasa, Fukuoka, Pontafon, 2006-07-13. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source - Tenjin Matsuri: 2024 Tenjin Matsuri Festival Funatogyo, Mr.ちゅらさん, 2024-07-25. Wikimedia Commons. CC0 · Source - Gion Matsuri: Gion Matsuri, Kyoto, photographed in 1905, Stillman, E. G., 1884 - 1949, 1905. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain · Source - Hanabi Taikai: Fireworks at Ryōgoku Bridge (Ryōgoku hanabi), from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei), Utagawa Hiroshige, 1858. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP642). Public domain (CC0 1.0), Met Open Access · Source - Aomori Nebuta Matsuri: Aomori Nebuta Festival float (Suikoden), 2006, Fisherman, 2006-08. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source - Akita Kanto Matsuri: Akita Kanto Festival, 掬茶, 2019-08-03. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source - Obon: Lighting a Hanging Lantern for the Obon Festival, Shibata Zeshin 柴田是真, circa 1860. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP2743). Public domain (CC0 1.0), Met Open Access · Source - Awa Odori: Sō-odori at the Awa Odori festival, Tokushima, KQuhen, 2015-08-12. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source - Tsukimi: Moon-Viewing Point (Tsuki no misaki), from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei), Utagawa Hiroshige, 1857. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP1185). Public domain (CC0 1.0), Met Open Access · Source - Jidai Matsuri: Jidai Matsuri procession, Kyoto, Corpse Reviver, 2009-10-22. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source - Shichi-Go-San: Felicitations to Genji on the Occasion of the Shichigosan Celebration, Utagawa Kunisada II, 1867. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain · Source - Momijigari: Maples at Mama, from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, Utagawa Hiroshige, ca. 1857. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1918. Public domain (CC0 1.0), Met Open Access · Source - Shogatsu: Group before the Echigo-ya Dry-goods Shop on New Year's Day, Torii Kiyonaga, ca. 1789. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Estate of Samuel Isham, 1914. Public domain (CC0 1.0), Met Open Access · Source - Chichibu Yomatsuri: Floats of the Chichibu Night Festival (秩父夜祭の山車), ちちびあん, 2016-12-04. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source - Omisoka: New Year's Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree, Ōji (Ōji Shōzoku enoki ōmisoka no kitsunebi), from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei), Utagawa Hiroshige, ca. 1857. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP1470). Public domain (CC0 1.0), Met Open Access · Source - Sapporo Yuki Matsuri: View of Odori Park, main site of the Sapporo Snow Festival, from Sapporo TV Tower, Eckhard Pecher, 2007-02-12. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 2.5 · Source - Shinto Ritual: A Shinto Priest, Three Women and a Child, Katsushika Hokusai, Circa 1799-1801. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain · Source - Tea Ceremony: Set of Utensils for the Tea Ceremony, Kubo Shunman 窪俊満, 1810s. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP1974). Public domain (CC0 1.0), Met Open Access · Source - Ikebana: Chiyoda Inner Palace: No.20 Flower Arranging in Turn (Chiyoda no Ōoku: Chanoyu mawaribana), Hashimoto Chikanobu, August 1895. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP3539.1, .2). Public domain (CC0 1.0), Met Open Access · Source - Calligraphy: Autumn Poem by Lady Kunaikyō, Hon'ami Kōetsu, mid-1620s. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2015.500.9.46). Public domain (CC0 1.0), Met Open Access · Source - Incense Ceremony: Ten-round incense game set with arabesque foliage and family crests, Unknown (Japanese lacquer workshop), 1856. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2021.287.1a–c–.38). Public domain (CC0 1.0), Met Open Access · Source --- # Samurai & Bushido URL: https://japan.je/samurai-culture.html # Samurai & Bushido The Way of the Warrior — roughly seven centuries of warrior rule, and the ideals that later generations built around it ## The Warrior Class From the late twelfth century until the 1860s — roughly seven hundred years — warrior houses dominated the government of Japan, shaping its politics, arts and ideas in ways that are still visible today. The warriors (bushi) emerged from the armed followers of provincial landholders and officials in the Heian period. The word samurai itself comes from the verb saburau, "to serve": it first meant an armed attendant of the court and aristocracy, and only later became the name of the warrior elite. The samurai were more than soldiers. Many served as administrators, and some were accomplished poets, painters, tea masters and patrons of Zen Buddhism. It is often said that they all lived by a single code called bushido, but historians treat that idea with caution. The word appears in Edo-period writings, yet bushido as a unified, national code of ethics was largely a creation of the Meiji era and after, promoted from the 1890s onward; the historian Oleg Benesch calls it an "invented tradition." From the battlefields of the Genpei War to the tea rooms of the Momoyama and Edo periods, what it meant to be a warrior changed again and again. Their legacy lives on in Japan's martial arts, its aesthetics of discipline and restraint, and in a global fascination with the ideal of the warrior-philosopher. This exhibition traces the arc of samurai history — from their origins to their abolition in the Meiji era, and the mythology that grew up around them. ## A Timeline of the Samurai From provincial warriors to rulers of Japan, trace the rise and fall of the samurai across six transformative eras ### Heian Period The roots of the samurai lie in the weakening of the ritsuryō system of centralized government. As the imperial court in Kyoto lost its grip on the provinces, landholders and local officials came to rely on armed followers to protect their estates and interests. These warriors, known as bushi, were long treated by the court aristocracy as social inferiors. Warrior houses such as the Taira and Minamoto gained prestige through campaigns in the north and by suppressing piracy and rebellion. The Hogen Rebellion of 1156 and the Heiji Rebellion of 1159 marked the moment when warrior clans became decisive players in imperial politics. The era culminated in the Genpei War (1180-1185), a brutal civil war between the Taira and Minamoto clans that ended with the naval Battle of Dan-no-ura in 1185 and opened the way to Japan's first warrior government. ### Kamakura Period Minamoto no Yoritomo built Japan's first warrior government (bakufu) at Kamakura. Historians date its founding variously from 1180 to 1192; 1185, when he won the right to appoint military stewards and constables across the provinces, and 1192, when he was named shogun (seii taishōgun), are the dates most often cited. This marked a fundamental shift: political authority moved from the imperial court to a warrior administration, though the emperor retained symbolic prestige. The shogunate formalized the lord-vassal relationship (gokenin system), granting land rights to loyal samurai in exchange for military service. The system was tested during the Mongol invasions of 1274 and 1281, when samurai defenders — helped by storms that were later celebrated as kamikaze, "divine winds" — turned back the forces of Kublai Khan. Zen Buddhism gained powerful warrior patrons in Kamakura and became an important strand of warrior culture. The Goseibai Shikimoku (1232) was the first law code issued by the warrior government for its own vassals. ### Muromachi Period The Ashikaga shogunate established its capital in Kyoto's Muromachi district, but its authority was far weaker than the Kamakura bakufu. Constant succession disputes and power struggles undermined central control. The Ōnin War (1467-1477) devastated Kyoto and plunged Japan into the Sengoku Jidai — the "Age of Warring States" — a century of near-continuous civil war. Provincial warlords known as daimyo carved out independent domains, building castle towns and raising massive armies. Gekokujō — "the low overthrowing the high," as lesser warriors toppled their superiors — became a byword for the age. The same era produced remarkable cultural achievements: Noh theatre, the tea ceremony (chanoyu), ink painting and dry rock gardens all flourished with warrior patronage. Matchlock firearms, which reached Tanegashima with Portuguese traders in 1543 (some sources say 1542), soon transformed warfare. ### Azuchi-Momoyama Period Three leaders — Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu — successively reunified Japan. Nobunaga, a daimyo from Owari, used massed firearms behind wooden palisades to rout the army of Takeda Katsuyori at the Battle of Nagashino (1575); exactly how the guns were fired, and how far the Takeda relied on cavalry charges, are still debated by historians. After Nobunaga's death in 1582 at Honnō-ji, his general Hideyoshi, a man of humble birth, completed the unification by 1590 through military campaigns and negotiated submissions. Hideyoshi's ambitious invasions of Korea (1592, 1597) tested Japanese military might against continental forces. His sword hunt of 1588, which ordered farmers to give up swords, spears, bows and guns, was above all a status policy: it reserved the right to bear swords for warriors and helped fix the line between samurai and commoners. After Hideyoshi's death, Tokugawa Ieyasu won the decisive Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, consolidating all power under his clan. ### Edo Period Tokugawa Ieyasu, named shogun in 1603, governed from Edo (modern Tokyo), and his successors presided over more than 250 years of relative peace. Samurai, once battlefield warriors, increasingly became officials and administrators. Status was hereditary; the Confucian formula shi-nō-kō-shō (warrior, farmer, artisan, merchant) described the ideal order, but in practice the sharpest line ran between the warrior elite and everyone else. The system of alternate attendance (sankin-kōtai), formalized in 1635, required daimyo to spend alternate years in Edo, keeping their wives and children there as hostages and draining their finances. Writers of this peaceful era, such as Yamaga Sokō, reflected on the samurai's peacetime purpose as a moral example to society. The Hagakure, the sayings of the Saga retainer Yamamoto Tsunetomo as written down by Tashiro Tsuramoto (completed around 1716), dwelt on the warrior's readiness to die. In the Akō incident of 1701-1703, the former retainers of a lord who had been ordered to commit seppuku killed the man they blamed for his fall and were then themselves ordered to commit seppuku; whether their act was loyal or criminal was hotly debated at the time, and the story, retold on stage as Chūshingura, became Japan's most famous tale of loyalty. The shogunate's strict limits on foreign contact — later called sakoku, a term coined only in 1801 — restricted trade to a few partners such as the Dutch and Chinese until Commodore Perry's "Black Ships" arrived in 1853. ### Meiji Period & Beyond The Meiji Restoration of 1868 ended the shogunate and restored imperial rule, launching Japan's rapid modernization. The new government, itself led largely by former samurai, dismantled the warrior class step by step. The Haitōrei edict of 1876 banned the carrying of swords except by the military, police and officials in court dress, and in the same year samurai stipends were abolished in exchange for government bonds, leaving many former warriors impoverished. The Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, led by Saigō Takamori, was the largest and last uprising of former samurai, and it was crushed by the new conscript army. Yet the idea of the samurai outlived the class. From the 1890s, amid Japan's wars with China (1894-95) and Russia (1904-05), writers and educators promoted bushido as a national ethic for all Japanese, and the imperial military later drew on it heavily until 1945. Today, samurai imagery reaches a worldwide audience through martial arts, cinema and literature. ## The Eight Virtues of Bushido A modern list, not an ancient rulebook. These eight headings follow chapters of Nitobe Inazō's Bushido: The Soul of Japan, written in English and first published in Philadelphia in 1900 — rectitude, courage, benevolence, politeness, veracity, honor, loyalty and self-control. Nitobe described bushido as an unwritten code drawing on Buddhism, Shinto and Confucianism. The Japanese labels are the ones commonly attached to his chapters today, and the summaries below describe his idealized portrait, not rules that every samurai followed. Nitobe calls rectitude "the most cogent precept in the code of the samurai," and says nothing was more loathsome to a warrior than underhand dealing. He quotes an unnamed samurai who defined it as the power to decide on a course of conduct in accordance with reason, without wavering, and another who called it the bone that gives a person firmness and stature. He roots the idea in Mencius, who called benevolence the human mind and righteousness the human path. In Nitobe's account, skill and learning counted for little in a warrior who lacked this backbone. For Nitobe, courage was a virtue only when it served what was right. He quotes Confucius — "Perceiving what is right and doing it not, argues lack of courage" — and notes that dying for an unworthy cause was scorned as "a dog's death." He also quotes a Prince of Mito: rushing into battle to be killed is easy enough, but "it is true courage to live when it is right to live, and to die only when it is right to die." Nitobe adds that the distinction between physical and moral courage had long been recognized in Japan, and that true bravery showed itself as composure and presence of mind. Nitobe presents benevolence as the quality that tempered a warrior's power with compassion toward the weak and the defeated. He points out that Confucius and Mencius both held benevolence to be the highest requirement of a ruler of men — a lesson aimed squarely at the samurai as a governing class. He singles out the phrase bushi no nasaké, "the tenderness of a warrior," as one that appealed to everything noble in his countrymen: mercy, in his reading, was most admirable in those who had the power to be cruel. Nitobe's chapter is titled "Politeness." He argues that courtesy is a poor virtue if it springs only from fear of offending good taste; it should be "the outward manifestation of a sympathetic regard for the feelings of others." He also links it to respect for social position, reflecting the hierarchical society of his day. As his main example of etiquette raised to a spiritual discipline he chooses the tea ceremony (cha-no-yu), with its calm, economy of movement and quiet of mind. Nitobe's chapter "Veracity or Truthfulness" claims that lying and equivocation were regarded as cowardly, and that the samurai's high social position was thought to demand a stricter standard of truthfulness than was expected of merchants or farmers. Bushi no ichi-gon, "the word of a samurai," was supposed to be guarantee enough: promises, he writes, were generally made and kept without any written pledge, which would have been thought beneath a warrior's dignity. In Nitobe's portrait, honor — a vivid sense of personal dignity and worth — was instilled in samurai children from the start, and the fear of disgrace, he admits, hung over every samurai and often took a morbid turn. He devotes a separate chapter to seppuku, which he presents as an institution through which a warrior could atone for a fault, escape disgrace or prove his sincerity. The former retainers of Akō waited more than a year and a half before their attack of 1702-1703, and later dramatizations made much of the disgrace they seemed to endure while they bided their time. Nitobe's chapter "The Duty of Loyalty" places loyalty to one's lord above almost every other tie. In practice it could be extreme: junshi, following one's lord in death, became widespread in the early seventeenth century — fifteen retainers killed themselves when Date Masamune died in 1636 — until the shogunate banned it in 1663. Yet Nitobe also insists that loyalty was not servility. When a retainer disagreed with his master, he writes, the loyal course was "to use every available means to persuade him of his error," and he contrasts this with the fawning favorite who wins his lord's affection by servile compliance. Nitobe writes that it was considered unmanly for a samurai to betray his emotions on his face; "He shows no sign of joy or anger" was a phrase of praise for a strong character. Self-control, in his account, extended even to family life, where natural affection was kept in check before others. Zen, which he names among bushido's sources, offered warriors a discipline of calm, and the related ideal of fudōshin, the "immovable mind," appears in the Zen monk Takuan's advice to swordsmen. Nitobe himself warns that "discipline in self-control can easily go too far." ## Legendary Warriors The commanders, swordsmen, and strategists who forged the samurai legacy — from the greatest unifiers of Japan to the last warrior of a dying age ## Weapons & Armor The tools of the warrior — each forged with centuries of tradition, from the sacred katana to the fearsome war mask ### Katana The katana is the most iconic Japanese weapon — a curved, single-edged sword. Japanese swords were made by repeatedly folding and forging steel (tamahagane), typically wrapping a softer core in harder steel, and by coating the blade with clay before quenching so that the edge hardened more than the spine, producing the visible temper line (hamon). Early mounted warriors wore the longer tachi slung edge-down; the katana, worn thrust through the sash edge-up, became standard from the Muromachi period. Smiths such as Masamune (active around 1300) became legends, and famous blades were given names and handed down as treasures. "The sword is the soul of the samurai" became a proverb in the Edo period, when only warriors could wear two swords, and Nitobe made it the title of a chapter. ### Wakizashi & Tanto The wakizashi, a shorter sword worn alongside the katana, completed the daishō ("long and short"), the matched pair that in the Edo period was the badge of samurai status; commoners could carry a single short sword in some circumstances, such as when travelling. Today a wakizashi is defined as a blade of roughly 30 to 60 centimeters. It served as a sidearm in confined spaces and could be used for seppuku. The tantō, a dagger with a blade of about 30 centimeters (one shaku) or less, was carried for close defense, and women of warrior families carried small daggers of this kind. ### Yumi Before the sword became the symbol of the samurai, the bow was the warrior's primary weapon, and the warrior's calling was described as "the way of bow and horse" (kyūba no michi). The yumi is a long, asymmetric bow, gripped below the center, and over time came to be built of laminated bamboo and wood; a standard bow is more than two meters long. Mounted archery was the core skill of the early warriors, and yabusame, shooting at targets from a galloping horse, was popular from the late Heian period and is still performed at shrines today. The Tale of Hōgen credits Minamoto no Tametomo, a famed archer of the Hōgen Rebellion of 1156, with sinking a boat with a single arrow — a legend rather than a record. In the Sengoku period spears and firearms, rather than swords, took over much of the battlefield, though archery remained a respected discipline. ### Yari & Naginata The yari (spear) came into wide battlefield use from the late Kamakura period and by the Sengoku period was a principal weapon, especially of massed foot soldiers (ashigaru); the longest pikes exceeded six meters. The naginata, a curved blade on a long shaft, was used from the late Heian period by foot soldiers and warrior monks (sōhei). As spears and guns displaced it on the battlefield, it became in the Edo period above all a martial art for women of warrior families, and it is still practiced today. In art and on the stage the female warrior Tomoe Gozen is often shown with a naginata, although the Tale of the Heike praises her as an archer and swordswoman. ### Samurai Armor (Yoroi) Japanese armor evolved from the large, box-like ō-yoroi of the Heian and Kamakura periods, made for mounted archers, through the lighter dōmaru and haramaki worn on foot, to the tōsei gusoku ("modern armor") of the late Muromachi and Sengoku periods, built with larger iron plates to stand up to spears and bullets. A full suit could include the dō (cuirass), kote (armored sleeves), suneate (shin guards), haidate (thigh guards) and sode (shoulder guards). Classic armor was lamellar: small scales (kozane) of lacquered iron and rawhide were laced together with silk braid or leather in colorful patterns that reflected the taste of the age and the wearer. ### Kabuto & Menpo The kabuto (helmet) and the face mask (menpo or mengu) were the most striking elements of samurai armor. Helmets carried crests (maedate) that identified the wearer on the battlefield — an early-seventeenth-century military text notes that helmet crests let each unit be recognized — and expressed personal taste or religious devotion. Date Masamune's crescent-moon crest has become inseparable from his image. Face masks, often of iron or lacquered leather and frequently given fierce, snarling features, protected the face and helped secure the helmet; many had a detachable nose piece and a hanging throat guard. ## The Martial Arts Legacy How older warrior arts were reshaped into modern disciplines, practiced today around the world ### Kendo Kendo descends from kenjutsu, the sword techniques of the samurai schools. Its key equipment is older than often assumed: in the early eighteenth century Naganuma Shiroza'emon Kunisato popularized practice with bamboo swords while wearing protective gear, Nakanishi Chūzō Tsugutake added an iron face mask in the mid-1700s, and the four-slat bamboo sword (shinai) came in during the late Edo period. After the Meiji Restoration this full-contact fencing was organized into the modern sport, now governed internationally, which stresses etiquette and character as well as technique. Practitioners aim to cultivate ki-ken-tai-no-itchi — the unity of spirit, sword, and body — reflecting the samurai belief that mastery of the sword was inseparable from mastery of the self. ### Iaido Iaido is the art of drawing the sword and cutting in a single, fluid motion — the first and often only strike in a real encounter. It traces its origins to sword-drawing techniques traditionally credited to Hayashizaki Jinsuke Shigenobu, a swordsman of the late sixteenth century whose life is known mostly from tradition, and it is practiced solo through forms (kata) with a real or replica sword. Unlike kendo's dynamic sparring, iaido is a meditative discipline focused on zanshin (lingering awareness), precise execution, and the cultivation of mushin (no-mind). Each kata begins and ends in a state of calm readiness, embodying the samurai ideal that true alertness is not tension but a profound stillness from which perfect action can emerge. ### Judo Kanō Jigorō (1860-1938), an educator from Hyōgo, founded the Kōdōkan in Tokyo in 1882, reorganizing techniques from several schools of jujutsu — the grappling arts of the warrior schools. He removed the most dangerous techniques so that throws, pins and submissions could be practiced safely against a resisting partner, and framed judo as physical, moral and intellectual education. His principles seiryoku zen'yō (best use of energy) and jita kyōei (mutual welfare and benefit) summed up that aim. Kanō became Asia's first member of the International Olympic Committee in 1909, and judo entered the Olympic Games at Tokyo in 1964. ### Aikido Ueshiba Morihei (1883-1969), born in Tanabe in Wakayama, trained in several older arts and, from 1915, studied Daitō-ryū aiki-jūjutsu under Takeda Sōkaku. Deeply influenced by the Ōmoto religion and its leader Deguchi Onisaburō, he developed his own art through the 1920s and 1930s under names such as aiki-budō, and from 1942 it was known as aikido. Rather than meeting force with force, aikido uses circular movements, joint locks and throws to redirect an attack. Ueshiba regarded its practice as a spiritual discipline, and his art spread worldwide after the war through the Aikikai foundation. ## Cultural Impact The samurai's image travelled far beyond Japan — through cinema, literature and the martial arts ### Cinema & Literature Kurosawa Akira's films — among them Seven Samurai (1954), Yojimbo (1961) and Ran (1985) — did much to bring the samurai to audiences worldwide. Seven Samurai, in which masterless samurai are hired to defend a farming village against bandits, won the Silver Lion at the 1954 Venice Film Festival and was remade as the American western The Magnificent Seven (1960). George Lucas has acknowledged Kurosawa's influence on Star Wars (1977), in particular The Hidden Fortress (1958), whose story is told through the eyes of two lowly characters. In literature, James Clavell's novel Shogun (1975) introduced a large Western readership to a fictionalized Japan of around 1600. Yoshikawa Eiji's novel Musashi, serialized in the Asahi Shimbun from 1935 to 1939, fixed the popular image of Miyamoto Musashi as a seeker who perfects himself through the sword. The Book of Five Rings and Hagakure are now widely read in translation, often reinterpreted as guides to business and self-improvement. ### The Global Legacy of Bushido Nitobe Inazō's Bushido: The Soul of Japan, completed in December 1899 in Pennsylvania, written in English for Western readers and published in Philadelphia in 1900, became the book through which much of the world learned about samurai ethics. Nitobe, a Christian educator, compared bushido throughout with European chivalry. Historians such as Oleg Benesch stress that his idealized portrait tells us more about Meiji-era Japan than about the historical samurai. It was nonetheless a success: by the 1905 edition it had been translated into several languages, and Nitobe reported that President Theodore Roosevelt had read it and given copies to his friends. In Japan, the modern bushido ideal was tied closely to nationalism and the military until 1945; after the war it was revived in gentler forms, and today the word is often borrowed in sport, business and self-help. Martial arts with roots in the warrior schools — among them judo, kendo, iaido and aikido — are practiced around the world, usually with an emphasis on etiquette and character as well as physical skill. (Karate, often grouped with them, developed in Okinawa from local and Chinese fighting arts rather than from samurai combat.) Warrior patronage also left a lasting mark on Japanese aesthetics. The tea ceremony, Noh theatre, ink painting and Zen temple gardens all flourished under samurai patrons, and their restraint and attention to detail continue to influence architecture and design. (The related idea of mono no aware, a poignant awareness of impermanence, comes from the Heian court and its literature rather than from the samurai.) ## Sources The references used to check this page. Kotobank entries reproduce standard Japanese reference works (including the Nihon Daihyakka Zensho and Heibonsha's Sekai Daihyakka Jiten). ### Bushido, Texts & History - Nitobe Inazō, Bushido: The Soul of Japan (10th rev. ed., 1905) — Project Gutenberg - Oleg Benesch, Inventing the Way of the Samurai: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Bushidō in Modern Japan (Oxford University Press, 2014) - Oleg Benesch — University of York profile (summary of the book's argument) - Kotobank: 武士道 (bushidō; incl. Nitobe's book) - Kotobank: 侍 (samurai — origin in saburau) - Kotobank: 葉隠 (Hagakure) - Kotobank: 五輪書 (The Book of Five Rings) - Kotobank: 宮本武蔵 (Miyamoto Musashi; Yoshikawa's novel) - Kotobank: 新渡戸稲造 (Nitobe Inazō) - Kotobank: 士農工商 (the four status groups) - Kotobank: 参勤交代 (alternate attendance) - Kotobank: 鎖国 (sakoku) - Kotobank: 刀狩 (sword hunt) - Kotobank: 殉死 (junshi) - Kotobank: 赤穂事件 (the Akō incident / 47 rōnin) - Kotobank: 廃刀令 (Haitōrei) - Kotobank: 秩禄処分 (abolition of stipends) - Kotobank: 西南戦争 (Satsuma Rebellion) - Kotobank: 長篠の戦 (Battle of Nagashino) - Kotobank: 関ヶ原の戦 (Battle of Sekigahara) - Kotobank: 不動智神妙録 (Takuan, Fudōchi shinmyōroku) ### Warriors, Weapons, Martial Arts & Film - Kotobank: 豊臣秀吉 (Toyotomi Hideyoshi) - Kotobank: 徳川家康 (Tokugawa Ieyasu) - Kotobank: 築山殿 (Lady Tsukiyama) - Kotobank: 源義経 (Minamoto no Yoshitsune) - Kotobank: 義経伝説 (Yoshitsune legends) - Kotobank: 巴御前 (Tomoe Gozen) - Samurai Archives: Tomoe Gozen (quotes H. C. McCullough's translation of The Tale of the Heike, p. 291) - Kotobank: 武田信玄 (Takeda Shingen) - Kotobank: 上杉謙信 (Uesugi Kenshin) - Kotobank: 敵に塩を送る (the salt story) - Kotobank: 伊達政宗 (Date Masamune) - Kotobank: 慶長遣欧使節 (Keichō Embassy) - Kotobank: 維新の三傑 (Three Great Heroes of the Restoration) - Kotobank: 服部半蔵 (Hattori Hanzō) - Kotobank: 源為朝 (Minamoto no Tametomo) - Kotobank: 脇差 (wakizashi) - Kotobank: 短刀 (tantō) - Kotobank: 槍 (yari) - Kotobank: 薙刀 (naginata) - Kotobank: 大鎧 (ō-yoroi) - Kotobank: 当世具足 (tōsei gusoku) - Kotobank: 前立 (helmet crests) - Kotobank: 流鏑馬 (yabusame) - Morihiro Ogawa, “A Famous Fourteenth-Century Japanese Armor,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 24 (1989) - All Japan Kendo Federation: History of Kendo - Kotobank: 嘉納治五郎 (Kanō Jigorō) - Kotobank: 植芝盛平 (Ueshiba Morihei) - Kotobank: 七人の侍 (Seven Samurai) - The Criterion Collection: George Lucas on Akira Kurosawa #### Biography #### Key Achievements #### Legacy --- # Regional Legends URL: https://japan.je/regional-legends.html # Regional Legends of Japan Japan's mythology is not abstract — it is rooted in specific places. Every mountain, river, and coastline has stories woven into the land itself. Travel across Japan's regions to discover the legends that shaped each province. The Province of the Gods ## Shimane Prefecture 島根県 Located on the San'in coast of western Honshu, facing the Sea of Japan, Shimane Prefecture likes to call itself a land of the gods, and with reason: its eastern half was the ancient province of Izumo, and a large share of the Kojiki's myths of the age of the gods are set there. Izumo appears in the chronicles as a land with its own powerful deities and its own traditions, one that yields to the heavenly line only after long negotiation, and local belief holds that the gods of all Japan still gather here once a year, in the tenth month of the old calendar. To follow Japanese mythology on the ground, Shimane is the natural place to begin. ### Unnan City — The Cradle of Myth 雲南市 Unnan City, in the hills of inland eastern Shimane, is one of the places where local tradition locates the Kojiki's most famous Izumo episode. The rivers and valleys here are identified with the scenes of the story, and shrines and marked sites along them keep those identifications alive. The Kojiki was presented to the court in 712 by the courtier Ō no Yasumaro, who wrote down traditions that had been recited to him by Hieda no Are; the stories it preserves were already old by then. The Hii River (斐伊川, Hii-kawa), which the Kojiki calls the river Hi, is the thread that runs through this landscape. Expelled from heaven for his outrages against his sister Amaterasu, the storm god Susanoo came down, the Kojiki says, at the head of the river Hi in Izumo. Seeing chopsticks floating down the stream, he guessed that people lived upstream, went looking for them, and found an old couple, Ashinazuchi and Tenazuchi, weeping beside their daughter Kushinadahime. They had once had eight daughters, they told him, but an eight-forked serpent came each year and devoured one, and now the time had come for the last. The serpent was Yamata no Orochi (八岐大蛇, written 八俣遠呂智 in the Kojiki): one body with eight heads and eight tails, eyes red as the winter-cherry, moss and trees growing on its back, and a length that stretched over eight valleys and eight hills. Because the story is tied so closely to the Hii, it has often been read as being about the river itself. One common interpretation sees in the serpent the river's floods and branching tributaries; another links the blood-red belly to the iron sand smelted in these mountains for centuries. These are modern readings, not statements in the text. After his victory, Susanoo looked for a place in Izumo to build a palace for himself and Kushinadahime. When the palace was built, clouds rose up from the land, and he sang a song that tradition counts as the first waka, the first poem in the classical Japanese verse form: The Kojiki says that when Susanoo reached the place he chose, he exclaimed that his heart felt sugasugashi, "refreshed", and that the place has been called Suga ever since. Suga Shrine (須賀神社) in Unnan City identifies itself with that palace and calls itself Nihon hatsu-no-miya, "Japan's first palace". Visitors can see the place where, according to tradition, the poem was first sung. ### Izumo Taisha — The Grand Shrine 出雲大社 Izumo Taisha (formally Izumo Ōyashiro) is one of Japan's oldest and most important Shinto shrines. Dedicated to Okuninushi (大国主), the deity who "built" and cultivated the land before ceding it to Amaterasu's descendants, it stands for a strand of mythology parallel to, and sometimes in tension with, the imperial tradition centred on Ise. According to the Kojiki, Okuninushi was a sixth-generation descendant of Susanoo (the Nihon Shoki makes him Susanoo's son). He healed the White Hare of Inaba, survived his jealous brothers' attempts to kill him, passed the ordeals of Susanoo's underworld realm and returned, and with the small god Sukunabikona went on to build the land: kuni-zukuri, the "land-building." When the gods of heaven resolved that Amaterasu's descendants should rule the earthly realm, Okuninushi agreed to surrender political authority on one condition: that a grand palace be built for him, reaching to the heavens. Izumo Taisha is traditionally understood as that palace. The shrine has long been remembered as enormous. A tenth-century primer for young nobles, the Kuchizusami, named the Izumo shrine as the largest building in the land, ahead of the Great Buddha Hall of Tōdai-ji, and tradition holds that the main hall once stood 48 meters tall. In 2000, excavations in front of the main hall uncovered the bases of huge pillars, each made of three cedar trunks bound together into a column roughly three meters across. They are thought to belong to a hall rebuilt in 1248, and they gave new weight to the old accounts of a towering, raised sanctuary, though they do not by themselves prove its height. The present main hall, built in 1744, stands 24 meters high, the tallest shrine sanctuary in Japan, and is a National Treasure. It is built in the taisha-zukuri style, regarded as one of the oldest forms of shrine architecture, with a raised floor, a roof of thick layers of cypress bark, and crossed finials (chigi). The shrine's most photographed feature is the giant shimenawa (sacred rope) hanging at the front of the Kagura-den hall, one of the largest in Japan. The rope is replaced from time to time; the one hung in July 2026 was reported as about 13 meters long and weighing about 5 tonnes. A shimenawa marks the boundary of sacred space. The shrine marks the gathering every year in the tenth month of the old lunar calendar (usually November in the modern calendar). On the first evening, the Kamimukae-sai, the gods are welcomed with a bonfire on Inasa Beach, the beach where, in the Kojiki, heaven's envoys came to negotiate the transfer of the land. During the following days they are said to lodge in the two long halls called the Jūkusha on either side of the main precinct, while the Kamiari-sai rites are held in their honour. ### Iwami Kagura — Living Mythic Theater 石見神楽 In the Iwami region of western Shimane, the myths of the Kojiki are not merely remembered: they are performed, with great energy, elaborate costumes and fierce masks. Iwami Kagura is a form of sacred dance-drama that grew out of shrine ritual and today enacts stories of gods, heroes and demons, many of them drawn from the classical myths. It is one of Japan's liveliest folk performing traditions. Compared with the slow, stately kagura performed at many shrines, Iwami Kagura is fast and theatrical. Its costumes are heavy with gold and silver embroidery, its masks are traditionally made of local washi paper, and the dances are driven by drums, flute and small hand cymbals. The most famous piece is Orochi, the story of Susanoo and the eight-headed serpent. Each serpent is a long, collapsible tube of bamboo hoops covered in painted washi paper, worn and animated by a dancer inside, and several serpents may writhe on stage at once, coiling, rearing and breathing smoke while Susanoo fights them with his sword. For a performance in New Delhi in 2012, the Embassy of Japan described serpent props 14 meters long. ### Sacred Sites of Shimane Beyond Izumo Taisha and Suga Shrine, Shimane holds many sacred places, each tied to particular myths and local traditions. #### Yaegaki Shrine A shrine to Susanoo and Kushinadahime in Matsue. Its name recalls the "eightfold fence" of Susanoo's poem, and local tradition says that Kushinadahime was hidden in the shrine's forest while Susanoo fought the serpent. In the woods behind the shrine is the Mirror Pond (Kagami no Ike), where visitors float a paper fortune slip with a coin on it: the sooner it sinks, the sooner a good match will come, and the nearer it sinks, the nearer to home that match is said to be. #### Hinomisaki Shrine Standing near Cape Hinomisaki at the western tip of the Shimane Peninsula, Hinomisaki Shrine has two main halls, one for Amaterasu (the Hishizumi-no-miya, "Shrine where the Sun Sets") and one for Susanoo. A shrine tradition pairs it with Ise: Ise guards Japan by day, and Hinomisaki guards it by night. Its vermilion halls, rebuilt by order of the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu and completed in 1644, stand a short walk from the Sea of Japan. #### Tamatsukuri Onsen One of Japan's oldest recorded hot springs. The Izumo Fudoki of 733 says that bathing here once makes one's appearance beautiful, and bathing again cures every illness. The Tamatsukuri area ("jewel-making") was also an ancient centre for the production of magatama, the curved jewels of the kind counted among the Imperial Regalia. #### Miho Shrine Dedicated to Kotoshironushi, a son of Okuninushi, and to the goddess Mihotsuhime. Kotoshironushi came to be identified with Ebisu, the god of fishing, luck and commerce (a link that dates from the Edo period), and Miho Shrine is regarded as the head shrine of the more than 3,000 shrines where Kotoshironushi is worshipped. Its unusual twin-roofed main hall dates from 1813, and the shrine owns 846 musical instruments offered by worshippers over the centuries, designated as Important Tangible Folk Cultural Properties. #### Adachi Museum of Art Not a shrine, but one of Shimane's best-known destinations. The Adachi Museum of Art in Yasugi is famous for its gardens, which the American Journal of Japanese Gardening has ranked first in Japan every year since 2003. The founder designed them to be viewed through the museum's windows like a series of living paintings. #### Kamosu Shrine Kamosu Shrine in Matsue has the oldest surviving main hall in the taisha-zukuri style, built in 1583 and designated a National Treasure. Its principal deity is Izanami, the mother goddess who in the Kojiki dies after giving birth to the fire god, with Izanagi also enshrined. ### Izumo Fudoki — The Lost Alternative 出雲国風土記 In 713, the court of Empress Genmei ordered every province to compile a report, later known as a fudoki, on its products, land, place-name origins and old traditions. Only five survive even in part, and only one is complete: the Izumo Fudoki, finished in 733. That makes it an invaluable record of the religious life and local traditions of an ancient province, compiled in Izumo itself under Izumo no Omi Hiroshima, head of the hereditary priestly family of the Izumo shrine. The Izumo Fudoki tells some stories that the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki do not. Most famous is the kuni-biki, the "land-pulling": the god Yatsukamizu-omitsunu, finding Izumo too small, cast a rope around surplus land across the sea, including part of Silla in Korea and a cape in Koshi, and hauled it over to make the Shimane Peninsula. The story has no counterpart in the Kojiki, and many scholars see the Fudoki as preserving Izumo's own traditions alongside the court's version of events. The document carefully explains the origins of place names throughout the province, many of them traced to the words or deeds of gods. It lists shrines, mountains, rivers and their products, and records hot springs such as Tamatsukuri along with the benefits of bathing in them. Read today, it gives a rare picture of a landscape in which many places were understood through the gods who had acted there. The Imperial Cradle ## Yamato Province 大和国 — Nara If Shimane is where the gods gathered, Yamato is where, in the chronicles, earthly rule was established. The Nara Basin was home to Japan's early capitals and the place where native worship, Buddhism and imperial authority came together in the formation of the early state. ### The First Capital and the Sacred Deer Nara, as the capital Heijō-kyō, was the seat of government from 710 to 784, but the area's place in the chronicles reaches further back. The imperial line traced its descent from Amaterasu through her grandson Ninigi to Jimmu, the legendary first emperor, and in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki Jimmu's eastward campaign from Kyushu ends in Yamato, after the three-legged crow Yatagarasu guides him through the mountains from Kumano. Kasuga Taisha, founded according to shrine tradition in 768 as the shrine of the Fujiwara clan, stands beside the Kasugayama Primeval Forest, where hunting and tree-felling were banned in 841. The deer of Nara are regarded as messengers of the gods: shrine tradition says that the deity Takemikazuchi came from Kashima to Mount Mikasa riding a white deer. "The Deer of Nara" were designated a Natural Monument in 1957, and the July 2025 count by the Nara Deer Preservation Foundation found a record 1,465 in Nara Park. ### Mount Miwa — The God-Mountain Mount Miwa (三輪山) is one of the clearest expressions of the Shinto idea that a mountain itself can be divine. This 467-meter, gently conical mountain on the southeastern edge of the Nara Basin is the sacred body of the god Ōmononushi, whom the Nihon Shoki identifies with a spirit of Ōnamuchi (Okuninushi). Ōmiwa Shrine at its foot has a worship hall but no main sanctuary to this day: worshippers pray toward the mountain itself, through a distinctive triple torii behind the hall. Climbing Mount Miwa is permitted only as an act of worship. Visitors register at Sai Shrine, one of Ōmiwa's subsidiary shrines, receive purification, and keep strict rules: no photography, no eating or drinking, no straying from the path. At the summit stands Kōnomiya Shrine, and sacred rock clusters (iwakura) on the slopes are honoured as seats of the gods. Ritual objects excavated around the mountain show that it was a focus of worship long before shrine buildings became the norm, and the Nihon Shoki places the founding of its rites in the reign of the legendary Emperor Sujin. ### Asuka — The Cradle of the State South of Nara lies Asuka, where Japan's transformation from a league of powerful clans into a centralised state took shape in the 6th and 7th centuries. Buddhism was formally introduced from the Korean kingdom of Baekje, the Seventeen-Article Constitution attributed to Prince Shōtoku was issued, and the first codes of law were compiled. Asuka is also known for enigmatic stone monuments, including the "monkey stones" (saru-ishi), and for the Ishibutai Kofun, a huge exposed stone burial chamber widely thought to be the tomb of the statesman Soga no Umako, whose clan championed Buddhism against rival clans such as the Mononobe. Asuka matters to this story as the place where native worship of the kami and imported Buddhism first met at court. Over the following centuries the two traditions would intertwine, shaping temples and shrines, ideas of the afterlife, and the rituals of the imperial court. The Sacred Mountains ## Kii Province 紀伊国 — Wakayama & Mie The mountainous Kii Peninsula, jutting southward into the Pacific, has drawn pilgrims for more than a thousand years. Its deep forests, waterfalls and remote shrines are a classic example of sacred geography: places where the boundary between the human and divine worlds seems thin. ### Kumano Kodo — The Pilgrimage of Emperors The Kumano Kodo is a network of old pilgrimage trails that wind through the mountains of the Kii Peninsula to the three grand shrines known together as the Kumano Sanzan. In 2004 the routes and shrines were inscribed by UNESCO as part of the World Heritage Site "Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range," together with Yoshino and Ōmine and Kōyasan. Retired emperors and courtiers made the journey from Kyoto again and again between the 11th and 13th centuries; Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa alone went 34 times by the usual count (some sources say 33). In the medieval fusion of kami and buddhas, each of the three shrines (Kumano Hongū Taisha, Kumano Hayatama Taisha and Kumano Nachi Taisha) was paired with a buddha or bodhisattva: Hongū with Amida, who promises rebirth in the Pure Land; Hayatama with Yakushi, the healing buddha; and Nachi with the thousand-armed Kannon. The pilgrimage itself came to be understood as a symbolic death and rebirth, from which pilgrims returned purified and renewed. ### Ise Grand Shrine — The Heart of Shinto Ise Jingū, in Mie Prefecture on the eastern side of the Kii Peninsula, is regarded as the most sacred shrine in Shinto and is the shrine of Amaterasu, the sun goddess and divine ancestor of the imperial family. It consists of 125 shrines centred on two main sanctuaries: the Naikū (Inner Shrine), dedicated to Amaterasu, and the Gekū (Outer Shrine), dedicated to Toyouke, the goddess of food. What makes Ise remarkable is the Shikinen Sengū: every 20 years the main sanctuaries and many other buildings are rebuilt on an adjoining site and the deities are transferred to them, a custom traced back to the late 7th century. The 62nd transfer took place in 2013, and preparations for the 63rd, scheduled for 2033, are under way. The cycle renews the buildings and passes the old construction techniques from one generation of craftsmen to the next. Between rebuildings, the alternate site lies empty except for a small shelter over the spot of the sacred central post, the shin-no-mihashira. The architecture is deliberately simple: unpainted hinoki cypress, thatched roofs and raised floors in the yuitsu-shinmei-zukuri style, used only at Ise. Many architects have pointed to Ise as a supreme example of beauty through simplicity. Ordinary worshippers pray at the gate of the outer fence; photography is not allowed in front of the main sanctuary, and the inner precincts are entered only by priests and those with special permission. ### Nachi Falls — Where Gods Descend Nachi Falls (那智の滝) drops 133 meters in a single fall, the greatest single drop of any waterfall in Japan. The falls themselves are the sacred body of Hirō Shrine, a subsidiary of Kumano Nachi Taisha, and have been worshipped as a deity, known as Hirō Gongen, since ancient times. Mountain ascetics (yamabushi) have long trained beneath them, and the three-storied pagoda of Seiganto-ji temple framed against the falls is one of the most famous views in Japan. #### Kumano Hongu Taisha The head shrine of the Kumano faith. Its original site, Ōyunohara, on a sandbank where rivers meet, was struck by a catastrophic flood in 1889, and the surviving buildings were moved to higher ground. A giant torii, about 33.9 meters tall and completed in 2000, now marks the old sacred ground; it is usually described as the largest torii in Japan. #### Koyasan (Mount Koya) Founded in 816 by Kūkai (Kōbō Daishi), the monk who brought Shingon esoteric Buddhism to Japan. More than a hundred temples cluster on this mountain plateau. In the vast Okunoin cemetery, paths lined with some 200,000 graves and memorials lead to Kūkai's mausoleum, where devotees believe he remains in eternal meditation, awaiting the coming of the future Buddha, Miroku. #### Yoshino Renowned for its cherry trees, commonly counted at about 30,000 and traditionally planted as offerings to the mountain's deity Zaō Gongen, Yoshino was where Minamoto no Yoshitsune fled in 1185 and where the Southern Court had its seat during the 14th-century wars between rival imperial courts. Tradition makes it a centre of Shugendō, the tradition of mountain asceticism, from the time of its legendary 7th-century founder En no Gyōja. Land of Warriors ## Musashi & Sagami 武蔵・相模 — Kanto In the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, the eastern provinces beyond Yamato are a wild frontier, a land of unruly local gods and unsubdued peoples, crossed by the warrior-prince Yamato Takeru. By the medieval period, the same region had become the seat of samurai power. ### Yamato Takeru's Eastern Campaign The legend of Yamato Takeru (written 倭建命 in the Kojiki and 日本武尊 in the Nihon Shoki) is the great hero story of the East. A son of the legendary Emperor Keikō, he is sent to subdue unruly gods and peoples in the eastern provinces, and the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki tell his journey in two versions that differ in places, sequence and tone. Before setting out, Takeru visited his aunt Yamato-hime, priestess of the Ise shrine, who gave him the sword Kusanagi (the blade Susanoo had found in the serpent's tail) and a bag. In the Kojiki, the ruler of Sagamu (Sagami) lured him onto a moor and set it alight; Takeru cut away the grass with the sword, opened the bag to find a fire-striker, and lit a counter-fire that drove the flames back. The Kojiki then names the place Yakizu, today's Yaizu in Shizuoka. The Nihon Shoki sets the episode in Suruga and adds, in a variant account, that the sword drew itself and mowed down the grass, and that this is why it was called Kusanagi, "Grass-Mower." The Kusanagi district of Shizuoka City and its Kusanagi Shrine keep the name. Crossing the Hashirimizu sea (today's Uraga Channel, at the mouth of Tokyo Bay), Takeru's boat was tossed by the god of the strait. His consort Oto-Tachibana-hime went down into the waves in his place, sitting on layered mats spread on the water, and the sea grew calm. Later, on the way home, he looked back east and sighed three times, "Azuma haya", "Alas, my wife!", and from this, the chronicles say, the eastern lands were called Azuma. The Kojiki places this at the Ashigara pass; the Nihon Shoki at the Usui pass. Takeru did not reach home: having left Kusanagi behind with his bride Miyazu-hime in Owari, he went to confront the god of Mount Ibuki, was struck by the god's icy rain, fell ill, and died on the road at Nobono in Ise. His spirit, the Kojiki says, became a great white bird (Chamberlain translates "white dotterel") and flew away toward the shore; in the Nihon Shoki it flies toward Yamato. ### Kamakura — Where Samurai First Ruled Minamoto no Yoritomo made Kamakura his base in 1180, and the warrior government he built there is usually dated from 1185, when he won the right to appoint military governors and stewards across the country (he was named shogun in 1192). He chose a coastal valley closed in by hills and sea, easy to defend, and already linked to his family through its Hachiman shrine. The Great Buddha (Daibutsu) of Kōtoku-in, whose bronze casting began in 1252, sits in the open air: the hall that once housed it was damaged by storms in the 14th century and finally lost by the end of the 15th, traditionally to the tsunami of 1498. It has become a symbol of endurance through catastrophe. Tsurugaoka Hachimangū, the city's central shrine, is dedicated to Hachiman, the patron god of warriors and guardian of the Minamoto clan. It was founded near the shore in 1063 by Minamoto no Yoriyoshi and moved to its present site by Yoritomo in 1180. Its great stone staircase has seen pivotal moments in Japanese history, including the assassination there of the third shogun, Minamoto no Sanetomo, by his nephew Kugyō in 1219. ### Mount Fuji — The Immortal Mountain No tour of eastern Japan's legends is complete without Fuji-san (富士山), which stands on the border of Shizuoka and Yamanashi and whose legends belong to several traditions. One of the best known comes at the end of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (Taketori Monogatari, c. 10th century): Princess Kaguya, a being from the Moon found as a tiny child inside a shining bamboo stalk, must return to the Moon, and leaves the emperor a letter and an elixir of immortality. Unwilling to live forever without her, he has them burned on the mountain closest to heaven. The tale says the mountain was named fuji because a great many soldiers (士に富む, "rich in warriors") climbed it, and that smoke still rises from its summit; the name is also commonly linked with fushi (不死), "deathless". In 2013 UNESCO inscribed "Fujisan, sacred place and source of artistic inspiration" as a cultural World Heritage Site. Hidden Valleys ## Echigo & Shinano 越後・信濃 — Central Mountains The mountainous interior of Honshu, the Japanese Alps and the snow country beyond them, harbours some of Japan's most atmospheric folklore: snow spirits, mountain gods and the ascetics who trained on the high peaks. ### Snow Country — The Domain of Yuki-onna The heavy-snow regions of Niigata, Nagano and their neighbours are strongly associated with Yuki-onna (雪女), the Snow Woman, one of Japan's best-known yokai, though stories about her have been recorded from the far north to Kyushu. Her earliest literary appearance usually cited is a sighting in Echigo (Niigata) in the Sōgi Shokoku Monogatari. Almost every account dresses her in white; she appears out of falling snow, and in many tales freezes or drains the life from those she meets. Yuki-onna stories vary widely from place to place: in some she is simply deadly, in others a mysterious visitor or even a bringer of good fortune. The best-known version, Lafcadio Hearn's in Kwaidan (1904), tells of a snow woman who kills an old woodcutter but spares his young apprentice, Minokichi, on condition that he never speak of her. She later marries him in human form as O-Yuki and bears him ten children; when at last he tells her the story, she reveals herself, spares him for the children's sake, and melts away into white mist. Hearn said he heard the tale from a farmer in Musashi Province, in what is now western Tokyo, not in the snow country. ### Togakushi — The Cave of the Sun Togakushi (戸隠) in Nagano Prefecture is linked by local legend to one of the Kojiki's best-known myths: Amaterasu's retreat into the Heavenly Rock Cave. In the Kojiki, the strong-armed god Ame-no-Tajikarao takes the goddess by the hand and draws her out. Togakushi's own tradition, recorded in its medieval temple histories, goes further: Tajikarao hurled the rock door away, and it fell to earth here, becoming Mount Togakushi, the "hidden door." The mountain's jagged crest is pointed to as that door. Togakushi Shrine is made up of five shrines spread along the foot of the mountain. Three are dedicated to deities of the cave myth or their kin (Ame-no-Tajikarao at the Okusha, Omoikane, who devised the plan to lure Amaterasu out, at the Chūsha, and Omoikane's son at the Hōkōsha), and the Hinomiko-sha honours Ame-no-Uzume, whose dance made the gods laugh. The Kuzuryū-sha honours a nine-headed dragon god of water said to have been worshipped here before the Okusha was founded. The Okusha is reached by a path of about two kilometers, part of it an avenue of cedars said to be some 400 years old. From the late Heian period Togakushi was a major centre of Shugendō mountain asceticism, and the Togakure school of ninjutsu traces its legendary origins to the area. ### Tengu of the Mountain Peaks Tengu are spirits of Japan's mountain wilderness, and the high ranges are natural tengu country. The great tengu are usually shown with red faces, long noses and wings, dressed as yamabushi mountain ascetics, while the lesser crow tengu have the head and beak of a bird. Over the centuries they have been cast as enemies of Buddhism, as proud and dangerous tricksters, and as guardians and teachers of the martial arts. The most famous tengu legend belongs not to these mountains but to Mount Kurama, north of Kyoto. There, legend says, the great tengu Sōjōbō taught swordsmanship and strategy to the boy Ushiwakamaru, who grew up to be Minamoto no Yoshitsune, one of Japan's most celebrated warriors; the story is best known from the Noh play Kurama Tengu. Many mountains have tengu of their own, and their temples and shrines keep tengu statues and traditions to this day. Where Gods First Touched Earth ## Kyushu 九州 In the chronicles, Kyushu is where the line of heaven first came down to earth. The southernmost of Japan's four main islands is the setting for the tenson kōrin, the descent of the heavenly grandchild, the myth that links the celestial gods to the imperial line. Its volcanic landscapes and old shrines carry many of these stories. ### Takachiho — The Heavenly Descent According to the Kojiki, Ninigi-no-Mikoto, grandson of the sun goddess Amaterasu, descended from the Plain of High Heaven (Takamagahara) to the peak of Kujifuru at Takachiho in Himuka, in the land of Tsukushi, and the Nihon Shoki likewise names a peak of Takachiho in Hyūga. Where that peak is has long been disputed: one tradition places it in the town of Takachiho (高千穂) in northern Miyazaki Prefecture, another at the mountain Takachiho-no-mine in the Kirishima range on the Miyazaki–Kagoshima border. Ninigi came bearing the mirror (Yata no Kagami), the curved jewels (Yasakani no Magatama) and the sword (Kusanagi no Tsurugi), which as the Imperial Regalia remain symbols of imperial authority to this day. The Takachiho Gorge, cut by the Gokase River through volcanic rock laid down by ancient eruptions of Mount Aso, is lined with columnar cliffs some 80 to 100 meters high, and Manai Falls drops about 17 meters into it. In the villages around Takachiho, local people perform yokagura, all-night sacred dances of 33 pieces, many of them scenes from the myths, in homes and community halls from late November to February; the Takachiho no Yokagura is designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property. For visitors who cannot attend, the Kagura Hall at Takachiho Shrine stages a one-hour selection of four dances every evening. ### Dazaifu — The Deified Scholar Dazaifu, in Fukuoka Prefecture, is the centre of one of Japan's most remarkable examples of a historical figure becoming a god. Sugawara no Michizane (845–903) was a scholar and statesman who rose to Minister of the Right before being demoted in 901, on the accusations of his rival Fujiwara no Tokihira, to a post at Dazaifu, which amounted to exile. He died there two years later. In the decades after his death, misfortunes struck the capital: Tokihira died young in 909, and in 930 lightning struck the Seiryōden hall of the imperial palace, killing several courtiers; Emperor Daigo fell ill and died soon after. The court came to believe that Michizane's angry spirit was responsible. In 923 it restored him to his former rank and burned the edict of his demotion, and in time he was worshipped as Tenjin, the god of scholarship, poetry and calligraphy. Dazaifu Tenmangū, built over his grave, is regarded as a head shrine of Japan's Tenjin shrines (often counted at around 12,000, with Kitano Tenmangū in Kyoto sharing that standing), and students crowd it to pray for success in examinations. Legend says that a plum tree from Michizane's garden in Kyoto flew to Dazaifu in a single night to be near its master; the tobiume, the "flying plum," still blooms beside the main hall. ### Kirishima and the Volcanic Gods The Kirishima volcanic range, straddling Miyazaki and Kagoshima prefectures, is the other candidate for the site of Ninigi's descent: its peak Takachiho-no-mine bears the same name. Its active volcanoes, fumaroles and crater lakes embody the elemental power the ancient Japanese associated with divine presence. Kirishima Jingū, founded according to tradition in the 6th century and moved more than once after eruptions destroyed it, enshrines Ninigi together with other deities, among them his bride Konohanasakuya-hime, the blossom princess who proved her child's parentage through fire. Its present buildings date from 1715. In Kyushu this is not a distant legend but a local one, set in a landscape worshippers see every day. The Northern Frontier ## Tohoku 東北 Japan's vast northern region was, for much of early recorded history, a frontier beyond the full reach of the imperial court, home to the people the court called Emishi. Tohoku's folklore is often described as earthier and closer to the cycles of farming life, death and the spirit world. ### Tono — The Heart of Japanese Folklore The mountain basin of Tōno, in Iwate Prefecture, holds a special place in Japanese folklore studies. In 1910 Yanagita Kunio published Tōno Monogatari (The Legends of Tōno), a collection of local tales told to him by Sasaki Kizen, a young man from Tōno. The book is often regarded as a founding work of Japanese folklore studies, because it showed that a rich world of belief lived on not only in ancient texts but in the oral traditions of rural communities. The book records kappa living in the rivers, especially the Sarugaishi River; zashiki-warashi, child spirits said to live in old houses and bring prosperity to the families they stay with; and, among the old folk tales told by the hearth, the yamahaha, a mountain hag who pursues children. Many of its entries are told as things that happened to named local people, which is a large part of the book's power. ### Osorezan — The Gateway to the Dead Mount Osore (恐山), literally "Mount Fear," is a volcanic caldera on the Shimokita Peninsula in Aomori Prefecture, at the northern tip of Honshu. Its sulphurous vents, barren rocky ground and crater lake, Lake Usori, have made it one of the places most closely associated with the dead in Japanese religion, and it is counted with Mount Kōya and Mount Hiei among Japan's three great sacred mountains. To walk Osorezan is to walk through a landscape that looks and smells like the Buddhist underworld. Bodai-ji temple on the lakeshore is said to have been founded in 862 by the monk Ennin (Jikaku Daishi). During the summer festival in late July, and again in the autumn, itako, traditionally blind female spirit mediums, perform kuchiyose, speaking with the voices of the dead, and bereaved families queue to hear words from those they have lost. The itako are a tradition of northern Tohoku, and very few practitioners remain today. The grounds of Osorezan are marked with places named for the Buddhist underworld: a series of "hells," a Sai no Kawara (the riverbank where the souls of dead children are said to pile stones), and finally the white sand of Gokuraku-hama, "Paradise Beach," on the shore of Lake Usori. Small stone cairns, piled by visitors in memory of the dead, line the paths, and pinwheels spin in the sulphurous breeze. It is one of the most emotionally intense sacred sites in Japan. ### The Emishi and the Northern Resistance Before the Yamato state extended its control northward, much of Tohoku was the land of the Emishi, a people whose identity, language and culture remain subjects of scholarly debate. The court treated them as barbarians, and its campaigns against them were among the longest wars of early Japanese history. The title Sei-i Taishōgun, "great general who subdues the barbarians," later shortened to shogun, was first conferred on commanders of these northern campaigns; the first appointment was in 794. The Emishi leader Aterui inflicted a heavy defeat on an imperial army in 789 near Isawa, in what is now southern Iwate, and held out until 802, when he surrendered to Sakanoue no Tamuramaro. He was taken to the capital region and executed in Kawachi Province. Today he is commemorated in Tohoku as a hero who fought to protect his people and their way of life. ### Sources The myths on this page follow the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki in the translations by Chamberlain and Aston; shrine facts follow the shrines' own publications, prefectural and national cultural-property records and standard Japanese reference works. Where a shrine's account is tradition rather than documented history, the text says so. - Kojiki, trans. B. H. Chamberlain (1882), Wikisource — Susanoo and the serpent, Ōkuninushi, the land transfer, Ninigi's descent, Yamato Takeru - Nihongi, trans. W. G. Aston (1896), Book I (age of the gods) — Wikisource - Nihongi, trans. W. G. Aston, Book VII (Emperor Keikō and Yamato Takeru) — Wikisource - Izumo Ōyashiro (Izumo Taisha), official English overview — the Kuchizusami, the 48 m tradition, en-musubi - Japan Tourism Agency multilingual commentary: Izumo Ōyashiro main hall (1744, 24 m, cypress-bark roof, National Treasure) - Shimane Prefecture cultural-properties Q&A on the pillars excavated at Izumo Ōyashiro in 2000 - Kumamoto Nichinichi Shimbun (Kyodo): Izumo Taisha's great shimenawa replaced after eight years, July 2026 - Kotobank: 神無月 (Kannazuki) — the 'month without gods' explanation and the likelier etymology - Kotobank: 出雲国風土記 (Izumo Fudoki) — the 713 order, completion in 733, the only complete fudoki, the kuni-biki myth - Kotobank: 神魂神社 (Kamosu Shrine) — main hall of 1583, National Treasure, deities - Shimane Prefecture: Iwami Kagura, Japan Heritage and the nationally designated Ōmoto Kagura - Japan Tourism Agency multilingual commentary: Iwami Kagura (more than 130 troupes) - Embassy of Japan in India: Iwami Kagura performance, 2012 (14 m serpent props) - Japan Tourism Agency multilingual commentary: Hinomisaki Shrine (Hishizumi-no-miya, buildings of 1634–1644) - Nara Prefecture: designation of 'The Deer of Nara' as a Natural Monument (1957) - Nippon.com: Nara deer population at a record high (July 2025 count of 1,465) - Kotobank: 大神神社 (Ōmiwa Shrine) — Mount Miwa as the sacred body, no main sanctuary, the Nihon Shoki on Ōmononushi and Sujin - UNESCO World Heritage Centre: Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range (2004) - Tanabe City Kumano Tourism Bureau: history of the Kumano Kodo (openness to all pilgrims; death and rebirth) - Kokugakuin University, Encyclopedia of Shinto: Sankei (pilgrimage), on the Kumano pilgrimages of the retired emperors - Ise Jingū Shikinen Sengū public-relations office (62nd Sengū 2013; 63rd Sengū 2033) - Ise Jingū, official site - UNESCO World Heritage Centre: Fujisan, sacred place and source of artistic inspiration (2013) - Kōtoku-in (Great Buddha of Kamakura): about the Great Buddha - Kotobank: 日本武尊 (Yamato Takeru) — the Kojiki version: Sagami fire, Hashirimizu, Ashigara, Ibuki - Lafcadio Hearn, Kwaidan (1904), Project Gutenberg — 'Yuki-Onna' and its preface note - Kotobank: 戸隠神社 (Togakushi Shrine) — deities of the shrines, Shugendō - Japan Tourism Agency multilingual commentary: Takachiho Kagura and the Kagura Hall - Kotobank: 菅原道真 (Sugawara no Michizane) - Yanagita Kunio, 遠野物語 (Tōno Monogatari, 1910), Aozora Bunko — preface, §17–18, §55, §115–117 - Kotobank: 恐山 (Osorezan) — Ennin and 862, the three great sacred mountains, itako - Kotobank: 征夷大将軍 (Sei-i Taishōgun) — first appointment in 794 - Kotobank: 阿弖流為 (Aterui) — 789, surrender and execution in Kawachi, 802 ## Experience These Legendary Provinces The regions explored on this page are not merely historical curiosities. Their shrines are active, their festivals are living traditions, and their myths continue to shape Japanese identity. Many of these historic provinces are also playable in Mashiyu Realms, where clans compete for territory across the map of feudal Japan. Explore more mythology in the Kojiki Chronicles or discover the spirits of the land in the Yokai Encyclopedia --- # Art & Aesthetics URL: https://japan.je/art-aesthetics.html Japanese art has a few ideas of beauty that keep coming back. A cracked tea jar can be worth more than a flawless one. A garden can be made of nothing but gravel and fifteen stones. A poem can move you most through what it leaves unsaid. This exhibit explains the best-known of these ideas, where each one came from and who first wrote about it, and then follows them through tea, gardens, ink, prints, flowers and comics. ## The ideas of Japanese beauty Most of the words in this exhibit are old. *Aware* appears in the eighth-century poetry anthology *Man'yōshū*. *Sabi* and *yūgen* were working terms of court poetry criticism by the twelfth century, and *wabi* shaped the tea gatherings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Nobody in those centuries treated them as a set, though. Each belonged to a particular art (a kind of poetry, a style of tea, a school of theatre) and meant something specific to the people who practised it. The idea of a single "Japanese aesthetics" is much more recent. The *Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy* notes that Japan had no philosophical discipline matching Western "aesthetics" until the nineteenth century. Much of what readers now meet as Japanese aesthetics comes from a handful of twentieth-century books that gathered older terms and explained them to a modern audience, often a foreign one. - **Okakura Kakuzō, *The Book of Tea* (1906).** Written in English for Western readers, it presents tea as a philosophy of life. Okakura called it "essentially a worship of the Imperfect", and the phrase has followed the tea ceremony ever since. - **Kuki Shūzō, *The Structure of "Iki"*.** Kuki drafted it in Paris in 1926 and published it soon after returning to Japan in 1929. It is a philosophical study of an Edo-period ideal of style. - **Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, *In Praise of Shadows* (1933).** A novelist's essay defending dim rooms, lacquer, patina and shadow against electric light and glossy modern surfaces. - **Leonard Koren, *Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers* (1994).** The book helped make "wabi-sabi" a familiar phrase in English, especially among designers. None of this makes the ideas inauthentic. It does mean that a tidy definition of "wabi-sabi" in a design magazine is a modern summary of something older, looser and more varied, and the sections below try to keep the two apart. ## Wabi-sabi *Wabi-sabi* joins two words that had separate histories for centuries. ### Wabi: the beauty of the humble *Wabi* comes from a verb meaning to languish or to be forlorn. The *JAANUS* dictionary of Japanese art notes that in early poetry it described the misery of an abandoned lover, and later the bare life of the poet-hermit. Its meaning turned positive as Zen-influenced writers came to value a life withdrawn from the world, lived in a hermit's grass hut. By the fifteenth century tea masters had made *wabi* their central ideal: a beauty found in what is plain, rustic and unpretentious, which seems natural and unforced. ### Sabi: the beauty of age *Sabi* is linked to *sabishii*, "lonely", and sounds the same as the word for rust. In the *Man'yōshū* it carried a sense of desolation. The poet Fujiwara no Shunzei (1114–1204) used it as a critical quality in judging poems. Over time it came to mean the beauty of things that have weathered and aged: worn wood, lichen on stone, the dull sheen of old metal. In the late seventeenth century the haiku poet Matsuo Bashō and his followers made it a guiding mood of their verse. Tanizaki's essay is full of *sabi*. He writes of preferring a "pensive lustre" to a shallow brilliance, and of loving things that bear the marks of grime, soot and weather. ### Together In practice the two words blur. The Metropolitan Museum of Art describes them together as expressing "rusticity, melancholy, loneliness, naturalness, and age", the sensibility in which a misshapen, worn peasant's jar can seem more beautiful than a perfectly made dish. The habit of treating them as one fixed phrase, and as Japan's master aesthetic, owes much to modern writing, especially in the West since Koren's book. A useful test is an unglazed storage jar from the Shigaraki kilns. Potters made jars like this as everyday vessels for farmers, built them up in coils and left the fire to decide its surface. Wood ash melted on the shoulders and ran down the sides in streaks. Nobody designed it to be beautiful. Tea men of the sixteenth century looked at jars like this and found in them exactly what they meant by *wabi*. ## Mono no aware *Aware* began as an exclamation, "ah!", the sound you make when something touches you. In Heian-period literature it grew into an aesthetic ideal: a capacity to be moved, usually to a gentle sadness, by the passing of things. Its great showcase is *The Tale of Genji*, written by Murasaki Shikibu in the early eleventh century. *JAANUS* counts 1,044 uses of the word in the novel, as noun, verb and adjective. The fuller phrase *mono no aware*, often translated "the pathos of things", belongs to a later scholar. In a study of *Genji*, the scholar Motoori Norinaga (1730–1801) argued that *mono no aware* was the novel's central theme, and that it meant a deep sensitivity to the emotional side of life in general, not only sadness. He did not invent the feeling. He named it, and turned it into a theory of what Japanese literature is for. The feeling itself is easier to show than to define. Cherry blossoms are the classic example: they are loved because they fall within days, and the falling is part of their beauty. The fourteenth-century monk Yoshida Kenkō made a related point in his *Essays in Idleness* (*Tsurezuregusa*). In Donald Keene's translation, he asks: "Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, at the moon only when it is cloudless?" For Kenkō, the blossom about to open and the garden strewn with fallen petals deserve as much attention as the moment of perfection. That habit of finding beauty in the edges of things, before and after the peak, connects *mono no aware* to *wabi* and *sabi*. ## Ma *Ma* (間) is the hardest of these words to pin down, because in ordinary Japanese it is not a special term at all. It means a gap, an interval, a pause, the space between things. The same character appears in *jikan*, the everyday word for "time". What has made it famous is the idea that this gap is not empty. It is a measured, meaningful interval with a part to play in the whole. ### In architecture and the garden A traditional Japanese room is often valued for what is not in it: open floor, a single scroll in the alcove, sliding panels that can merge or divide spaces. Okakura described the tea room as an "abode of vacancy", empty except for what is brought in for a single occasion. The dry garden works the same way. The stones matter, but so does the raked gravel around them, which gives each stone room to be seen. ### In music and theatre In music and theatre, *ma* is used for timing: the pause between sounds, the stillness between movements. The idea is that a silence has a length and a weight of its own, and is part of the performance rather than a gap in it. ### How the word travelled *Ma* became an international design word through an exhibition. In 1978 the architect Isozaki Arata curated *MA: Space-Time in Japan* at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. According to Japan House Los Angeles, it then travelled to New York, Houston, Chicago, Stockholm and Helsinki. The exhibition presented *ma* as a uniquely Japanese sense of time and space as one thing. Like many of the terms in this exhibit, the word is old but the idea of it as a defining "Japanese concept" took shape in the modern era. ## Yūgen *Yūgen* is usually translated "mysterious grace" or "profound mystery", and it may be the most elusive idea on this page. The word came from Chinese, where it described truths too deep for words. In Japanese poetry criticism of the twelfth century it named a depth of meaning beyond the literal words of a poem. Fujiwara no Shunzei broadened it to the overall effect of a poem: its overtones, the things it suggests without stating. The writer Kamo no Chōmei, author of the *Hōjōki* (1212), compared *yūgen* to an autumn evening under a colourless, silent sky, when for no reason you can name, tears begin to fall. The art most closely tied to *yūgen* is Noh theatre. The actor and playwright Zeami Motokiyo (1363–1443) treated it as the highest quality an actor could reach: a beauty at once vivid and calm. His treatises try to describe it through images rather than definitions, once comparing it to a white bird with a flower in its beak. Later Noh writers such as Konparu Zenchiku pushed the idea toward a colder, more withered beauty, and through the linked-verse poets of the fifteenth century it fed directly into the *wabi* of the tea room. For one of Noh's most striking masks and the plays it belongs to, see our article on the [Hannya](https://japan.je/yokai/hannya.html). ## Iki and shibui Two later ideas show that Japanese taste was never only about rustic simplicity. **Iki** was the ideal of the townspeople of Edo (Tokyo) in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It meant chic, a stylish and knowing ease. Someone with *iki* was rich but not attached to wealth, worldly but not ruled by pleasure, and aware of fashion without being its slave. Its home was the pleasure quarters, and its look was subdued colour with a hint of allure. Kuki Shūzō's study analysed *iki* as a combination of allure, a proud composure and a Buddhist resignation, and argued that no European word could translate it. **Shibui** began as a word for a taste: the astringent, mouth-puckering bite of an unripe persimmon. Over time it came to describe a quiet, understated beauty that rewards a second look, in colours, voices and objects as well as flavours. Unlike *wabi-sabi*, it does not require roughness or imperfection. The writer Yusuke Shibata credits the folk-craft leaders Yanagi Sōetsu and Bernard Leach with spreading this sense of the word in the twentieth century, in Japan and abroad. ## Kintsugi *Kintsugi*, "golden joinery", is a way of mending broken ceramics. The pieces are glued with lacquer made from the sap of the lacquer tree, and the seams are finished with powdered gold, so that the repair becomes visible and decorative. Silver is sometimes used in the same way. The Smithsonian's Freer Gallery of Art, in an exhibition on the subject that ran until November 2009, explained that Japanese craftsmen built on an old practice of using lacquer as an adhesive, and that gold-lacquer repairs became especially associated with ceramics used for tea. ### The legend and the record The story told almost everywhere is that kintsugi began with the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa. He is said to have sent a broken Chinese bowl back to China for repair, received it clumsily fastened with metal staples, and pushed Japanese craftsmen to find something better. Treat this as a legend. The real object behind it is a Chinese celadon bowl now in the Tokyo National Museum, named *Bakōhan*. Its story was written down by the Confucian scholar Itō Tōgai in 1727. In his account, the bowl cracked while Yoshimasa (who ruled 1449–73) was using it. He sent it to China asking for a replacement of the same quality. None could be found, so the bowl came back with its crack held by a metal clamp, which reminded people of a locust. The museum considers the Yoshimasa episode reasonably credible. But the document is about a staple repair, not a gold one. Turning this story into the origin of kintsugi is a modern step, and no surviving source records who first finished a lacquer repair in gold, or when. ### Why repair became beautiful What the record does show is that tea culture valued mended things. The *Nampōroku*, a 1690 record of teachings attributed to Sen no Rikyū, warns against disliking a utensil for being slightly damaged. A visible golden seam fits that attitude: the break becomes part of the object's history rather than something to hide. The modern habit of treating kintsugi as a metaphor for personal healing builds on this, but it is a modern reading. ## Tea and wabi-cha The tea ceremony, *chanoyu*, is where many of these ideas were put into practice. Its rituals and its four principles of harmony, respect, purity and tranquillity are described in our [Sacred Traditions & Ceremonies](https://japan.je/festivals.html#traditions) exhibit. Here the focus is on what tea did to Japanese taste. According to the Met, tea as it is known today emerged in the sixteenth century as a pursuit of rulers, warriors and wealthy merchants. At first the most prized utensils were old Chinese ceramics. A change came through a line of tea masters from Murata Shukō (1423–1502) to Takeno Jōō (1502–1555) and then Sen no Rikyū (1522–1591). They began to use rough Korean bowls and humble Japanese farm wares, and to find beauty in the unrefined and the irregular. This "wabi tea" (*wabi-cha*) moved gatherings into tiny thatched rooms modelled on a hermit's hut. *JAANUS* notes that Jōō pointed to a poem by Fujiwara no Teika, a view of a bare hut by the bay on an autumn evening with no blossoms or bright leaves in sight, as the essence of *wabi*. Rikyū took the idea furthest, favouring the smallest rooms and the plainest utensils. The tea masters' taste also changed how pottery was made. Kilns such as Shigaraki and Bizen began making shapes for tea on purpose. New wares appeared, above all *raku*: lightweight, hand-moulded bowls, often black or red. The Met notes that the Raku family of potters traces its line to Rikyū's time and still makes tea bowls today. Rikyū's pupil Furuta Oribe (1543/44–1615) became known for a taste for warped and seemingly flawed pieces, and the boldly coloured Oribe ware is named after him. ## Gardens of stone and sand Japanese gardens come in many kinds, including pond gardens for strolling and moss gardens. The one that has come to stand for Japanese aesthetics is the *karesansui*, the "dry landscape". It suggests mountains and water using only stones, sand or gravel, and sometimes moss or a few plants. Raked patterns stand for flowing water. A group of upright stones can be a waterfall with no water in it. The word *karesansui* already appears in an eleventh-century garden manual, the *Sakuteiki*. The famous walled gravel gardens, though, belong to the Zen temples of the Muromachi period and after, usually beside an abbot's residence. *JAANUS* points out that they were designed like paintings, to be viewed from one seated position, and that they owe much to Chinese ink landscapes. The best-known example is the garden at Ryōan-ji in Kyoto. Fifteen rocks sit in an expanse of white gravel inside an earthen wall, and from wherever you stand on the viewing platform you cannot see all fifteen at once. The temple was founded in 1450 by the warlord Hosokawa Katsumoto. As Kyoto's official tourism guide admits, no one knows for certain when the rock garden was made, who designed it, or what it was meant to mean. Popular accounts often state its date and designer, or a single correct interpretation, with confidence. Treat them with caution. Part of the garden's power is that its meaning stays open. The form is not frozen in the past. The twentieth-century garden designer Shigemori Mirei (1896–1975) made new dry gardens, such as the east garden of the abbot's quarters at Tōfuku-ji in Kyoto, and *JAANUS* links the modern revival of *karesansui*, in Japan and abroad, to its kinship with abstract art. ## Ink painting and calligraphy Monochrome ink painting reached Japan with Zen Buddhism, which took root in the thirteenth century. The Met explains that the first Japanese artists to work in the medium were mostly Zen monks, who painted quickly to express religious ideas. Over time the subjects widened to bamboo, plum blossom, birds and, above all, landscape. Ink painting depends on restraint. The artist works in shades of a single black and leaves much of the paper bare, so mist, water and distance are made from blank space. In that sense ink painting is *ma* on paper. The great name of this tradition is the painter Sesshū Tōyō (1420–1506). Among his works, the Tokyo National Museum's *Autumn and Winter Landscapes* is a National Treasure. Sesshū is also known for the "splashed ink" (*haboku*) style, in which washes of ink are laid down quickly and loosely, so that mountains and huts seem to emerge from the wet. The Cleveland Museum of Art holds a *haboku* landscape catalogued under his name. Calligraphy shares the brush, the ink and the rule that every stroke is final. It is introduced, with its tools and scripts, in our [Sacred Traditions & Ceremonies](https://japan.je/festivals.html#traditions) exhibit. The Met notes that tea, at its highest level, drew together garden design, architecture, calligraphy, painting and flower arranging. ## Ikebana *Ikebana*, "living flowers", grew from Buddhist flower offerings, which *JAANUS* traces to the sixth century. At first these were simple, symmetrical arrangements placed on an altar beside an incense burner and a candle. By the fifteenth century flower arranging had become an art of its own. *JAANUS* names the priest Ikenobō Senkei, who is recorded making an arrangement in a golden vase in 1462, as the probable originator of *rikka*, a large, formal style. *Rikka* builds an asymmetrical landscape from branches and flowers, standing for the mountain at the centre of the Buddhist cosmos. The Ikenobō school he belonged to is still active. Tea brought a simpler form. *Chabana*, "tea flowers", is traditionally credited to Sen no Rikyū. It may use only a single bloom, placed freely in a plain vase to suggest the flower as it grows. Okakura, writing in 1906, sided firmly with the tea masters, who in his account chose the flowers and then left them "to tell their own story". The later *shōka* style, which arose at the end of the seventeenth century, balances three main branches in an asymmetrical triangle. It is close to the three-part structure described in our festivals exhibit. What all these styles share with the rest of this exhibit is attention to asymmetry, to the season and to empty space. A good arrangement leaves room around the stems, and it is meant to last only as long as the flowers do. ## Ukiyo-e: pictures of the floating world *Ukiyo-e*, "pictures of the floating world", were the popular art of Edo-period cities. The "floating world" was the transient, and therefore enjoyable, world of city pleasures: the theatre, the pleasure quarters, fashion, sightseeing. *JAANUS* notes that the term ukiyo-e first appears in literature in the early 1680s, and that the painter-illustrator Hishikawa Moronobu (d. 1694) is generally regarded as the genre's founder. Most ukiyo-e were woodblock prints, and each was a team effort. The Met's account lists four people: the artist who drew the design, the carver who cut it into cherry-wood blocks, the printer who inked and rubbed each sheet, and the publisher who chose the subject and paid for it all. Early prints were black and white with colour added by hand. In 1765 full-colour printing arrived, using a separate block for each colour. These "brocade pictures" (*nishiki-e*) first appeared as luxury calendars for wealthy Edo patrons, and Suzuki Harunobu was their leading designer. Beautiful women and kabuki actors were the main subjects for a long time. After 1800 the range widened, and landscape became a major genre, above all through two artists. Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) published *Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji* (1831–33), which includes *Under the Wave off Kanagawa*, known worldwide as *The Great Wave*. Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) published *Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō* (1833). *JAANUS* contrasts Hokusai's tightly structured compositions with Hiroshige's more intimate views of weather, travellers and the seasons. ### Japonisme After Japan reopened to Western trade in the 1850s, prints, fans, lacquer and textiles poured into Europe. Paris saw its first formal display of Japanese arts when Japan took a pavilion at the World's Fair of 1867. The Met traces the effect on Western painting, a fashion called *japonisme*. Degas took up asymmetrical compositions, unusual viewpoints and areas of flat, empty space. After a large ukiyo-e exhibition in Paris in 1890, Mary Cassatt made a set of ten colour prints in open admiration of the Japanese ones. Toulouse-Lautrec borrowed the bold outlines and colours of kabuki prints for his posters. The prints were cheap, popular images in their own country, and they helped change modern art in another. ## From scroll to manga Manga and anime are now among Japan's best-known art forms. Their history is often told as an unbroken line from medieval scrolls to modern comics. The real story runs through several separate traditions, and it changed sharply in the twentieth century. ### Scrolls of frolicking animals The usual starting point is the *Chōjū jinbutsu giga*, the "Scrolls of Frolicking Animals and Humans", owned by Kōzan-ji temple in Kyoto and designated a National Treasure. The four ink scrolls date from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They show rabbits, frogs and monkeys bathing, wrestling and holding a Buddhist service, and in later scrolls people at games and contests. They have no text, and their artist is unknown. They are traditionally attributed to the priest Toba Sōjō (1053–1140), but there is no proof. The Kyoto National Museum notes that the scrolls are "frequently referenced as being the first example of manga". That is a popular claim, not a scholarly finding. The scrolls show lively, humorous line drawing and a sense of movement across a scroll, but they were private hand-painted works seen by very few people, and no direct line connects them to modern comics. ### Edo-period picture books Comic pictures for a wide public arrived with woodblock printing. According to the *Nihon Daihyakka Zensho* encyclopedia, humorous picture books called *Toba-e*, named after that same priest, were published in Osaka from 1720 and sold well in Kyoto and Edo too. From the 1770s *kibyōshi*, "yellow covers", combined text and pictures on every page to tell witty, often satirical stories of city life. Ukiyo-e artists illustrated many of them. The word *manga* itself is often credited to Hokusai, whose sketchbooks *Hokusai Manga* began appearing in 1814. They are pages of figures, animals, gestures and everyday scenes, published as models for artists. The same encyclopedia points out that another book of 1814 also used the word in its title. At the time *manga* meant something like "random sketches", not comics. Hokusai made the word famous, but he did not invent it, and it had not yet taken on its modern meaning. ### Modern cartooning Modern manga took shape under Western influence. In 1862 the British artist Charles Wirgman started *The Japan Punch* in Yokohama, and Japanese newspapers soon began carrying cartoons. The cartoonist Kitazawa Rakuten launched the full-colour magazine *Tokyo Puck* in 1905. In 1921 he became chief artist of *Jiji Manga*, the first regular Sunday comics supplement in a Japanese newspaper. Okamoto Ippei joined the *Asahi Shimbun* in 1912 as its cartoonist, at a time when newspaper cartoonists were becoming a recognised profession. In the 1920s and 1930s, comic strips with continuing characters and books of comics for children became popular. ### Tezuka and story manga After the Second World War, manga became a medium for long stories. Tezuka Osamu (1928–1989) published *New Treasure Island* in 1947 with the writer Sakai Shichima. The encyclopedia credits Tezuka's cinematic way of telling stories in pictures with a large influence on postwar manga. His *Astro Boy* (*Tetsuwan Atomu*) ran as a manga from 1952 to 1968. From 1 January 1963 it was broadcast as a weekly animated television series produced by Mushi Production. Tezuka's official site calls it Japan's first animated TV series. Yokai entered the story too. Mizuki Shigeru's tales of the yokai boy Kitarō began in the rental-book (*kashihon*) market. They were remade for the weekly *Shōnen Magazine* in the mid-1960s, and as *GeGeGe no Kitarō* they became a television anime in 1968, introducing a generation to the creatures in our [Yokai Encyclopedia](https://japan.je/yokai-encyclopedia.html). From there manga split into genres for every age and readership, and anime reached audiences far beyond Japan. ## A living tradition These ideas did not stay in museums. In 1925 the thinker Yanagi Sōetsu, with the potters Hamada Shōji and Kawai Kanjirō, coined the word *mingei*, "folk crafts", for the everyday objects made by anonymous craftspeople. Yanagi argued that a farmer's bowl or a woven basket, made for use, could be as beautiful as any work of fine art. The Japan Folk Crafts Museum he founded opened in Tokyo in 1936, with Yanagi as its first director. Its later directors have included Hamada, Yanagi's son Yanagi Sōri, a product designer, and the product designer Fukasawa Naoto. The mingei idea runs straight from the tea masters' farm jars into modern design. Today the old vocabulary is used in many places, from architecture and interior design to graphic design and gardening abroad, and sometimes it is used loosely. When a product is sold as "wabi-sabi" or a room is described as "full of ma", it helps to remember where the words came from: particular poets, tea masters, actors and gardeners, working over many centuries, who were trying to name something they saw. ## Frequently asked questions ### What is wabi-sabi in simple terms? Wabi-sabi is an appreciation of beauty in things that are simple, rough, aged or imperfect. *Wabi* grew from the ideal of the hermit's humble life and became the guiding taste of the tea ceremony. *Sabi* means the beauty of age and weathering. Treating the two as one phrase, and as a design idea, is largely a modern development. ### What does mono no aware mean? *Mono no aware* is often translated "the pathos of things". It means the quiet, often sad sensitivity people feel toward things that pass, such as falling cherry blossoms. The feeling runs through Heian literature like *The Tale of Genji*, and the scholar Motoori Norinaga (1730–1801) made the phrase central to his theory of Japanese literature. ### What is the Japanese concept of ma? *Ma* means an interval or gap in space or time: the empty space in a room or garden, the pause in music or theatre. The idea is that this gap is meaningful, not just empty. Many audiences abroad first met the idea through Isozaki Arata's 1978 exhibition *MA: Space-Time in Japan* in Paris. ### What does yūgen mean? *Yūgen* means a profound, mysterious grace: beauty that is felt and suggested rather than stated outright. It began as a term in poetry criticism, and the Noh actor-playwright Zeami (1363–1443) made it the highest ideal of his art. ### Where does kintsugi come from? Kintsugi, repairing ceramics with lacquer and powdered gold, grew up in Japan and became closely associated with tea utensils. The popular story that it began with the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa is a legend. The documented episode, recorded in 1727, concerns a Chinese bowl that came back to him held together with a metal clamp, not gold. No source records who first made a gold repair. ### Where did manga come from? Manga has several roots. Medieval humorous picture scrolls such as the *Chōjū giga* are often called "the first manga", but that is a popular claim rather than an established history. More direct roots are Edo-period printed picture books, Hokusai's 1814 sketchbooks (which made the word *manga* famous), Western-style newspaper cartooning from the 1860s onward, and the postwar story manga of artists such as Tezuka Osamu. ## Sources - [Ike Bana (Flower Arrangement) in the Ike-no-bo Style — The Met](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/54542) - [Japanese Aesthetics, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/japanese-aesthetics/) - [The Book of Tea, Okakura Kakuzō (Project Gutenberg)](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/769) - [The Book of Tea (Wikipedia, used as a pointer for the 1906 date)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Tea) - [Leonard Koren (Wikipedia, used as a pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Koren) - [Wabi, JAANUS dictionary of Japanese art](https://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/w/wabi.htm) - [Sabi, JAANUS](https://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/s/sabi.htm) - [Aware, JAANUS](https://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/a/aware.htm) - [Yuugen, JAANUS](https://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/y/yuugen.htm) - [Iki, JAANUS](https://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/i/iki.htm) - [Karesansui, JAANUS](https://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/k/karesansui.htm) - [Ikebana, JAANUS](https://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/i/ikebana.htm) - [Ukiyo-e, JAANUS](https://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/u/ukiyoe.htm) - [Haboku, JAANUS](https://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/h/haboku.htm) - [Kibyōshi, JAANUS](https://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/k/kibyoushi.htm) - [The Japanese Tea Ceremony, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Met](https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/jtea/hd_jtea.htm) - [Zen Buddhism, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Met](https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/zen/hd_zen.htm) - [Muromachi Period, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Met](https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/muro/hd_muro.htm) - [Woodblock Prints in the Ukiyo-e Style, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Met](https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ukiy/hd_ukiy.htm) - [Japonisme, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Met](https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/jpon/hd_jpon.htm) - [Rethinking of MA (Japan House Los Angeles)](https://japanhousela.com/events/rethinking-of-ma/) - [間 (Wiktionary, used as a pointer for ordinary usage)](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%96%93) - [Japanese Aesthetic Sense "Shibui", Yusuke Shibata (Kogei Standard)](https://www.kogeistandard.com/insight/serial/editor-in-chief-column-kogei/shibui) - [Golden Seams: The Japanese Art of Mending Ceramics, Freer Gallery of Art (archived)](https://web.archive.org/web/20090317021839/http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/current/GoldenSeams.htm) - [Celadon porcelain bowl, named Bakōhan, e-Museum, National Institutes for Cultural Heritage (archived)](https://web.archive.org/web/20230823010358/https://emuseum.nich.go.jp/detail?content_base_id=100886&langId=en) - [The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University (archived)](https://web.archive.org/web/20221208014946/https://museum.cornell.edu/exhibitions/aesthetics-mended-japanese-ceramics) - [Ryoan-ji Temple, Kyoto City Official Travel Guide](https://kyoto.travel/en/shrine_temple/134.html) - [Autumn and Winter Landscapes, Sesshū Tōyō, Tokyo National Museum](https://www.tnm.jp/modules/r_collection/index.php?controller=dtl&colid=A1398&lang=en) - [History of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum (in Japanese)](https://mingeikan.or.jp/english/about/) - [Masterpieces of Kōsan-ji Temple: Scrolls of Frolicking Animals and Humans, Kyoto National Museum](https://www.kyohaku.go.jp/old/eng/special/koremade/exhibition20141007.html) - [Choju jinbutsu giga (Scrolls of Frolicking Animals), Japan Tourism Agency multilingual commentary](https://www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db/common/001546006.docx) - [漫画 (manga), Nihon Daihyakka Zensho and Sekai Daihyakka Jiten, Kotobank](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%BC%AB%E7%94%BB-138941) - [Profile of Tezuka Osamu, Tezuka Osamu Official](https://tezukaosamu.net/en/about/) - [Tezuka Osamu chronology, 1940s, Tezuka Osamu Official](https://tezukaosamu.net/en/about/1940.html) - [Astro Boy (1963 TV series), Tezuka Osamu Official](https://tezukaosamu.net/en/anime/30.html) - [Mizuki Shigeru column, Fami-geki (in Japanese)](https://www.fami-geki.com/mizuki/column.html) - [Image: Large Storage Jar (Ōtsubo), The Met](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/44637) - [Image: Shigaraki Tea Jar (Chatsubo), The Met](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/670995) - [Image: Black Raku Tea Bowl, The Met](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/62898) - [Image: Rock Garden, Ryoanji Temple, photograph by Jim Gateley (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rock_Garden,_Ryoanji_Temple,_Kyoto,_Japan_-_panoramio.jpg) - [Image: Haboku, Splashed Ink Landscape, Sesshū Tōyō, Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/1955.43) - [Image: Under the Wave off Kanagawa, Katsushika Hokusai, The Met](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/45434) - [Image: Hokusai Sketchbooks (Hokusai Manga), volume 1, The Met](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/57679) --- # About Japan.je: publisher, sourcing, AI use and corrections URL: https://japan.je/about.html Japan.je is a free online museum of Japanese culture, mythology and folklore. It has a [yokai encyclopedia](https://japan.je/yokai-encyclopedia.html) with a full article on each of its 49 yokai and kami, a [guide to the Japanese gods](https://japan.je/japanese-gods.html), myths retold from the [Kojiki](https://japan.je/kojiki-chronicles.html), and exhibits on [festivals](https://japan.je/festivals.html), [samurai](https://japan.je/samurai-culture.html), [regional legends](https://japan.je/regional-legends.html) and [art and aesthetics](https://japan.je/art-aesthetics.html). This page explains who runs it and how its pages are made, so that you can judge how far to trust them. ## Who publishes Japan.je Japan.je is published by the **Mashiyu Foundation USA**, an Arizona nonprofit corporation with 501(c)(3) status. The Foundation was founded by **Christopher Fernandes**, its founder and initial director. Its work covers education and the preservation of Japanese cultural heritage, and Japan.je is its online museum. The site is free to read. ## How we write and source our pages Every article and exhibit lists its sources at the end, and the specific claims in the text name where they come from ("the *Nihon Shoki* records…", "Nipponica describes…"). We work from: - **Japanese reference works**, mostly read through Kotobank: the *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* (Japan's largest historical dictionary), the Nipponica and Heibonsha encyclopedias, and others. - **Scholarly sources**, such as Kokugakuin University's *Encyclopedia of Shinto* and Nichibunken's database of recorded folk beliefs about strange beings. - **Primary texts** in published translation, above all the *Kojiki* (712) and *Nihon Shoki* (720), and historical books and prints held by the National Diet Library and other collections. - **Official pages** of shrines, temples, museums, universities and government bodies, when they describe their own history or holdings. We list Wikipedia only as a pointer for further reading, never as the support for a claim. ## How we treat doubtful claims A lot of what is repeated about Japanese folklore online has no early source. Our rule is simple: if we cannot find a source for a claim, it does not go on the page as fact. Where it is too widespread to ignore, we say that it is a common modern claim and that we found no early source for it. Some examples from our own pages: - The popular story that the [akaname](https://japan.je/yokai/akaname.html) was invented to scare people into cleaning their baths is not in any Edo or Meiji text we read. The oldest account explains the creature as born from grime, with no moral at all. - The [Yatagarasu](https://japan.je/yokai/yatagarasu.html) is drawn everywhere with three legs, but neither the *Kojiki* nor the *Nihon Shoki* says anything about its legs. - The idea that the [nurarihyon](https://japan.je/yokai/nurarihyon.html) is the supreme commander of the yokai goes back to a 1929 caption and twentieth-century manga, not to Edo folklore. Where sources disagree, we give each view side by side and say who holds it, rather than choosing one silently. We also separate legend from record. A shrine's founding tradition, for example, is reported as the shrine's tradition. Dates are given as precisely as the sources allow, and we do not call something "ancient" or "medieval" unless a dated source shows it. ## How we use AI We use AI tools in two ways, and we want to be open about both. **Writing.** Articles are researched and drafted with the help of AI tools. A draft is not published until every claim in it has been checked against the source it cites. Claims that cannot be traced to a source are removed. Unreviewed drafts are kept off the site by our build process, and any change to the text goes through the same check again. **Pictures.** The illustrations of yokai and of the Kojiki myths are original artworks made for this site with AI image tools. They are imaginative pictures, not historical depictions, and they are not copies of any real artwork. We do not use AI to imitate real Japanese art. When we show historical artworks or photographs, as on the [art](https://japan.je/art-aesthetics.html) and [festivals](https://japan.je/festivals.html) pages, they are real images reproduced from museums and public archives, and each one is credited with a link to its source. ## Corrections If you find a mistake, please tell us. You can reach the Mashiyu Foundation through the contact link on its [About page](https://mashiyu.org/about-us.html). Tell us which page, what you think is wrong and, if you can, a source. We check every report against the sources. When we correct a page, its "last updated" date changes, and we do not change a page's date unless its content has changed. ## Using our pages You are welcome to link to any page and to quote from it with a link back. Please cite the page's own address, so that readers can see its sources. For AI assistants and search tools, a plain-text guide to the site is at [japan.je/llms.txt](https://japan.je/llms.txt), and the full text of every page, with sources, is at [japan.je/llms-full.txt](https://japan.je/llms-full.txt). ## Supporting the museum Japan.je is free to read and is run by a nonprofit. If you find it useful and would like to help it grow, you can support the Mashiyu Foundation's cultural preservation work on its [donation page](https://mashiyu.org/donate.html). ## Sources - [About Mashiyu Foundation USA (mashiyu.org)](https://mashiyu.org/about-us.html) - [Mashiyu Foundation USA home page, programs and leadership (mashiyu.org)](https://mashiyu.org/) - [Donate, Mashiyu Foundation USA (mashiyu.org)](https://mashiyu.org/donate.html) --- ## Ryujin (龍神): Japanese Dragon God of the Sea URL: https://japan.je/yokai/ryujin.html ### Who is Ryujin? *Ryūjin* (龍神 or 竜神), the "dragon god", is the name Japanese people give to the dragon that rules water. He lives in deep pools, lakes and the sea, brings rain, and owns a palace full of treasure called the *Ryūgū*, the Dragon Palace. Fishermen pray to him for calm water and good catches. Farmers once prayed to him for rain. He is not a single god with one fixed story. Shōgakukan's *Nipponica* encyclopedia says Ryūjin is also called *ryūō* ("dragon king") or simply *ryū* ("dragon"). It describes Japanese dragon-god belief as an old native faith in water gods that merged with dragon beliefs brought from China. The Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto* makes the same point more sharply. Chinese ideas shaped the cult, but the Japanese dragon that people actually worshipped was a deified snake, the symbol of a water god. ### Watatsumi and the dragon kings Japan's oldest written myths have a sea god, but he is not called a dragon. In the *Kojiki* (712) he is Watatsumi (綿津見神). The Kokugakuin encyclopedia explains the name as "holder of the sea". Izanagi and Izanami produce him while giving birth to the gods, and three more Watatsumi gods appear when Izanagi washes himself after his return from the land of the dead. In the best-known myth, the young prince Hoori loses his brother's fishhook, goes down to Watatsumi's palace, marries his daughter Toyotama-hime and comes home with the jewels that rule the tides. That story is told in full on our page [Ryujin's Palace](https://japan.je/kojiki/ryujin-palace.html). The sea god's family matters to the imperial line. In the *Kojiki*, Toyotama-hime bears Hoori a son, Ugayafukiaezu, and then returns to the sea, leaving her younger sister Tamayori-hime to nurse the child. When he grows up he marries Tamayori-hime, and their youngest son is Kamu-yamato-iware-biko, remembered as Jimmu, the legendary first emperor. Jimmu's grandmother and his mother were therefore both daughters of the sea god. Through them the imperial house traces its descent from the sea as well as from the sun goddess [Amaterasu](https://japan.je/yokai/amaterasu.html). In the chronicles that ancestor is Watatsumi, not a dragon king. Calling him Ryūjin belongs to the later merger described below. The dragon kings came with Buddhism. In Buddhist texts they are *nāga*, serpent beings who live in water and make clouds and rain. Heibonsha's *Sekai Daihyakka Jiten* notes that they count among the eight kinds of beings who protect Buddhism. Two of them, Nanda and Upananda, are said to have poured pure water over the newborn Buddha. The *Lotus Sutra* names eight dragon kings in the crowd that heard the Buddha preach, and Japan knew them as the *hachidai ryūō*, the Eight Great Dragon Kings. In Indian art, Heibonsha adds, these kings wear a cobra's hood on their heads. In Japanese paintings of the Buddha's death they become armoured figures wearing Chinese-style scaly dragons as crowns. Over time the two pictures merged. *Nipponica* points to an early sign of this in the *Nihon Shoki* (720). In the *Kojiki*, Toyotama-hime shows her true form while giving birth as a *wani*, a great sea creature. The *Nihon Shoki*'s main text says she turned into a dragon instead, which *Nipponica* puts down to contact with dragon-god belief. The Kokugakuin encyclopedia is careful about how far the merger went. The ocean gods of the great Sumiyoshi and Munakata shrines are tied to the Watatsumi of myth. But the sea god whom ordinary fishermen prayed to "had little relation to the kami of myth". That popular god was Ryūjin. The encyclopedia adds that Shugendō mountain ascetics are thought to have done much to spread his cult. Britannica Japan likewise suggests that the word *ryūjin* was first used by medieval Shugendō practitioners. ### The Dragon Palace and Urashima The word *ryūgū*, "dragon palace", is old in Japan. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* finds it in a court poem in the *Ryōunshū* anthology of 814. Its earliest example of *Ryūgū-jō*, "Dragon Palace castle", is from the Buddhist tale collection *Hōbutsushū*, of about 1179, where someone goes to the Dragon Palace to beg for a wish-granting jewel. The idea had deep Buddhist roots. Heibonsha cites sutras that place the palace of the dragon king Sāgara at the bottom of the great ocean, with seven rings of walls all decorated with the seven treasures. The *Lotus Sutra* tells of Sāgara's daughter, who reaches enlightenment at the age of eight. Chinese writers added a sea dragon king whose palace lay under the sea east of Suzhou. In Japan, Heibonsha says, the Dragon Palace became a paradise across or under the sea, full of beauty, pleasure and riches. It could also be a land of the dead. The *Tale of the Heike* hints at this when the child emperor Antoku drowns at the end of the Genpei War. The most famous visitor is Urashima. *Nipponica* traces his story to the *Nihon Shoki* entry for the 22nd year of Emperor Yūryaku, the *Man'yōshū* (volume 9) and a surviving passage from the *Tango Fudoki*. In those early versions he goes to Tokoyo or Hōrai, the land of immortals, not to a dragon palace. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* says the name Urashima Tarō only appears from the Muromachi-period *otogizōshi* stories onward. *Nipponica* adds that the familiar ride on a turtle's back to Ryūgū-jō is a medieval and later form. The dragon god himself plays little part in it. The tale is set in his palace, and its heroine is the princess Otohime. Her name is later still. *Otohime* (乙姫) originally meant simply "younger princess", the opposite of an elder one, as Heibonsha and Nipponica both explain. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* finds it used for the princess of the Dragon Palace only from 1563. The earlier versions call her a woman transformed from a turtle or, in the *Man'yōshū*, the daughter of the sea god. Dictionaries treat the myth of Hoori and Toyotama-hime as a forerunner of the Urashima story, not as the same tale, and none of the sources we have read identifies Otohime with Toyotama-hime or her younger sister. The link is made locally, though. At Ryūgū Jinja on Cape Nagasakibana in Ibusuki, Kagoshima, which is said to be where Urashima set out, a Japan Tourism Agency text describes the enshrined goddess Toyotama-hime as the model for Otohime. That is a shrine tradition, not something the old texts say. Folk tales gave the Dragon Palace a kinder face. In *Ryūgū dōji*, "the Dragon Palace boy", an old man throws firewood into a pool as an offering and is rewarded with a strange child who brings him wealth. In *Ryūgū nyōbō*, a man who gives flowers to the water is given a beautiful wife from the palace. *Nipponica* sums these stories up: Ryūjin gives riches to people who please him, and his palace is a land of treasure. ### The tide jewels The best-known treasures of the sea god are two jewels, one to raise the tide and one to lower it. In the *Kojiki*, Watatsumi gives them to Hoori as the *shiomitsu-tama* and *shiohiru-tama*. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* quotes the *Nihon Shoki* version, which roughly translated says: "If you dip the tide-flowing jewel, the tide will suddenly rise." Later the jewels were attached to Empress Jingū's legendary campaign across the sea to Korea. They now went by the Sino-Japanese names *kanju* (干珠, "ebb jewel") and *manju* (満珠, "flood jewel"). The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* finds *kanju* in the song collection *Gyokurin'en* (1319), which praises the reign of Okinaga-tarashi-hime, the empress's name, for using the power of the ebb and flood jewels to subdue the three Korean kingdoms. Its example for *manju* comes from the war chronicle *Taiheiki* (late fourteenth century), in which the jewels are borrowed from the treasures of the Dragon Palace. By then the jewels of the Kojiki's sea god had become the property of the Buddhist dragon king. ### Rain prayers Because the dragon god commands water, he was the god to ask for rain. Heibonsha says that rain prayers were often held at the pools and deep river bends where Ryūjin was thought to live. *Nipponica* records a harsher custom. People threw filth or the hearts of cattle and horses into such pools to anger the dragon, so that it would send rain. Straw ropes twisted into the shape of a dragon or serpent were used in rain rituals and tug-of-war contests. When a whirlwind rose from the water, people said the dragon was climbing to heaven. This, *Nipponica* suggests, shows the dragon joining with the cult of the thunder god [Raijin](https://japan.je/yokai/raijin.html). Esoteric Buddhism had its own rain rite, the *shōugyō-hō*. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* describes it as a ritual in which the great dragon kings are called on for rain in times of drought. Tradition credits Kūkai with starting it. Its earliest dated mention is the diary of Fujiwara no Michinaga, for the sixth month of 1018. Heibonsha's encyclopedia, in its entry on the painter Jōchi, tells the legend behind the rite. When Kūkai prayed for rain at the Shinsen'en garden in Kyoto in 824, a dragon king called Zennyo Ryūō appeared. Jōchi's painting of Zennyo Ryūō, dated 1145 and kept at Kongōbu-ji on Mount Kōya, is the only Heian painting whose date and artist are both known. Even a place name keeps this link. The Ryūjin hot spring in Wakayama, *Nipponica* says, takes its name from a shrine to the dragon king Nanda. Heibonsha records the legend that Kūkai recommended the spring to the public after a message from that dragon king in a dream. ### Fishermen and the sea On the coast, Ryūjin is the god of the sea itself. The Kokugakuin encyclopedia says fishermen prayed to him for good catches and calm seas. They held festivals for him under names such as *uramatsuri* ("inlet festival"), *isomatsuri* ("beach festival") and *shiomatsuri* ("tide festival"). *Nipponica* adds that on the day of the dragon-god festival many fishing communities stayed off the water, as an apology for disturbing the sea. The most widespread taboo was against dropping metal, especially blades, into the sea. Both encyclopedias explain it the same way. Snakes were believed to hate metal, and the rule shows the old water-snake cult still lying under the dragon. Heibonsha records another custom from Izumo. Sea snakes that wash ashore in mid-November are laid on seaweed on an offering stand and presented at shrines as Ryūjin. Heibonsha also lists the sailors' god of Konpira in Kagawa as a form of dragon-god faith. The Buddhist name Konpira comes from the Sanskrit *kumbhīra*, a crocodile, which China turned into a dragon king. ### Frequently asked questions ### Is Ryujin the same as Watatsumi? Not exactly. Watatsumi is the sea god of the *Kojiki* and *Nihon Shoki*, and is never called a dragon there. Ryūjin is the later dragon god formed from native water-snake beliefs and the Buddhist and Chinese dragon kings. The two came to be identified, but the Kokugakuin encyclopedia notes that the dragon god of fishermen had little to do with the god of the myths. ### What is Ryugu-jo? It is the Dragon Palace, the home of the dragon king under the sea, or in some tales under a pool or river. Japanese dictionaries trace the word *ryūgū* to 814 and *Ryūgū-jō* to about 1179. It is best known as the palace Urashima Tarō visits. ### What are the tide jewels? They are two jewels, one that makes the sea rise and one that makes it fall. In the *Kojiki* the sea god gives them to Hoori. Later writings call them *kanju* and *manju* and link them to Empress Jingū's legendary campaign. The *Taiheiki* says they were borrowed from the Dragon Palace. ### Did Ryujin send the kamikaze that wrecked the Mongol fleets? No early source says so. The Kokugakuin encyclopedia gives the traditional claim: the "divine wind" of the Mongol invasions came from the Kazahinomi-no-miya, a wind-god shrine at Ise. Linking it to Ryūjin is a modern claim with no early source. ### Why don't fishermen drop metal into the sea? Folk belief held that the sea's dragon god, like snakes, hates metal. Dropping a knife or other blade into the water was thought to anger him. Scholars read the taboo as a trace of the older belief that water gods were snakes. ### Sources - [竜神: *Digital Daijisen*, Nipponica, Heibonsha *Sekai Daihyakka Jiten* and Britannica Japan entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%AB%9C%E7%A5%9E) - [Ryūjin shinkō (dragon-kami faith), Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=8979) - [*Kojiki*, tr. B. H. Chamberlain (1882), Section 42: the parturition-house and Tamayori-hime (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_42) - [*Kojiki*, tr. B. H. Chamberlain (1882), Section 43: the children of Ugayafukiaezu (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_43) - [Watatsumi, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9733) - [Umi no kami (kami of the sea), Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9971) - [Kaze no kami (kami of wind), Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9936) - [竜王: Heibonsha *Sekai Daihyakka Jiten* entry (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%AB%9C%E7%8E%8B) - [八大竜王: *Digital Daijisen* and Nipponica entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%85%AB%E5%A4%A7%E7%AB%9C%E7%8E%8B) - [竜宮: Heibonsha *Sekai Daihyakka Jiten* and *Mypedia* entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%AB%9C%E5%AE%AE) - [龍宮: *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* entry (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%BE%8D%E5%AE%AE) - [乙姫: Heibonsha, Nipponica and Britannica Japan entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%B9%99%E5%A7%AB-40752) - [弟姫・乙姫: *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* and *Daijisen* entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%BC%9F%E5%A7%AB-453497) - [海幸山幸: *Daijisen* and *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%B5%B7%E5%B9%B8%E5%B1%B1%E5%B9%B8-441493) - [Ryūgū Jinja, Ibusuki: "Unlocking the Ryugu Legend", Japan Tourism Agency multilingual commentary database](https://www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db/en/R1-02936.html) - [Same text, Chinese version naming Toyotama-hime as Otohime's model (Japan Tourism Agency, PDF)](https://www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db/common/001637982.pdf) - [竜宮城: *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* entry (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%AB%9C%E5%AE%AE%E5%9F%8E) - [浦島太郎: *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* and Nipponica entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%B5%A6%E5%B3%B6%E5%A4%AA%E9%83%8E) - [潮満瓊: *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* entry (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%BD%AE%E6%BA%80%E7%93%8A) - [干珠: *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* entry (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%B9%B2%E7%8F%A0) - [満珠: *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* entry (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%BA%80%E7%8F%A0) - [請雨経法: *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* entry (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%AB%8B%E9%9B%A8%E7%B5%8C%E6%B3%95) - [善女竜王: *Nihon Jinmei Daijiten* and Heibonsha entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%96%84%E5%A5%B3%E7%AB%9C%E7%8E%8B) - [龍神 (Ryūjin village and hot spring): Nipponica entry (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%BE%8D%E7%A5%9E) - [Wikipedia: Ryūjin (pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ry%C5%ABjin) --- ## Susanoo (須佐之男命): Storm God of Japanese Myth URL: https://japan.je/yokai/susanoo.html ### Who is Susanoo? *Susanoo no Mikoto* (須佐之男命, also written 素戔嗚尊) is the unruly brother of the sun goddess [Amaterasu](https://japan.je/yokai/amaterasu.html). He causes chaos in heaven and is driven out. Then, on earth, he kills the eight-headed serpent of Izumo and founds a line of gods. The *Kojiki* often gives his full name as *Take-haya-susanoo*. Heibonsha's encyclopedia reads *susa* as "raging" and *take* and *haya* as words for his force and speed. Nipponica offers another reading: that the name is tied to the place-name Susa in Izumo. He is often called a storm god, but the sources are careful about this. The Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto* says only that he "has been associated with wind and rain", and that much about his character remains unclear. The *Yamakawa Dictionary of Japanese History* notes that he has been explained both as a storm god and as a farming god. Heibonsha's encyclopedia calls him the most problematic figure in Japanese myth, and Nipponica stresses his two opposite faces: a wrecker in heaven and a founder on earth. ### Birth and banishment The two court chronicles tell his birth differently. In the *Kojiki* (712), the god Izanagi washes himself after his journey to the land of the dead (see [Izanagi and Izanami](https://japan.je/kojiki/izanagi-and-izanami.html)). Amaterasu is born from his left eye, [Tsukuyomi](https://japan.je/kojiki/tsukuyomi.html) from his right eye, and Susanoo from his nose. In the main text of the *Nihon Shoki* (720), Izanagi and Izanami bear him together, after the sun goddess, the moon god and the deformed "leech child". His first crime is weeping. In the *Kojiki*, Izanagi gives him the sea to rule, but he cries until his long beard reaches the pit of his stomach. Chamberlain's 1882 translation says his weeping withered "the green mountains into withered mountains" and dried up the rivers and seas. He says he wants to go to his dead mother's land, and Izanagi drives him out. The *Nihon Shoki* main text adds that his weeping "brought many of the people of the land to an untimely end". There both parents banish him to the "Nether Land". Before he goes, he climbs to heaven to take leave of his sister. She fears he has come to take her realm and meets him armed. They hold a contest of pledges, *ukei*, and Susanoo declares himself the winner. Then he runs riot. He breaks down the ridges of her rice fields, fouls the hall of her harvest feast, and throws a flayed horse through the roof of her weaving hall. The chronicles differ on the result. In the *Kojiki* a weaving maiden strikes herself with her shuttle and dies. In the *Nihon Shoki* main text Amaterasu herself is wounded by the shuttle. She hides in the Heavenly Rock Cave and the world goes dark. That story is told on our page [Amaterasu and the Heavenly Rock Cave](https://japan.je/kojiki/amaterasu-cave.html). The gods punish Susanoo with a heavy fine, cut off his beard, pull out his nails and expel him. ### The serpent, the sword and the first poem Driven from heaven, Susanoo comes down to the upper Hi River in Izumo. There he meets an old couple weeping over their last daughter, Kushinada-hime. An eight-headed serpent has eaten her seven sisters. He changes the girl into a comb for his hair, makes the serpent drunk on strong sake and cuts it to pieces. In its tail he finds a sword. Our page [Yamata no Orochi](https://japan.je/kojiki/yamata-no-orochi.html) tells the full story. Details vary between the accounts. The *Kojiki* says he gave the sword to Amaterasu. The *Nihon Shoki* main text has him call it "a divine sword", which he dare not keep for himself, and give it "to the Gods of Heaven" (Aston's 1896 translation). One *Nihon Shoki* variant sets the fight at the River Ye in Aki, not in Izumo. Another says he first went down with his son Isotakeru to the Korean kingdom of Silla, refused to stay there, and crossed to Izumo in a boat made of clay. Yet another has him pluck out his beard and body hair to make Japan's trees: cedar, cypress, podocarpus and camphor. The sword is Kusanagi, one of the three imperial regalia. The Kokugakuin encyclopedia gives the tradition. Prince Yamato Takeru later carried it east, then left it with his bride Miyasu-hime in Owari. It has been enshrined ever since at Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya, where Susanoo is one of the five gods worshipped. Nipponica doubts the story. It notes that the sword was stolen in 668 and returned to Atsuta in 686, after diviners blamed it for the emperor's illness. In its view, a curse like that suggests the sword was Atsuta's own treasure before it became a regalia sword. After the fight, Susanoo looks for a place to live with his bride. He reaches Suga, says his heart feels refreshed, and builds a palace there. As clouds rise around it he sings *Yakumo tatsu*, "Eight clouds rise". The kana preface of the *Kokinshū* poetry anthology says that in the age of men, 31-syllable poetry began with Susanoo. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* finds the same idea in the *Heike monogatari* (thirteenth century). ### Lord of the Root Land The *Kojiki* gives Susanoo a second career that the *Nihon Shoki* leaves out. After his expulsion from heaven he asks the food goddess Ōgetsuhime for food. She pulls dishes from her nose, mouth and rear, so he kills her, thinking she is serving him filth. Silkworms, rice, millet, beans and barley grow from her body. (A *Nihon Shoki* variant gives this killing to the moon god Tsukuyomi instead.) Later, Susanoo rules *Ne no kuni*, the Root Land beneath the earth, which Chamberlain translates as "the Nether-Distant-Land". The young god Ōnamuchi flees there, and Susanoo sets him deadly tests: a night in a house of snakes, another in a house of centipedes and wasps, and a moor set on fire around him. When Ōnamuchi escapes with Susanoo's daughter Suseri-hime and his sword, bow and lute, Susanoo calls after him from the pass. He tells him to drive out his brothers and become "the Deity Master-of-the-Great-Land", Ōkuninushi. Our page [Ōkuninushi](https://japan.je/kojiki/okuninushi.html) follows that story. Heibonsha's encyclopedia sums up the three roles: a rebel in heaven, a hero on earth, and an ancestor who tests the young king in the underworld. The Kokugakuin encyclopedia notes that his words in Izumo are even written as imperial proclamations. ### Worship in Izumo Izumo's own record, the *Izumo no kuni fudoki* (733), does not tell the serpent story. The Kokugakuin encyclopedia says it treats Susanoo as just one of many local gods. But it does name places for him. Nipponica says that in the *Fudoki* he settles his own spirit at Susa, and Susa Jinja in Izumo City is still his shrine. It is listed in both the *Fudoki* and the tenth-century *Engishiki*. The *Daijisen Plus* dictionary notes a tradition that Susa is where his life ended. Kumano Taisha in Matsue, the *ichinomiya* or first shrine of Izumo province, worships a god called Kushimikenu, whom the *Daijisen* identifies with Susanoo. Heibonsha's historical gazetteer suggests Kushimikenu was first a grain god of the clan that ruled the Ou district. ### Gozu Tennō and the Gion festival Susanoo's largest cult grew up far from Izumo, and in a strange form. In the Heian period, Kyoto feared epidemics and the angry spirits thought to cause them. A plague god called Gozu Tennō, the "Ox-Head Heavenly King", was worshipped at the Gion shrine on the eastern edge of the city. The Kokugakuin encyclopedia traces this god to a Buddhist guardian of the Jetavana monastery in India, mixed with Chinese and Japanese yin-yang lore. In Japan he became identified with Susanoo. A key text is a surviving fragment of the *Bingo no kuni fudoki*. In it a travelling god, named in Nipponica's summary as Susanoo, asks for a night's lodging. The rich brother Kotan Shōrai turns him away, but the poor brother Somin Shōrai feeds him on millet. The god tells Somin to have his family wear a ring of reed grass, *chi no wa*, at the waist. Nipponica's summary says that when the plague came, Somin's daughter, who did as she was told, was the one who lived. This is the origin story of the summer *chi no wa* grass rings that people still walk through at shrines. It also explains the charms marked "descendants of Somin Shōrai" that Yasaka Shrine and others hand out. The Gion shrine's founding is told in more than one way. Yasaka Shrine gives two traditions: that an envoy from Korea brought Susanoo there in 656, or that the monk Ennyo built a hall there in 876. The Kokugakuin encyclopedia dates it to 876 or the early tenth century. The same uncertainty applies to the festival. Yasaka Shrine traces the Gion Festival to 869, when 66 halberds were set up against an epidemic. It cites a shrine record written no earlier than 1670 for this. The Kokugakuin encyclopedia says the Gion *goryō-e* is believed to date to the later tenth century. In 1868 the Meiji government separated Buddhas from kami, and the Gion shrine was renamed Yasaka Jinja. Many Gion shrines elsewhere took the name Yasaka too. Today Yasaka Shrine names Susanoo, Kushinada-hime and their eight children as its main gods. ### Frequently asked questions ### Is Susanoo a storm god? He is often called one, and the *Nihon Shoki* links his descent from heaven with heavy wind and rain. But the Kokugakuin *Encyclopedia of Shinto* says only that he has been associated with wind and rain, and that much of his character is unclear. Some scholars see him first as a farming god. ### Why was Susanoo banished from heaven? He was banished twice. Izanagi first expelled him for weeping instead of ruling his realm. Then, after his rampage in heaven drove Amaterasu into the Rock Cave, the gods fined him, cut his beard, pulled out his nails and threw him out. ### What did Susanoo find in the serpent's tail? A sword, later called Kusanagi, the "grass-mower". It became one of the three imperial regalia and is said to be enshrined at Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya. ### Who is Gozu Tennō? A plague god worshipped at the Gion shrine in Kyoto, built from Buddhist and yin-yang sources, who became identified with Susanoo. The shrine was renamed Yasaka Jinja in 1868, and Susanoo is now its main god. ### Is Susanoo good or evil? Neither, simply. In heaven he breaks every rule. On earth he saves Kushinada-hime, kills the serpent and founds the line that leads to Ōkuninushi. Japanese scholars have called him the most complicated figure in the myths. ### Sources - [Susanoo, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9152) - [Yamatanoorochi, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9729) - [Atsuta Shinkō, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9032) - [Gion/Tsushima Shinkō, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=8885) - [Gozu Tennō, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9933) - [Gion matsuri, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=8952) - [素戔嗚尊: Heibonsha, *Mypedia*, Nipponica, Yamakawa and *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%B4%A0%E6%88%94%E5%97%9A%E5%B0%8A) - [草薙剣: Nipponica, *Daijisen* and Britannica Japan entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%8D%89%E8%96%99%E5%89%A3) - [須佐神社: Nipponica, *Daijisen Plus* and Heibonsha gazetteer entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%A0%88%E4%BD%90%E7%A5%9E%E7%A4%BE) - [熊野大社: *Daijisen* and Heibonsha gazetteer entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%86%8A%E9%87%8E%E5%A4%A7%E7%A4%BE) - [蘇民将来: Nipponica, Heibonsha and *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%98%87%E6%B0%91%E5%B0%86%E6%9D%A5) - [*Kojiki*, tr. B. H. Chamberlain (1882), Section XII: The Crying and Weeping (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_12) - [*Kojiki*, tr. B. H. Chamberlain (1882), Section XVII: The August Expulsion (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_17) - [*Kojiki*, tr. B. H. Chamberlain (1882), Section XIX: The Palace of Suga (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_19) - [*Nihongi*, tr. W. G. Aston (1896), Book I (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nihongi/Book_I) - [*Kokinshū*, kana preface (Japanese Wikisource)](https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%8F%A4%E4%BB%8A%E5%92%8C%E6%AD%8C%E9%9B%86%E4%BB%AE%E5%90%8D%E5%BA%8F) - [History of Yasaka Shrine, Yasaka Jinja (official site, Japanese)](https://www.yasaka-jinja.or.jp/about/history/) - [Enshrined deities, Yasaka Jinja (official site, Japanese)](https://www.yasaka-jinja.or.jp/shrine_deity/) - [*Kojiki*, tr. B. H. Chamberlain (1882), Section XXIII: The Nether-Distant-Land (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_23) - [Fudoki, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=8629) - [古事記: *Daijisen* and *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%8F%A4%E4%BA%8B%E8%A8%98) - [日本書紀: *Daijisen* and *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E6%9B%B8%E7%B4%80) - [Wikipedia: Susanoo-no-Mikoto (pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanoo-no-Mikoto) --- ## Amaterasu (天照大御神): Japanese Sun Goddess URL: https://japan.je/yokai/amaterasu.html ### Who is Amaterasu? *Amaterasu Ōmikami* (天照大御神), "the great august deity who shines in heaven", is the sun goddess of Japanese myth. She rules the Plain of High Heaven, *Takamanohara*, and is honoured as the ancestral deity of the imperial house. Her main shrine is the Inner Shrine of Ise Jingū in Mie Prefecture, where a sacred mirror stands for her presence. She is a kami, not a yokai. She belongs in this collection because so many of Japan's founding myths turn on her: the contest with her brother [Susanoo](https://japan.je/yokai/susanoo.html), her retreat into the Heavenly Rock Cave, and the descent of her grandson to rule the earth. The *Yamakawa Dictionary of Japanese History* points out that "Amaterasu" is really a title made of words of praise. The *Nihon Shoki* also calls her *Ōhirume no muchi* (大日孁貴). Several dictionaries read *hirume* as "woman of the sun", a priestess who served the sun. ### Two chronicles, two births Her story is told in the two court chronicles of the early eighth century, the *Kojiki* (712) and the *Nihon Shoki* (720). They do not agree on how she was born. In the *Kojiki*, the god Izanagi returns from the land of the dead (told on our page [Izanagi and Izanami](https://japan.je/kojiki/izanagi-and-izanami.html)) and bathes to wash off its pollution. Amaterasu is born as he washes his left eye, the moon god [Tsukuyomi](https://japan.je/kojiki/tsukuyomi.html) from his right eye, and Susanoo from his nose. In Chamberlain's 1882 translation, Izanagi rejoices that "at my final begetting" he has "gotten three illustrious children". He gives Amaterasu his jewel necklace and charges her to rule the Plain of High Heaven. The main text of the *Nihon Shoki* tells it differently. Izanagi and Izanami, having made the islands, mountains, rivers and trees, decide to produce a "lord of the universe" (Aston's 1896 translation) and together bear the Sun-Goddess. Her light shines through all six directions, so her parents send her up to heaven by the ladder that still joined it to earth. The *Nihon Shoki* also quotes variant accounts. One repeats the eye-washing story. Another says she was born from a white-copper mirror that Izanagi held in his left hand. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* sums this up as three birth traditions: from water, from a womb, and from a mirror. The chronicles also differ on a famous food myth. In the *Kojiki*, Susanoo kills the food goddess Ōgetsuhime. In a *Nihon Shoki* variant it is Tsukuyomi who kills the food goddess Ukemochi, and Amaterasu, angry, refuses to see him again, so that sun and moon live apart. In that version Amaterasu then sows the grains that came from the goddess's body, and she starts the growing of rice and the keeping of silkworms. ### The cave, the mirror and the descent When Susanoo comes up to heaven, Amaterasu fears he means to take her realm and meets him armed. The two hold a contest of pledges, *ukei*, and produce children from each other's possessions. The five sons born from her jewels she claims as her own. Susanoo then runs wild. He wrecks her rice fields, defiles her hall and throws a flayed horse into her weaving hall. Here the chronicles part again. In the *Kojiki* a weaving maiden is struck by her shuttle and dies. In the *Nihon Shoki* main text Amaterasu herself is wounded by the shuttle. Either way she shuts herself in the Heavenly Rock Cave, *Ama-no-Iwato*, and the world goes dark. The gods lure her out with a mirror, jewels, prayers and the dance of Ame-no-Uzume. The whole story is told on our page [Amaterasu and the Heavenly Rock Cave](https://japan.je/kojiki/amaterasu-cave.html). Uzume's dance is remembered as the origin of *kagura*, Shinto sacred dance. Heibonsha's *Mypedia* notes that plays called *Iwato kagura*, which act out the opening of the cave, are found especially in Kyushu. Nipponica adds that the Iwato scene is the best-loved piece in the Izumo-style kagura found all over Japan. After the cave, Amaterasu gives the orders that shape the rest of the myth. The Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto* describes how she and the god Takamimusuhi decide that her descendants will rule the "Central Land of Reed Plains", the earth. She sends envoys to win the land from its own gods. Then she sends her grandson Ninigi down to rule it and gives him her mirror as her "spirit vessel", *mitamashiro*. Heibonsha's encyclopedia notes that in the *Nihon Shoki* Takamimusuhi often takes the leading part in these scenes and is even called the imperial ancestor. In the reign of the first emperor, Jinmu, the Kokugakuin encyclopedia adds, she sends a sword and the guiding crow [Yatagarasu](https://japan.je/yokai/yatagarasu.html) to help him. ### The mirror and the regalia The mirror, *Yata no kagami* (八咫鏡), is one of the three imperial regalia, the *sanshu no jingi*. The other two are a curved jewel and the sword Kusanagi, which Susanoo took from the tail of the serpent [Yamata no Orochi](https://japan.je/kojiki/yamata-no-orochi.html). The Kokugakuin encyclopedia explains the tradition. The emperors kept the mirror and sword with them until the reign of Emperor Sujin, who had copies made and sent the originals away. The mirror went to Ise and the sword later went to Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya. The palace copy of the mirror is kept in the Kashikodokoro, one of the three shrines inside the palace grounds. Heibonsha's *Mypedia* notes that, according to the *Nihon kiryaku* and other records, the palace mirror was damaged in fires in 960, 1005 and 1040. The palace sword was lost at sea with the child emperor Antoku at the battle of Dan-no-ura, and another sword was later named in its place. Historians do not all accept the story as handed down. *Mypedia* notes a view that until the early Heian period only the mirror and sword were regalia, with the set of three becoming settled around the ninth century. ### Ise Jingū The *Nihon Shoki* tells how Amaterasu came to Ise. Under Emperor Sujin she was worshipped in the palace together with another god, but the emperor feared their power. He gave her to Princess Toyosuki-iri-hime to worship at the village of Kasanui in Yamato. Under the next emperor, Suinin, Princess Yamato-hime carried her on a long search through Uda, Ōmi and Mino until they reached Ise. There, in Aston's translation, the goddess said that Ise, "of the divine wind", is the land where waves come in from the eternal world, "a secluded and pleasant land", where she wished to dwell. A shrine was built on the upper Isuzu River. These reigns are legendary, so the dates are traditional. Ise Jingū's own site dates the founding to "approximately 2,000 years ago". Heibonsha's encyclopedia points out that the *Kojiki* does not tell the story of Yamato-hime's journey at all. Scholars have read this story in different ways. Nipponica sets out a theory that Amaterasu was first a local sun god of the fishing people of Ise, taken up by the court and raised to the head of the gods. Heibonsha's encyclopedia sees the founding of Ise as the point where the ancestral god of one clan became the highest ancestral god of the whole state. The shrine is rebuilt in full every twenty years in the *Shikinen Sengu*. Ise Jingū's site dates the first rebuilding to the fourth year of Empress Jitō, 690. The 62nd took place in 2013, and the 63rd is now under way. For centuries, the Kokugakuin encyclopedia explains, no one but the emperor could make private offerings to Amaterasu. Ordinary pilgrims were never turned away, however. Travelling Ise priests called *oshi* spread her worship across the country. Mass pilgrimages called *okage mairi* swept Japan roughly once every sixty years from 1650 to 1867. The first emperor to visit the shrine in person did so only in 1869. ### Amaterasu in later belief Medieval Buddhism folded Amaterasu into its own system. Heibonsha's encyclopedia notes a view that the idea goes back to the building of the Great Buddha at Nara in the eighth century, when Amaterasu, the sun and the cosmic Buddha Dainichi were said to be one and the same. The Buddhist story collection *Shasekishū* (1283) already says that the Inner and Outer Shrines at Ise are the two forms of Dainichi. These ideas, known as *Ryōbu Shintō*, lost ground in the Edo period and were banned after the Meiji Restoration. Her gender was not always fixed either. In a *Nihon Shoki* variant she calls herself a woman, and Susanoo calls her his elder sister. Yet the Kokugakuin encyclopedia notes that some medieval scholars read her as a male god, and Nipponica also mentions the view. Her name lives on in the many *Shinmei* shrines across Japan, which Heibonsha's *Mypedia* lists as places where she is worshipped. It also lives on in the kagura stages where Uzume still dances outside the cave. ### Frequently asked questions ### Is Amaterasu the most important kami in Shinto? She is the highest deity in the court myths of the *Kojiki* and *Nihon Shoki*, the ruler of heaven and ancestor of the imperial line. Ise Jingū, her main shrine, has a special rank among Japanese shrines. Shinto has no single creed, though, and local shrines and households honour many other kami. ### How was Amaterasu born? The *Kojiki* says she was born from Izanagi's left eye as he purified himself after visiting the land of the dead. The *Nihon Shoki* main text says Izanagi and Izanami bore her together as the ruler of the world. A variant in the *Nihon Shoki* has her born from a mirror held in Izanagi's left hand. ### Why did Amaterasu hide in a cave? Her brother Susanoo wrecked her rice fields, fouled her hall and threw a flayed horse into her sacred weaving hall. She shut herself in the Heavenly Rock Cave, and the world went dark until the gods drew her out. ### What is the sacred mirror? The *Yata no kagami* is the mirror Amaterasu gave her grandson Ninigi to stand for her spirit. It is one of the three imperial regalia. By tradition the original is enshrined at Ise Jingū, and a copy is kept in the imperial palace. ### Can you see the mirror at Ise? No. Ise Jingū says the mirror is kept inside the main sanctuary behind four rows of fences. Visitors worship from in front of the gate in the third fence and may not enter the inner courtyard. ### Sources - [Amaterasu, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9440) - [Sanshu no shinki (three regalia), Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=8656) - [Ise Shinkō, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9029) - [天照大神: *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten*, Heibonsha, *Mypedia*, Nipponica and Yamakawa entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%A4%A9%E7%85%A7%E5%A4%A7%E7%A5%9E) - [伊勢神宮: Nipponica and other entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%BC%8A%E5%8B%A2%E7%A5%9E%E5%AE%AE) - [三種の神器: *Mypedia*, Britannica Japan and other entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%B8%89%E7%A8%AE%E3%81%AE%E7%A5%9E%E5%99%A8) - [両部神道: Heibonsha and other entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%B8%A1%E9%83%A8%E7%A5%9E%E9%81%93) - [岩戸神楽: *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten*, Nipponica and *Mypedia* entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%B2%A9%E6%88%B8%E7%A5%9E%E6%A5%BD) - [*Kojiki*, tr. B. H. Chamberlain (1882), Section XI: Investiture of the Three Deities (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_11) - [*Kojiki*, tr. B. H. Chamberlain (1882), Section XVI: The Door of the Heavenly Rock-Dwelling (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_16) - [*Nihongi*, tr. W. G. Aston (1896), Book I (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nihongi/Book_I) - [*Nihongi*, tr. W. G. Aston (1896), Book V: Emperor Sujin (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nihongi/Book_V) - [*Nihongi*, tr. W. G. Aston (1896), Book VI: Emperor Suinin (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nihongi/Book_VI) - [About Ise Jingu, Ise Jingū (official site)](https://www.isejingu.or.jp/en/about/index.html) - [History of the Jingū, Ise Jingū (official site, Japanese)](https://www.isejingu.or.jp/about/history/) - [Shikinen Sengu, Ise Jingū (official site, Japanese)](https://www.isejingu.or.jp/sengu/) - [古事記: *Daijisen* and *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%8F%A4%E4%BA%8B%E8%A8%98) - [日本書紀: *Daijisen* and *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E6%9B%B8%E7%B4%80) - [Wikipedia: Amaterasu (pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaterasu) --- ## Raijin (雷神): Japanese God of Thunder URL: https://japan.je/yokai/raijin.html ### What is Raijin? *Raijin* (雷神) means "thunder god," and it names the kami of thunder and lightning in Japanese religion and folklore. In everyday speech he is often called *Kaminari-sama*, and *kaminari*, the ordinary word for thunder, can be read as "the kami sounding." The image most people know comes from temple art: a muscular, demon-like figure with wild hair, a tiger-skin loincloth and a ring of drums, which he beats to make the thunder roll. Raijin is a god rather than a yokai in the strict sense, but he belongs in any yokai encyclopedia. The line between kami and monster in Japan has always been thin, and the thunder god sits right on it. He was feared as a bringer of fire and death, and honoured as the source of the rain that rice farming depends on. Scholars of Shinto describe him as both a dangerous kami of calamity and a guardian of agriculture. ### Appearance and attributes The familiar Raijin is the creation of Buddhist art. The Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto* notes that ancient Japanese texts associate the thunder kami with a serpent or a small child. Only from around the Kamakura period (1185–1333) do images show a demonic figure with a drumstick, surrounded by a circle of linked drums. Japanese dictionaries describe the standard form the same way: an oni-like being in a tiger-skin loincloth, carrying a ring of drums on his back and holding drumsticks in his hands. One encyclopedia entry suggests that the drum-bearing image came to Japan with Buddhism. Raijin is almost always shown with his partner *Fūjin*, the wind god, who carries a bag of wind over his shoulders. The two often appear as a matched pair at the gates or ends of a temple hall. Many popular sites call them brothers or twins. We have found no classical Japanese text that says so. The pairing comes from art and temple tradition, not from a family tree. ### Origins: thunder in the Kojiki The oldest Japanese account of thunder deities is a grim one. In the *Kojiki*, compiled in 712, the creator goddess Izanami dies after giving birth to the fire god and goes to Yomi, the land of the dead. Her husband Izanagi follows her and, breaking her command not to look at her, lights a torch. In Basil Hall Chamberlain's 1882 translation he sees her body rotting, and in its different parts "eight Thunder-Deities had been born and dwelt there." The Great-Thunder is in her head and the Fire-Thunder in her breast, with others in her belly, hands, feet and genitals. When Izanagi flees, Izanami sends these eight thunders, with "a thousand and five hundred warriors of Hades," to chase him. He escapes by throwing peaches at the pass between the worlds. The *Encyclopedia of Shinto* names these beings *Yakusa no ikazuchi*, the eight kinds of thunder kami, and notes that the *Nihon shoki* gives a somewhat different list. It suggests the number eight here most likely means simply "a great many." This is not yet the drum-beating Raijin of later art, but it shows how early thunder was tied to death, decay and the underworld. You can read the full story on our page on [Izanagi and Izanami](https://japan.je/kojiki/izanagi-and-izanami.html). ### Thunder and the rice harvest Alongside fear there was gratitude. Thunderstorms bring summer rain, and farmers saw the thunder kami as a protector of crops. The *Encyclopedia of Shinto* points out that two common words for lightning, *inazuma* and *inabikari*, contain *ina*, rice stalks. It was believed that lightning made the rice fertile. Where lightning struck a paddy, farmers would set up fresh bamboo and a sacred rope, *shimenawa*, and expect a good harvest. Rain-prayer rituals, *amagoi*, were held at thunder shrines. The violent side still had to be managed. In some regions, thunder during rice planting was answered with a rite to drive the kami away, using split bamboo or sickle blades raised on poles. Japanese encyclopedias single out Tochigi Prefecture, north of Tokyo, as a land of frequent thunder with several *Raiden* (thunder-and-lightning) shrines, which, like others in neighbouring Gunma, have long issued charms against lightning. ### Famous legends ### Sugaru catches the thunder One of the first tales in the *Nihon ryōiki*, a collection of Buddhist stories compiled in the early ninth century, is about catching the thunder god. Thunder rolls at an awkward private moment for Emperor Yūryaku, and he orders his servant Sugaru to bring the thunder god to him. Sugaru rides out with a red banner on his lance, calls on the god in the emperor's name and finds that it has fallen to earth near Toyura Temple. The thunder is carried back to the palace in a palanquin. It shines so fiercely that the frightened emperor sends it back with offerings to the place where it fell. Years later, when Sugaru dies, the emperor builds his grave on that same spot. The angry thunder god stamps on the memorial stone and gets caught in the crack, and has to be released by the emperor. The place was remembered as the Hill of Thunder. ### Sugawara no Michizane and the thunder god The most consequential thunder story in Japanese history concerns a real man. Sugawara no Michizane (845–903) was a scholar and minister who was demoted and sent to Dazaifu in Kyushu in 901, where he died two years later. Disasters in the capital were then blamed on his angry spirit. The *Encyclopedia of Shinto* records that in 930 lightning struck the imperial palace, deeply shaking Emperor Daigo. In the Heian period, lightning strikes in Kyoto came to be read as the curse of a vengeful spirit, a *goryō*. Michizane's spirit became fused with the thunder kami as *Karai Tenjin*, "the fire-and-thunder heavenly deity." This was the start of the Tenjin cult at Kitano Tenmangū in Kyoto, founded after oracles in the 940s, which reshaped Japanese belief about thunder. The illustrated scrolls of Kitano's founding legend, the *Kitano Tenjin engi*, contain some of the best-known early pictures of the thunder god. ### The thunder god who takes navels Generations of Japanese children have been told to cover their bellies when a storm rolls in, or Kaminari-sama will take their navels. A 2022 study by researchers at Musashino University that surveys the saying records the usual explanations. One is that the cool air that follows a summer thunderstorm can upset the stomach of a child sleeping with their belly bare, so the warning is a parent's way of making sure the child is covered. Another is that hugging your belly to hide your navel puts you in a low crouch, which is the safer position in a storm. The same study notes a temple legend from Akishino-dera in Nara, in which it was a priest who captured the thunder god and tore out *its* navel. ### Raijin in temples and art The definitive sculptures of the pair stand in Kyoto's Sanjūsangendō, the long hall famous for its 1,001 standing images of Kannon. According to the temple, its Fūjin and Raijin statues are Kamakura-period National Treasures. Raijin is 105 cm tall and Fūjin 123 cm, and the temple links them to the sculptor Tankei, who led the rebuilding of the hall's images. The temple says these statues fixed the image of the two gods for every artist who came after. The most famous painting is Tawaraya Sōtatsu's *Wind God and Thunder God Screens*, a National Treasure owned by Kenninji temple in Kyoto. The Kyoto National Museum describes it as a pair of two-fold screens on gold leaf from the seventeenth century. The figures seem to float in an endless gold space. Ogata Kōrin and, later, Sakai Hōitsu both made their own versions of it. In Tokyo, the great Kaminarimon gate of Sensōji in Asakusa is properly called *Fūraijinmon*, the Gate of the Wind and Thunder Gods. Sensōji explains that the two gods were set there to keep away storm damage and protect the temple, and also as a prayer for good weather and harvests. The statues lost their bodies in a fire in 1865, when only the heads were saved. Their bodies were remade in 1874, and the present gate was rebuilt in 1960. ### Frequently asked questions ### Are Raijin and Fujin brothers? No classical Japanese text makes them brothers. They are a traditional artistic and religious pair, set side by side in temples such as Sanjūsangendō and in Sōtatsu's screens, but the "brothers" or "twins" idea appears to be a modern embellishment. ### Is Raijin a yokai or a god? Raijin is a kami, a god of thunder and lightning. He is often included among yokai because of his frightening, oni-like appearance and his role in folk belief, where he could be both a destroyer and a giver of rain. ### Why does Raijin carry drums? The drums make the thunder. From around the Kamakura period Buddhist art showed the thunder god with a ring of linked drums and drumsticks, and that image has stayed standard ever since. ### Why do Japanese children hide their belly buttons during thunderstorms? Children are told that Kaminari-sama will take their navel. The usual explanations are that it keeps a child's stomach covered as cold air follows a summer storm, and that hiding the navel puts you in a low crouch, which is safer during lightning. ### Where can I see Raijin in Japan? Famous images include the Kamakura-period statues at Sanjūsangendō in Kyoto, Sōtatsu's screens owned by Kenninji in Kyoto, and the statues in the Kaminarimon gate of Sensōji in Tokyo. ### Sources - [Raijin, Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9976) - [Yakusanoikazuchi, Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9730) - [Tenjin Shinkō, Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=8880) - [Kojiki, tr. B. H. Chamberlain (1882), Section IX: The Land of Hades (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain%2C_1882%29/Section_9) - [Raijin entries (Kotobank, Japanese dictionaries and encyclopedias)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%9B%B7%E7%A5%9E-146718) - [Nihon ryōiki, tr. Hiromi Itō and Jerome Rothenberg (Jacket2)](https://jacket2.org/commentary/nihon-ryoiki-monk-kyokai-oral-narrative-additional-found-poem-praises-buddha) - [Kobayashi et al., "Scientific evaluation for folklore related to lightning" (Musashino University, 2022, Japanese)](https://mu.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/1790) - [Fūjin and Raijin statues, Sanjūsangendō (official site, Japanese)](https://www.sanjusangendo.jp/statue/fujinraijin/) - [Wind God and Thunder God Screens, Kyoto National Museum](https://www.kyohaku.go.jp/eng/collection/meihin/kinsei/item10/) - [Kaminarimon (Fūraijinmon), Sensōji (official site, Japanese)](https://www.senso-ji.jp/guide/guide01.html) - [Sanjūsangendō, World History Encyclopedia](https://www.worldhistory.org/Sanjusangendo/) - [Raijin (Wikipedia, used as a pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raijin) --- ## Inari (稲荷): Japanese Kami of Rice and Prosperity URL: https://japan.je/yokai/inari.html ### Who is Inari? *Inari* (稲荷) is the kami of rice and the harvest, and one of the most widely worshipped deities in Japan. From that farming root Inari's blessings spread over the centuries to cover almost every kind of worldly good: business success, household safety, safe travel and even skill in the performing arts. The head shrine, Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto, says there are around 30,000 Inari shrines across Japan. Counting the countless small shrines on rooftops, in gardens and beside shops would raise that number much higher. Inari is not a yokai. But no yokai encyclopedia can leave Inari out, because Inari's messenger is the fox, the *kitsune*, the most famous shapeshifter in Japanese folklore. The two are so closely linked in the popular mind that many people believe Inari *is* a fox. Fushimi Inari Taisha says clearly that this is not so: the foxes are Inari's messengers, not the deity itself. Japanese dictionaries usually explain the name as a worn-down form of *inanari*, "rice growing." The characters used to write it mean "rice" and "carrying," as if the deity bore a load of rice on its back. ### The deities behind the name "Inari" is less a single figure than a name for a group of kami worshipped together. At Fushimi Inari Taisha the main hall enshrines five: Ukanomitama no Ōkami in the central seat, with Satahiko no Ōkami, Ōmiyanome no Ōkami, Tanaka no Ōkami and Shino Ōkami. Together they are called Inari Ōkami. The shrine says the five names reflect different virtues of a single great deity. The most important is Ukanomitama, whose name means something like "the spirit of the rice." The Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto* describes Ukanomitama as a kami of foodstuffs, understood as the spirit of rice, and notes that this is the kami most commonly meant by "Inari." The *Kojiki* makes this kami a child of the storm god Susanoo, while the *Nihon shoki* gives Izanagi and Izanami as parents. Inari has also been pictured in very different ways. One well-known image shows Inari as an old man carrying rice, who promises the monk Kūkai to protect the temple of Tōji in Kyoto. Buddhist traditions identified Inari with Dakiniten, a figure who rides a white fox. Because of these overlapping images, Inari has no single fixed appearance. ### Origins: the arrow and the rice cake Fushimi Inari Taisha dates the enshrinement of Inari Ōkami to the first Day of the Horse in the second month of 711, when the kami came to rest on the three peaks of Mount Inari. The shrine itself says that worship of the mountain may be older still. Mount Inari, 233 metres high, is the southernmost of the 36 peaks of Kyoto's Higashiyama hills. It was revered as a *kannabi*, a natural dwelling place of a deity, and the whole mountain is still treated as part of the shrine. The founding legend is preserved in surviving fragments of the *Yamashiro fudoki*, an early provincial record. It concerns Hata no Irogu, a member of the Hata clan. According to the story, Irogu used a rice cake as a target for his arrows. The rice cake turned into a white bird and flew to the peak of the mountain, and where it landed, rice sprang up. The name Inari is tied to this miracle. Japanese reference works name the Hata clan as the founders of the shrine. Inari rose quickly in court favour. The shrine records that in 827, trees from Mount Inari were cut to build Tōji, the deity's anger was blamed for the trouble that followed, and the court gave Inari an official rank to make amends. By 942 Inari had been granted the highest rank a kami could hold. In 1468, during the Ōnin War, the shrine buildings burned, and they were rebuilt in 1499. ### From rice to riches As Japan's towns grew, Inari moved with the people. The *Encyclopedia of Shinto* explains that in commercial areas Inari was believed to bring business prosperity, while in fishing villages Inari became a kami of the catch. In eastern Japan especially, Inari was widely worshipped as a household or estate deity, a *yashikigami*, enshrined in the grounds of private homes. The flexibility of the cult, able to take on whatever a community most needed, is a large part of why there are so many Inari shrines today. Inari also has a strong Buddhist side. Japanese dictionaries note that after the capital moved to Kyoto, Inari became bound up with esoteric Buddhism, and Dakiniten came to be regarded as Inari's true form. The best-known result is Toyokawa Inari in Aichi Prefecture. Despite its name, it is a Zen temple of the Sōtō school, Myōgonji, founded in 1441. The temple explains that it is popularly called "Inari" because its guardian deity, Toyokawa Dakini Shinten, is shown carrying rice sheaves and riding a white fox. ### Why the fox? The *Encyclopedia of Shinto* traces several threads that tied foxes to Inari. In farming villages it was believed that the mountain kami came down to the rice paddies in spring guided by a fox. Places where the kami was welcomed were sometimes called "fox mounds." And there was a pun: one of the food deities linked with Inari, Miketsu-no-kami, could be written with characters meaning "three fox gods." Fox spirits were also connected with oracles and with shrine mediums. Fushimi Inari Taisha calls Inari's fox messengers *byakko-san*, "white foxes," and stresses that they are invisible. The stone foxes that guard Inari shrines are images of these messengers. This is also why Inari's favourite food is said to be the fox's favourite: Japanese dictionaries explain that fried tofu, *aburaage*, was thought to be loved by foxes and offered at Inari shrines. Rice wrapped in fried tofu is still called *inarizushi*. For more on fox lore, see our article on the [kitsune](https://japan.je/yokai/kitsune.html). ### The torii of Fushimi Inari The image that has made Fushimi Inari famous worldwide is its tunnels of vermilion *torii* gates, climbing the mountain paths in rows so tight they seem to form corridors. The best-known stretch is called *Senbon Torii*, "a thousand torii." According to the shrine, giving a torii became a common offering by the Edo period, as a way of asking that a prayer be heard or giving thanks once it had been. There are now around 10,000 torii of every size on the mountain. The shrine's great festival day is still the first Day of the Horse in February, *Hatsuuma*, remembered as the day Inari first came to the mountain. On that day worshippers make the *fuku-mairi*, a "visit for good fortune," up the slopes. ### Frequently asked questions ### Is Inari a fox? No. In Shinto, foxes are Inari's messengers, which is why stone foxes guard Inari shrines. Fushimi Inari Taisha states plainly that Inari Ōkami is not a fox, although popular belief has often blurred the two. ### Is Inari male or female? Inari has no single fixed gender or form. Inari Ōkami is a group of kami, and traditions picture Inari in different ways, for example as an old man carrying rice. In Buddhist forms Inari is identified with Dakiniten, a deity who rides a white fox. ### How many Inari shrines are there in Japan? Fushimi Inari Taisha says there are around 30,000. The figure is an estimate, and including the many small private shrines would make it far larger. ### When was Fushimi Inari Taisha founded? The shrine dates the enshrinement of Inari Ōkami on Mount Inari to 711. It also notes that worship of the mountain may be older than that. ### Why are Inari shrines full of red torii gates? Donating a torii became a popular offering in the Edo period, either to ask for a prayer to be granted or in thanks once it had been. Fushimi Inari now has around 10,000 of them. ### Sources - [About Fushimi Inari Taisha (official site)](https://inari.jp/en/) - [History, Fushimi Inari Taisha (official site)](https://inari.jp/en/history/) - [Enshrined deities, Fushimi Inari Taisha (official site)](https://inari.jp/en/saijin/) - [FAQ, Fushimi Inari Taisha (official site)](https://inari.jp/en/faq/) - [Inari Shinkō, Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9027) - [Ukanomitama, Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9742) - [Inari entries (Kotobank, Japanese dictionaries and encyclopedias)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%A8%B2%E8%8D%B7-435204) - [History of Toyokawa Inari, Myōgonji (official site, Japanese)](https://www.toyokawainari.jp/about/history/) - [Inari Ōkami (Wikipedia, used as a pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inari_%C5%8Ckami) --- ## Yamata no Orochi (八岐大蛇): Eight-Headed Serpent of Japanese Myth URL: https://japan.je/yokai/yamata-no-orochi.html ### What is Yamata no Orochi? *Yamata no Orochi* (八岐大蛇) is the eight-headed, eight-tailed serpent that the storm god [Susanoo](https://japan.je/yokai/susanoo.html) kills in Izumo, in what is now Shimane Prefecture. The story is told in Japan's two oldest chronicles, the *Kojiki* (712) and the *Nihon Shoki* (720). Thrown out of heaven, Susanoo comes down beside the Hi River and finds an old couple weeping. The serpent has eaten seven of their eight daughters, one each year, and is about to come for the last, Kushinada-hime. Susanoo turns the girl into a comb, sets out vats of strong sake, waits until every head is drunk and asleep, and cuts the serpent to pieces. Inside its tail he finds a sword. The full story is retold on our page [Yamata no Orochi: Susanoo and the Serpent](https://japan.je/kojiki/yamata-no-orochi.html). This article is about the creature itself: how the chronicles describe it, where their versions differ, the sword that came out of it, and what scholars have made of it. ### The serpent in the chronicles The *Kojiki* gives the fullest picture, in the words of the old father. In Basil Hall Chamberlain's translation of 1882, its eyes are like *akakagachi*, which the text glosses as the plant now called *hōzuki*, the red Chinese lantern. It has one body with eight heads and eight tails. Moss grows on it, with cypress and cedar trees. Its length stretches over eight valleys and eight hills, and its belly is always bloody and inflamed. The *Kojiki* writes the name with characters used only for their sound, 八俣遠呂智, as the *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* shows. Japanese dictionaries now head the entry with the writing 八岐大蛇. The *Kojiki* also calls it "the eight-forked serpent of Koshi". Chamberlain notes that Koshi was long a vague name for the provinces along the Sea of Japan coast from Echizen to Echigo, and that its meaning here is unclear. Heibonsha's *MyPedia* reads it simply: the serpent came to Izumo every year from the land of Koshi. The meaning of the name itself is debated. *Yamata* means "eight-forked". For *orochi*, Heibonsha's *Sekai Daihyakka Jiten* points out that the final *chi* is an old word for spiritual power, as in *ikazuchi*, "thunder". It argues that the serpent was at root a dragon god that ruled water. The Nipponica encyclopedia glosses the name as roughly "the spirit with eight tails" (a rough translation). The *Nihon Shoki*'s main text tells much the same story more briefly. In W. G. Aston's translation of 1896, the serpent's eyes are red "like the winter-cherry", firs and cypresses grow on its back, and as it crawls it spreads over eight hills and eight valleys. The sake is set out in eight "cupboards" rather than at eight gates. ### Variant versions in the Nihon Shoki The *Nihon Shoki* also records several "one writing says" variants, and these change the creature in interesting ways. - In one, Susanoo comes down not in Izumo but at the River Ye in Aki, in western Honshū. The serpent eats each newborn child of a pregnant goddess. Susanoo greets it politely as "an Awful Deity" and pours a jar of sake into each of its mouths. - In another, the parents insist that he kill the serpent before he may marry their daughter. Here the serpent has rock-firs growing on each of its heads and a mountain on each side. Susanoo makes it drink poisoned sake. - In a third, the creature is simply "a serpent which devoured men" at Mount Tori-kami by the upper Hi River. Susanoo has arrived there by way of Silla, in Korea, in a boat made of clay. The variants also name the sword that did the killing. One says it is now at Isonokami. Another says it is kept by the shrine community of Kibi. The *Kojiki* simply calls it a "ten-grasp sword". ### The sword in the tail Every version ends with a second sword found inside the serpent's tail. In the *Kojiki*, Susanoo's own blade breaks on the middle tail. He splits the flesh and finds what Chamberlain translates as "a sharp great sword". The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* notes that the *Kojiki* calls it *Tsumugari no tachi* (都牟刈の太刀), while the *Nihon Shoki* calls it *Ame no Murakumo no tsurugi* (天叢雲剣), the "Sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven". A note in the *Nihon Shoki* suggests this name came from the clouds that always hung over the place where the serpent lived. Susanoo sends the sword up to [Amaterasu](https://japan.je/yokai/amaterasu.html). It later comes down to earth with her grandson Ninigi and becomes one of the three Imperial Regalia. Its better-known name, *Kusanagi no tsurugi* (草薙剣), "the grass-mower", is explained by a later story. Nipponica summarises it. The prince Yamato Takeru received the sword from his aunt Yamatohime at Ise. When a local chief in Sagami trapped him in a burning field, he cut the grass with it, lit a counter-fire and escaped. The *Nihon Shoki* says the sword was renamed then. Yamato Takeru later left it with Miyazu-hime in Owari, which explains why it came to be enshrined at Atsuta. Britannica Japan describes it as the *shintai*, the sacred object, of Atsuta Jingū in Nagoya. Nipponica's entry does not accept the grass-mowing story at face value. It argues that the name means "fierce snake", which suits a sword taken from a serpent, and that the grass-cutting tale is a later folk explanation. *Daijisen* records a similar theory, in which *nagi* is an old word for snake. Nipponica also notes the sword's later history in the chronicles. It was stolen in 668 and recovered. In 686 a divination blamed the emperor's illness on the sword's curse, and it was sent back to Atsuta. ### What was the serpent? Scholarly readings The chronicles do not explain the serpent. Modern readings are interpretations, and the encyclopedias present them as such. **The river.** The most common reading ties the serpent to the Hi (Hii) River. The Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto* notes that Kushinada-hime's name can be read as "rice-field princess". The serpent has been read as the river itself, and its defeat as the taming of the river for irrigation. Heibonsha takes the same line. In its view the serpent's size and power reflect the river and its seasonal floods, and the girl offered to it is a personified rice field. Britannica Japan mentions a theory that it deifies a river with eight tributaries. **Iron.** A second reading links the story to iron. Nipponica cites the scholar Matsumae Takeshi (1970). In his view the myth began as snake-god worship at fertility rites along the Suga River in Izumo. It then moved to the Hi River, which had its own snake legends. There it was absorbed into the legend of Susanoo, a god with "a new iron culture" behind him, and took on details from the Chinese story of the Han founder's snake-slaying sword. The upper Hi valley is iron country. Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs describes Okuizumo, at the river's source, as rich in iron sand and as a centre of *tatara* iron-smelting in the early modern and modern periods. A Japan Tourism Agency text for a serpent sculpture at a museum there says the legend "highlights the long-held association between the Okuizumo region and swordsmithing". Readings that turn the serpent into a picture of smelting itself are popular, but they are modern theories, not anything the chronicles say. **Other readings.** The Kokugakuin encyclopedia also mentions a theory that the serpent stood for a band of mountain outlaws. Nipponica notes that scholars compare the story with the worldwide "Andromeda" type, in which a hero saves a maiden offered to a monster. Aston made the same comparison with Perseus in 1896. ### The serpent on stage: kagura The serpent is best known today from *kagura*, the sacred dances of Shinto shrines. Nipponica describes Izumo kagura as a style that grew from the rites of Sada Shrine in Matsue. It combines dances with hand-held ritual objects and masked plays drawn from myths and shrine legends. The Sada Shrine performance, *Sada shinnō*, was designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1976 and was added to UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage lists in 2011. Its masked repertoire includes a piece called *Yaegaki*, after the "eightfold fence" of Susanoo's poem. Nipponica adds that this style spread across western Japan, including to the Iwami kagura of western Shimane. In Iwami kagura the serpent is the star. The Japan Foundation calls *Orochi* (大蛇) the representative piece of Iwami kagura. It brought the dance to Trafalgar Square in London in 2019. Shimane Prefecture explains how the serpent's long body is made. In the Meiji era, performers stopped wrapping long cloths around themselves to play the serpent. Instead someone devised a collapsible body based on the paper lantern. It is still made by hand from Sekishū *hanshi*, the local paper, from the frame to the painting. Places along the river also claim parts of the story. Yaegaki Shrine in Matsue, for example, says that its grove is where Susanoo hid Kushinada-hime behind the eightfold fence. That is a shrine tradition, not part of the chronicles. ### Frequently asked questions ### How many heads did Yamata no Orochi have? Eight heads and eight tails on a single body, according to both the *Kojiki* and the main text of the *Nihon Shoki*. Its name means "eight-forked serpent". ### How did Susanoo kill the serpent? He had the old couple brew sake refined eight times and set out eight vats of it. Each head drank from one vat, and the serpent fell into a drunken sleep. Susanoo then cut it to pieces with his sword. The *Kojiki* says the Hi River ran red with its blood. ### What is the Kusanagi sword? It is the sword Susanoo found inside the serpent's tail. It is one of Japan's three Imperial Regalia and is enshrined at Atsuta Jingū in Nagoya. The *Nihon Shoki* says it was first called *Ame no Murakumo* and was renamed "grass-mower" after Yamato Takeru cut his way out of a burning field with it. Some scholars think the name originally meant "fierce snake". ### Was Yamata no Orochi a real river or flood? No early source says so. It is a modern interpretation. Encyclopedias describe readings of the serpent as the flood-prone Hi River and of its defeat as the taming of the river for rice-growing. Another theory links the story to the iron-working culture of the upper Hi valley. ### Where can you see Yamata no Orochi today? Most often in Iwami kagura in western Shimane, where *Orochi* is the best-known piece. Dancers play the serpent inside long bodies made of paper on a lantern-style frame, a design that dates from the Meiji era. ### Sources - [*Kojiki*, tr. B. H. Chamberlain (1882), Section 18: "The Eight-Forked Serpent" (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_18) - [*Nihongi*, tr. W. G. Aston (1896), Book I (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nihongi/Book_I) - [八岐大蛇: *Daijisen*, *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten*, Heibonsha, Nipponica, MyPedia and Britannica Japan entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%85%AB%E5%B2%90%E5%A4%A7%E8%9B%87) - [Yamatanoorochi, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9729) - [草薙剣: *Daijisen*, Nipponica and Britannica Japan entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%8D%89%E8%96%99%E5%89%A3) - [奥出雲たたら製鉄及び棚田の文化的景観, Agency for Cultural Affairs, Cultural Heritage Online](https://online.bunka.go.jp/db/heritages/detail/239441) - [Yamata no Orochi sculpture, Japan Tourism Agency multilingual commentary database](https://www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db/R5-00310.html) - [出雲神楽: *Daijisen* and Nipponica entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%87%BA%E9%9B%B2%E7%A5%9E%E6%A5%BD) - [佐陀神能: *Daijisen*, Heibonsha and Nipponica entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%BD%90%E9%99%80%E7%A5%9E%E8%83%BD) - [石見神楽英国公演・レクチャー (2019), Japan Foundation](https://www.jpf.go.jp/j/project/culture/perform/oversea/2019/09-01.html) - [石見神楽蛇胴, Shimane Prefecture traditional crafts](https://www.pref.shimane.lg.jp/industry/syoko/sangyo/dentou_kougei/kougei/kougei_65.html) - [Yaegaki Shrine, Nippon.com](https://www.nippon.com/en/guide-to-japan/gu900107/) - [Wikipedia: Yamata no Orochi (pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamata_no_Orochi) --- ## Nue (鵺): Chimera Yokai of Japanese Legend URL: https://japan.je/yokai/nue.html ### What is a nue? The *nue* (鵺) is Japan's best-known chimera. In its classic form it has the head of a monkey, the body of a *tanuki*, the limbs of a tiger and a snake for a tail. It comes down out of a black cloud at night and gives an eerie, mournful cry. The creature belongs to one famous episode in *The Tale of the Heike*, in which the warrior-poet Minamoto no Yorimasa shoots it down over the imperial palace in Kyoto, and nearly everything later told about the nue grows from that scene. The word *nue* is older than the monster. It was originally the name of a real bird, the White's thrush, called *toratsugumi* in modern Japanese. The bird sings at night in dark woodland with a thin, sad whistle, and Japanese reference works note that since ancient times it was thought unlucky and uncanny. Some people still say that when it calls, a death or a fire will follow. The monster of the *Heike* was said to cry like this bird, and over time the bird's name passed to the beast. ### Appearance and the sound of the nue The standard description comes from the *Heike*: a monkey's head, a tanuki's body, a snake's tail and a tiger's hands and feet, with a voice like the nue bird. English translations often call the body a "badger's," because *tanuki* was long translated that way. Other medieval texts do not agree on the details. The *Genpei jōsuiki*, a longer version of the same war chronicle, describes a monkey's head, a tiger's back, a fox's tail and a tanuki's feet. A *Heike* manuscript held by the National Archives of Japan gives yet another mix, including a snake's belly and cat's feet. The parts change from text to text. What stays the same is the idea of an animal made of other animals, with the frightening voice of a night bird. That mixture is the heart of the creature's meaning. By extension, Japanese dictionaries record, the word *nue* came to describe anything of unclear identity: a person or thing whose true nature cannot be pinned down. ### Origins: the Tale of the Heike ### The cloud over the palace *The Tale of the Heike* is the great war epic of medieval Japan, telling the rise and fall of the Taira clan in the twelfth century. The nue episode is part of the story of Minamoto no Yorimasa (1104–1180), a Minamoto warrior who was also one of the finest *waka* poets of his day. In the reign of Emperor Konoe, in the Ninpei era (1151–1154), the emperor is struck with terror every night. Around the hour of the ox, about two in the morning, a black cloud drifts over the palace and the emperor falls ill. Prayers and rites have no effect. The court remembers that an earlier Minamoto hero had driven off such a threat by plucking his bowstring, and it orders Yorimasa, a famous archer, to stand guard. Yorimasa waits with a single trusted retainer, I no Hayata. When the cloud comes, he sees a strange shape inside it and lets fly. The creature falls to the ground and Hayata rushes in and finishes it with his blade. They see that it has a monkey's head, tanuki's body, snake's tail and tiger's limbs. The relieved emperor rewards Yorimasa with a sword named *Shishiō*, "Lion King." The body of the monster is shut inside a hollowed-out log boat, an *utsubo-bune*, and set adrift. ### Was the monster called a nue? There is a subtle point here that most retellings miss. In the *Heike* the beast Yorimasa shoots in Konoe's reign is not given a name. It is only described as crying like a nue. The text then tells a second, shorter story set in the Ōhō era (1161–1163), under Emperor Nijō. Here a strange bird, a nue, cries over the palace and troubles the emperor, and Yorimasa brings it down with a large whistling arrow. Later tradition merged the two, and the nameless chimera of the first story became "the nue." So the creature's name is a later label taken from its voice. ### What happened to Yorimasa The nue made Yorimasa's reputation, but his end was tragic. In 1180, already in his seventies, he joined Prince Mochihito in a plot to raise the Minamoto against the all-powerful Taira. The plot was discovered too early. Yorimasa was defeated at Uji and died at the Byōdō-in temple. But the prince's call to arms, which Yorimasa had helped send out to Minamoto clans across the country, outlived them both. ### The nue's grave and the Noh play What became of the drifting log boat? Local legend gave it a landing place. In Miyakojima Ward in Osaka there is a mound called the *Nue-zuka*, said to be where the nue was buried. Osaka City explains that, according to an early Edo-period gazetteer, the boat carrying the corpse was carried down the Yodo River and came to rest on a sandbank there, where the body rotted. The mound is said to have been raised by local people who feared the monster's curse. A rival Nue-zuka tradition exists in Ashiya in Hyōgo Prefecture. Edo-period gazetteers were already doubtful about both. Ashiya is also the setting of the Noh play *Nue*, attributed to Zeami, the great playwright of Noh. A travelling monk who has been refused lodging spends the night in a riverside chapel. A boatman appears in a battered boat and reveals that he is the ghost of the nue. He tells how Yorimasa's arrow brought him down and how his body was sealed in a log boat and cast into the Yodo River. When the monk prays for him, the ghost returns in its monstrous form to tell its story again, and finally sinks into darkness with the setting moon. What makes the play striking is that it tells the story from the monster's side. The hero's glory is seen through the eyes of the creature he killed. Japanese scholars have read it as a play of longing for things that are passing away. ### In art and popular culture Yorimasa shooting the nue became a favourite subject of *musha-e*, prints of warriors. Utagawa Kuniyoshi designed a version around 1842. Tsukioka Yoshitoshi returned to the story twice: in *I no Hayata Killing the Nue at the Imperial Palace* (1890), from his series *New Forms of Thirty-six Ghosts*, and in an 1888 print of Yorimasa from his *One Hundred Views of the Moon*. The scene was also painted on a votive tablet presented to Sensōji temple in Edo in 1781. The name has carried into modern culture too: the manga artist Kihara Toshie used *Nue* as the title of an Edo-period picaresque series published from 1988 to 1991. The-noh.com, introducing the Noh play, compares the creature to the Chimera of Greek myth and to the engineered monsters of science fiction. ### Frequently asked questions ### What animals make up a nue? In *The Tale of the Heike*, the nue has a monkey's head, a tanuki's body, a tiger's limbs and a snake for a tail. Other medieval versions mix the parts differently, for example giving it a fox's tail and a tiger's back. ### What does a nue sound like? Its cry is compared to the nue bird, the White's thrush, which whistles thinly and sadly at night. Japanese tradition has long treated this birdsong as an unlucky omen, and the monster took its name from the voice. ### Who killed the nue? The warrior-poet Minamoto no Yorimasa shot it down from a black cloud over the imperial palace in Kyoto, and his retainer I no Hayata finished it with his blade. The emperor rewarded Yorimasa with the sword Shishiō. ### Is the nue in the Tale of the Heike? Yes. The episode is one of the best-known in the *Heike*. In the main story the creature is not actually named; it is described as crying like a nue, and the name was attached to the monster later. ### What does "nue" mean as a word? Originally the name of a night-singing thrush, *nue* came to mean the chimera of the *Heike* and, by extension, anything of unclear nature or identity. ### Sources - [Nue entries (Kotobank, Japanese dictionaries and encyclopedias)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%B5%BA-593963) - [Minamoto no Yorimasa entries (Kotobank, Japanese)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%BA%90%E9%A0%BC%E6%94%BF-16880) - [Nuetaiji, JAANUS dictionary of Japanese art](https://aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/n/nuetaiji.htm) - [Yorimasa and the nue in the Heike monogatari, National Archives of Japan digital exhibition (Japanese)](https://www.archives.go.jp/exhibition/digital/heikemonogatari/contents/11.html) - [Miyakojima Ward historical sites guide: Nue-zuka (Osaka City, PDF, Japanese)](https://www.city.osaka.lg.jp/miyakojima/cmsfiles/contents/0000016/16837/front.pdf) - [Nue (Noh play), the-noh.com](https://the-noh.com/en/plays/data/program_052.html) - [Yoshitoshi, Ii no Hayata Killing the Nue at the Imperial Palace (Fitzwilliam Museum)](https://yoshitoshi.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/explore/ii-no-hayata-killing-the-nue-at-the-imperial-palace) - [A Closer Look: Yorimasa and the Nue (Ronin Gallery)](https://www.roningallery.com/blog/a-closer-look-yorimasa-and-the-nue) - [Nue (Wikipedia, used as a pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nue) --- ## Gashadokuro (がしゃどくろ): Giant Skeleton Yokai URL: https://japan.je/yokai/gashadokuro.html ### What is a gashadokuro? The *gashadokuro* is a giant skeleton yokai. In the usual description it is put together from the bones of people who died and were never buried, such as soldiers left on the battlefield or travellers who starved by the roadside. It roams in the dark and attacks any living person it meets. It is also one of the most misunderstood yokai, because it is usually presented as an ancient Japanese legend. It is not one. The gashadokuro is a modern creation. It first appeared in print in 1966, in a Japanese girls' magazine, and it owes its famous look to a woodblock print made more than a century earlier for a different story. In just over fifty years it has gone from a magazine feature to a fixture of yokai encyclopedias, games and toy shops. How that happened is a useful lesson in how yokai lore is made, and the creature does draw on fears much older than itself. The name is written in kana, がしゃどくろ. *Dokuro* means a skull or skeleton. *Gasha* is usually taken to be a sound word, like the English "clatter," for the rattle of dry bones. Some recent books and games write the name with the characters 餓者髑髏, "skeleton of the starving." That spelling came later and was chosen to suit the meaning; the name was not first written that way. ### Appearance and powers The basic picture has hardly changed since the 1960s. The gashadokuro is a skeleton many times the height of a person. Its bones clatter as it moves, it walks about at night, and it seizes and crushes the people it finds. Some English-language sites give it an exact size or say it bites off the heads of its victims. Those details do not come from the earliest descriptions, and this site does not repeat them as fact. In the version made popular by the yokai books of the 1970s, a gashadokuro is not a single ghost but a gathering. The bones and lingering resentment of many people who died without funeral rites pile together into one huge body. That is why it is linked with battlefields and with places struck by famine, and why it is described as hostile to the living rather than tied to any one grudge. ### Origins and history ### The 1966 magazine feature The Japanese research summarised on Japanese Wikipedia traces the first printed gashadokuro to the November 1966 issue of *Bessatsu Shōjo Friend*, a girls' magazine. The issue carried a special feature on "the Japanese yokai beside you," written by Saitō Morihiro. Saitō described a giant skeleton whose bones clattered as it walked. According to the same research, he later said his idea came from a British ghost story about the "black knight" of Glamis Castle, which had appeared in the magazine *Bokura* in 1965. Japanese folklore, in other words, was not even the starting point. ### How the gashadokuro spread The 1960s and 1970s were a boom time for yokai in Japanese children's publishing, and new creatures moved quickly from one book to the next. Saitō's article was reprinted in a 1968 Akita Shoten book on the monsters of the world, compiled by Yamauchi Shigeaki. Around the same time the manga artist Mizuki Shigeru and the writer Satō Arifumi took up the creature, and both kept including it in their illustrated yokai guides through the 1970s. Satō's 1972 *Ichiban kuwashii Nihon yōkai zukan* ("The most detailed illustrated guide to Japanese yokai") pictured it. Through books like these the gashadokuro came to sit beside kappa and tengu as though it had always belonged there. The popular Japanese culture magazine *Wa-raku* makes the same point in a feature on the creature: unlike yokai handed down in folk tradition, the gashadokuro was born in the middle of the Shōwa era, out of 1960s children's books. ### The borrowed image: Kuniyoshi's skeleton The picture most people have in mind when they think of a gashadokuro is older than the name. Around 1844 the ukiyo-e master Utagawa Kuniyoshi designed a famous triptych now usually called *Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre*. The Victoria and Albert Museum, which holds a copy, gives the artist's own long title: in the ruined palace at Sōma, Takiyasha, the daughter of Masakado, gathers allies by sorcery, and Ōya no Tarō Mitsukuni comes to investigate the monsters and finally destroys them. The story behind the print concerns Taira no Masakado, the tenth-century warlord who rebelled against the court and was killed. In the tale, his daughter Princess Takiyasha calls up the ghosts of her father's fallen soldiers, and the imperial envoy Mitsukuni faces them in the abandoned palace. Kuniyoshi filled half the triptych with a single enormous skeleton leaning out of the darkness and reaching through the torn blinds. It is one of the most striking images in Japanese printmaking. The episode comes from *Utō Yasukata chūgiden*, a *yomihon* novel by Santō Kyōden published at the end of 1806. Japanese research on the print notes that Kyōden's book has many human-sized skeletons. The single giant is Kuniyoshi's own invention for the sake of drama. The print has nothing to do with the word "gashadokuro," which did not exist until the 1960s. But when Mizuki, Satō and others needed a picture of their giant skeleton, Kuniyoshi's was the obvious model. It has defined the creature's look ever since, so much so that the print is now often described, wrongly, as a picture of a gashadokuro. Some retellings go further and claim that Takiyasha raised "the first gashadokuro." That turns a modern borrowing into a fake ancient origin. ### Older skulls, unrelated stories Japanese literature does have much older skeleton stories, and one is sometimes mixed up with the gashadokuro. Mizuki's guide placed an old Buddhist tale from the ninth-century *Nihon ryōiki* under its gashadokuro entry. In it, a man pulls a bamboo shoot from the eye socket of a skull and makes it an offering, and the grateful skull later repays him. The tale is about kindness to the dead and has no giant and no attack. It is a separate tradition, and the gashadokuro does not descend from it. ### Why the gashadokuro feels ancient If the gashadokuro is so new, why does it seem so old? Partly because of the print: an Edo-period masterpiece lends any creature borrowed from it an air of age. But the deeper reason is that its idea is genuinely old. Fear of the dead who were never given proper rites runs through Japanese religion and folklore. So does the belief that the resentment of those who died badly can linger and do harm. The yurei and the vengeful *onryō* both grow from that soil. The gashadokuro gives those fears a body. It is a modern invention built from very old materials, and that is exactly how many yokai have always been made. ### In art and popular culture Since the 1970s the gashadokuro has spread far beyond the books that created it. Mizuki's illustrations kept it in front of Japanese readers for decades, and it has since become a stock monster of manga, anime and games; Japanese reference works note that recent creative works favour the 餓者髑髏 spelling. Kuniyoshi's triptych, meanwhile, is widely reproduced and very often captioned as a gashadokuro, which it is not. Copies of the print are held in museums including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum and the Honolulu Museum of Art. ### Frequently asked questions ### Is the gashadokuro a real Japanese legend? It is a real yokai in the sense that it is now part of Japanese yokai culture, but it is not a traditional folk legend. The earliest known description appeared in a Japanese girls' magazine in November 1966, and the creature spread through yokai books of the late 1960s and 1970s. ### What does gashadokuro mean? *Dokuro* means skull or skeleton. *Gasha* is generally understood as an imitation of the clattering sound its bones make. The spelling 餓者髑髏, "starving skeleton," came later and was chosen to match the meaning. ### Is Kuniyoshi's giant skeleton print a gashadokuro? No. Kuniyoshi's triptych of about 1844 shows a skeleton spectre summoned by Princess Takiyasha, a scene from Santō Kyōden's 1806 novel. Writers in the 1960s and 1970s borrowed its skeleton as the image of their gashadokuro, which is why the two are now so often confused. ### How big is a gashadokuro? The earliest descriptions simply call it a giant skeleton, many times taller than a person. Exact figures given on some websites have no traceable source. ### What is the gashadokuro made of? In the lore popularised by 1970s yokai encyclopedias, it gathers from the bones and lingering resentment of people who died without burial, especially soldiers killed in battle and people who starved. ### Sources - [Gashadokuro (Japanese Wikipedia, used as a pointer to the Japanese research it cites)](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%81%8C%E3%81%97%E3%82%83%E3%81%A9%E3%81%8F%E3%82%8D) - [Gashadokuro (English Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gashadokuro) - [Gashadokuro feature, Wa-raku (Japanese)](https://intojapanwaraku.com/rock/culture-rock/10655/) - [Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre (Victoria and Albert Museum)](https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O73119/takiyasha-the-witch-and-the-triptych-utagawa-kuniyoshi) - [Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takiyasha_the_Witch_and_the_Skeleton_Spectre) - [Ōtaka Yōji, "Shitennō shōtō iroku and Utō Yasukata chūgiden," Bulletin of the National Institute of Japanese Literature 30 (2004)](https://kokubunken.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/655) --- ## Yatagarasu (八咫烏): Three-Legged Crow of Japanese Myth URL: https://japan.je/yokai/yatagarasu.html ### Who is Yatagarasu? *Yatagarasu* (八咫烏) is the great crow sent from heaven to guide the legendary first emperor, Jimmu, through the mountains of Kumano into Yamato. Today it is pictured almost everywhere with three legs: on the amulets of the Kumano shrines, on shrine flags, and on the badge of Japan's national football teams. The three legs are a later addition. Japan's oldest chronicles, the *Kojiki* (712) and the *Nihon Shoki* (720), say nothing about the crow's legs. The Japan Football Association, which uses the three-legged bird as its emblem, says so on its own website. This article follows the crow from the chronicles to the shrine amulet and the football shirt, and traces where the third leg came from. ### The crow in the Kojiki In the *Kojiki*, the future emperor, Kamu-yamato-iware-biko, is leading his army east to conquer Yamato. At Kumano, on the Kii Peninsula, a magic sword sent down from heaven saves the army from the spell of the local gods. Then the heavenly deity Takagi no kami, also called Takamimusubi, gives a warning. Chamberlain's translation of 1882 reads: "make no progress hence into the interior. The savage Deities are very numerous. I will now send from Heaven a crow eight feet [long]. So that crow eight feet [long] shall guide thee." The army follows the crow over the mountains and through Yoshino until it comes out at Uda in Yamato. The crow then works as a messenger. It is sent ahead to two brothers at Uda, the Ukashi, to ask whether they will serve the newcomer. The elder brother answers by shooting at it with a whistling arrow. ### The crow in the Nihon Shoki The *Nihon Shoki* tells the story differently. In W. G. Aston's translation of 1896, the army is lost among precipitous mountains "not knowing whither to direct their march". The sun goddess [Amaterasu](https://japan.je/yokai/amaterasu.html) appears to Jimmu in a dream: "I will now send thee the Yata-garasu, make it thy guide through the land." The crow appears, flying down from the sky, and Jimmu takes it as a sign that his ancestor Amaterasu is helping him. The army follows it to Uda. So the two chronicles disagree about who sent the crow: Takamimusubi in the *Kojiki*, Amaterasu in the *Nihon Shoki*. The Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto* records both. The *Nihon Shoki* gives the crow a bigger part. Sent to summon two local chiefs, the brothers Shiki, it cries "The child of the Heavenly Deity sends for thee. Haste! haste!" The elder brother, furious that "a bird of the crow tribe" should make such a noise, shoots at it. The younger brother is afraid and serves it food on eight leaf-platters. After the conquest, the chronicle says, the Yatagarasu "was also included in the ranks of those who received rewards". Its descendants were said to be the chiefs of Katsurano and the palace attendants called Tonomori. ### A crow of what size? The name is written 八咫烏. *Karasu* means "crow". The characters of *yata* mean "eight spans", but Britannica Japan and Kumano Hongū Taisha both explain *yata* as simply meaning "large". Kokugakuin University professor Hirafuji Kikuko writes that the name means "large crow", and that this is the only feature of the bird that can be learned from the myths. Translators have read it in different ways. Chamberlain chose "a crow eight feet long". He noted that the great scholar Motoori Norinaga took the name to mean "an eight-headed crow". Aston observed that the characters in the *Nihon Shoki* literally mean "the crow with a head eight feet long". He argued that the Chinese characters should be ignored in favour of the Japanese word. Later tradition also turned the crow into a god of a particular family. The Nipponica and Kokugakuin encyclopedias note that the *Shinsen shōjiroku*, a register of noble clans, says that Kamo no Taketsunomi, ancestor of the Kamo chiefs of Yamashiro, changed himself into a huge crow to guide Jimmu. The *Kogo shūi* also calls the crow a distant ancestor of the Kamo chiefs. Nipponica notes that the Kamo connection is the standard view, but that some scholars link the story to the Ōtomo clan instead. The Kokugakuin encyclopedia adds that the *Shoku Nihongi* records a Yatanokarasu Shrine founded in Uda in 705. ### Where the third leg came from In Chinese myth, a three-legged crow lives in the sun. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* gives this as a second meaning of *yatagarasu*: the three-legged crow imagined to live in the sun, and by extension the sun itself. It cites the tenth-century dictionary *Wamyōshō* (c. 934). Aston's note on the *Nihon Shoki* explains the link. The *Wamyōshō*, quoting older commentaries on the *Nihon Shoki*, says that the Chinese "sun crow" is called *yatagarasu* in Japanese. Aston himself suggested that *yata*, "eight hands", might be a loose description of the sun crow's three claws. That was his theory, not the general view. The Japan Football Association gives a short history of the merger. It explains that the story of the Chinese three-legged crow spread early to Goguryeo in northern Korea and then around East Asia. When it reached Japan it gradually became confused with the Yatagarasu, and the Yatagarasu came to be drawn with three legs. Hirafuji makes the same point. The myths give no third leg, but the Chinese sun crow seems to have shaped the image of a bird sent by the sun goddess. So the sources point to the tenth century as the earliest written link between the name *yatagarasu* and the three-legged sun crow. None of the sources consulted here dates the first Japanese picture of the Yatagarasu with three legs. Some modern explanations of the three legs belong to the shrines. Kumano Hongū Taisha says they are "said to" stand for heaven (the gods), earth (the natural world) and people. That is a shrine teaching, not something found in the chronicles. ### The crow of Kumano At the three great shrines of Kumano, the crow became a sacred messenger. Kumano Hongū Taisha calls it the servant of its main deity, Ketsumimiko, whom it identifies with [Susanoo](https://japan.je/yokai/susanoo.html). The shrine also honours it as a god of guidance. At Kumano Nachi Taisha, a Japan Tourism Agency text explains, legend says the crow returned after guiding Jimmu. A stone inside the shrine fence, the *Yatagarasu-ishi*, is said to be the crow at rest. A small shrine to it, the Miagatahiko-sha, stands in a building of 1867. The crow's best-known form at Kumano is the *Kumano goō*, a paper talisman. Kumano Hongū Taisha describes its own as a design of 88 crows forming the characters of a charm, printed by hand from woodblocks. Each of the three shrines uses a different number of crows. The shrine says that from the Kamakura period the paper was also used for written oaths, and in the Edo period in place of formal pledge documents. It was believed that breaking an oath sworn on it would kill one of Kumano's crows and send the oath-breaker to hell. Every 7 January the shrine holds the *Yatagarasu shinji*. The Kokugakuin encyclopedia describes it as a rite in which a stamp cut from the New Year pine is purified with fire and pressed onto the new talismans. ### The football crow The Japan Football Association gives the history of its emblem in its official FAQ. Its board decided to adopt an emblem in June 1931. The following year, a national meeting of delegates chose a design by the sculptor Hinako Jitsuzō as the association's flag. The association's Hall of Fame entry for Uchino Tairei, a founder of the association, says the three-legged crow emblem came from an idea by Uchino and others, which Hinako then shaped. JFA states that Hinako took the Yatagarasu of the Jimmu story as his motif. It adds that, because the chronicles do not give the crow three legs, the association treats the emblem as both the Yatagarasu and a Chinese symbol, citing texts such as the *Huainanzi*. Wakayama Prefecture links the emblem to Nakamura Kakunosuke (1878–1906), a native of Nachi on the Kumano coast. As a student at Tokyo Higher Normal School he compiled a Japanese book on association football and founded a football club there, said to be the first such team in Japan. The prefecture notes that the bird on the JFA flag is the same sacred crow worshipped at Kumano, and that Uchino was Nakamura's junior at the school. A Japan Tourism Agency text at Nachi goes further and says the crow was chosen to honour him. JFA's own account does not mention Nakamura, so this is best treated as a local tradition. Kumano Hongū Taisha says that JFA officials and national team players visit to pray for victory. ### Frequently asked questions ### Does Yatagarasu have three legs in the Kojiki or Nihon Shoki? No. Neither chronicle mentions its legs. The Japan Football Association and Kokugakuin University both point this out. The three legs came from the Chinese sun crow. The tenth-century dictionary *Wamyōshō* already gives *yatagarasu* as the Japanese name for that bird. ### Who sent Yatagarasu to Emperor Jimmu? The *Kojiki* says it was the heavenly deity Takagi no kami (Takamimusubi). The *Nihon Shoki* says Amaterasu sent it, promising it to Jimmu in a dream. ### What does "yata" mean? The characters mean "eight spans", but the word is generally taken to mean simply "large". Chamberlain translated the name as "a crow eight feet long". Motoori Norinaga thought it meant "eight-headed". ### Why is Yatagarasu the symbol of Japanese football? The Japan Football Association adopted a three-legged crow emblem in 1931, designed by the sculptor Hinako Jitsuzō from an idea by Uchino Tairei and others. JFA describes it as the Yatagarasu of the Jimmu story combined with the Chinese sun crow. A local tradition in Wakayama also links it to the Kumano-born football pioneer Nakamura Kakunosuke. ### Where is Yatagarasu worshipped? Above all at the three Kumano shrines in Wakayama Prefecture, where it is the gods' messenger and appears on the *Kumano goō* talismans. The *Shoku Nihongi* also records a Yatanokarasu Shrine in Uda, Nara, in 705. ### Sources - [*Kojiki*, tr. B. H. Chamberlain (1882), Section 46: "The Gigantic Crow and Gods with Tails" (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_46) - [*Kojiki*, tr. B. H. Chamberlain (1882), Section 47 (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_47) - [*Nihongi*, tr. W. G. Aston (1896), Book III: Emperor Jimmu (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nihongi/Book_III) - [八咫烏: *Daijisen*, *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten*, Nipponica, Heibonsha and Britannica Japan entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%85%AB%E5%92%AB%E7%83%8F) - [Yatakarasu, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9722) - [Yatagarasu shinji, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9193) - [Hirafuji Kikuko, "The Yatagarasu: The Three-legged Crow That Guided Emperor Jimmu on his Journey", Kokugakuin University](https://www.kokugakuin.ac.jp/en/article/145336) - [八咫烏について, Kumano Hongū Taisha](https://www.hongutaisha.jp/2015/04/21/%e5%85%ab%e5%92%ab%e7%83%8f%e3%81%ab%e3%81%a4%e3%81%84%e3%81%a6/) - [熊野牛王神符, Kumano Hongū Taisha](https://www.hongutaisha.jp/2015/04/22/%e7%86%8a%e9%87%8e%e7%89%9b%e7%8e%8b%e7%a5%9e%e7%ac%a6/) - [Yatagarasu, the Three-Legged Crow (Kumano Nachi Taisha), Japan Tourism Agency multilingual commentary database](https://www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db/en/R2-00214.html) - [Japan Football Association FAQ: the meaning of the JFA emblem](https://www.jfa.jp/documents/faq/inquiry.html) - [Japan Football Hall of Fame: Uchino Tairei, Japan Football Association](https://www.jfa.jp/about_jfa/hall_of_fame/member/UCHINO_Tairei.html) - [スポーツ偉人伝: 中村覚之助, Wakayama Prefecture](https://www.pref.wakayama.lg.jp/prefg/022600/sportsijinden/d00216851.html) - [Wikipedia: Yatagarasu (pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yatagarasu) --- ## Nekomata (猫又): Forked-Tail Cat Yokai URL: https://japan.je/yokai/nekomata.html ### What is a nekomata? A *nekomata* is a monster cat, best known for a tail split in two. Standard Japanese dictionaries define it as an aged cat whose tail has forked, and which transforms and does people harm. Heibonsha's encyclopedia adds that nekomata were said to change shape and speak human language. In fact, the name covers two rather different creatures. The older nekomata is a man-eating beast of the mountains, closer to a wild animal than to a pet. The later and more familiar nekomata is a household cat that has lived too long. The second kind overlaps so much with the transforming cat known as the [bakeneko](https://japan.je/yokai/bakeneko.html) that the two words are often used for the same thing. This page concentrates on what is particular to the nekomata: its mountain origins, the famous episode in *Tsurezuregusa*, and the forked tail. ### The mountain nekomata The earliest record comes from the diary *Meigetsuki* of the poet and courtier Fujiwara no Teika. In an entry for the second day of the eighth month of Tenpuku 1 (1233), Teika noted a rumour from Nara. A beast called a nekomata had appeared there and eaten several people in a single night, and many had died. The entry also mentions the beast being beaten to death. It had eyes like a cat's, and a body as long as a dog's. It is a wild animal, not anyone's pet. Mountain nekomata never disappeared from local legend. In Fukushima, north of Mount Nekoma, lies a rock called Nekoishi ("cat stone"), about the size of a tatami mat. A nekomata that lived there was said to eat people, and the ground around the rock was said to be bare of grass and dust, as if swept. In Toyama, a peak above the Kurobe Gorge is called Nekomata-yama. Its legend says an old cat once lived on Mount Fuji, was rounded up with other animals in a great hunt, killed and ate some of the soldiers, and was banished. It then settled in Kurobe as a nekomata and terrorised the villages until the hunters sent against it were frozen with fear and it simply left. A tale from Niigata also begins with a nekomata expelled by the god of Fuji. It settles in the village of Nakanomata and kills one villager after another. Neither the authorities nor guns can stop it, until the strongest man in the village, though sick, wrestles it to the death and dies with it. In Yamagata, near Mount Haguro, a man named Hayasuke killed a nekomata on the eastern mountain with his family's heirloom sword. Its grudge then brought misfortune on his house, which ended only when he stood the sword on the ridge of his roof, pointing toward the mountain. ### Tsurezuregusa, episode 89 The best-known nekomata in Japanese literature is a false alarm. Yoshida Kenkō's essay collection *Tsurezuregusa*, written around 1330, records some gossip in its episode 89. "Deep in the mountains," people say, "there is a thing called a nekomata, and it eats people." Someone replies that one need not go to the mountains. Even here, a cat that grows old can turn into a nekomata and carry people off. A monk known for linked verse, who lived near the temple of Gyōganji in Kyoto, hears this and resolves to be careful when walking alone. One night he comes home late and alone from a linked-verse party. At the edge of a little stream, the nekomata he has heard about comes straight at his feet, leaps on him and goes for his throat. His strength leaves him, and he tumbles into the water shouting, "Help! A nekomata!" Neighbours run out with torches and pull a monk they all know out of the stream. The fan and small boxes he had won as prizes at the party are soaked. He crawls home, barely saved. It was his own dog, which had recognised its master in the dark and jumped up to greet him. The passage is valuable because it shows both kinds of nekomata side by side in the fourteenth century. One is the beast of the deep mountains. The other is the house cat that turns into one with age. It is also worth noticing what the passage does not say. Kenkō never mentions a tail. The forked tail that defines the nekomata in modern dictionaries is supplied by commentators, not by the essay itself. ### The house-cat nekomata and the forked tail By the time folklorists began collecting stories in the twentieth century, the house-cat nekomata had become the usual kind. A 1913 note from Matsue in Shimane states simply that a pet cat becomes a nekomata when it grows old. A temple cat there was said to go out at night wearing a priest's surplice and singing in the streets. The forked tail now appears in the folk accounts themselves. In Marugame in Kagawa, people said that a cat that grows old becomes a nekomata. Its tail splits in two, and it stands on its hind legs and dances. A detailed account from Miyazaki says that a cat over one *kan* (about 3.75 kg) leaves home to train in the mountains. It sleeps on pine stumps to coat itself in resin and rolls in sand to harden its fur, until no arrow or bullet can pierce it. After one, two or seven years it comes home as a nekomata, with the tip of its tail divided, and turns on the family. Red tomcats were thought especially likely to change. Several stories have the nekomata eat an old woman and take her place. In one from Kagawa, the cat a bedridden grandmother had kept for years ate her. It slept in her shape by day and went to the shrine at night to wrestle. In one from Ishikawa, a samurai's arrow struck a nekomata in a tree. Soon afterwards an old woman named Okiku lay dying, and when her clothes were pulled back the arrow wound was found. The cat had eaten the real Okiku thirteen years before. Nekomata were also tied to the dead. In Ehime, people said a cat passing over a corpse would make it a nekomata and set the body moving, so mourners kept cats away. For the related Kanagawa belief about the kitchen ladle and the broom laid beside the dead, and for the corpse-snatching *kasha*, see the [bakeneko article](https://japan.je/yokai/bakeneko.html). ### Living with a nekomata Folk tradition did not always call for a fight. In Kagawa, the advice for a cat that had become a nekomata was to give it a meal of red-bean rice with fish, put a red hand towel on its head and tell it that it was free to go. Then it would leave without harming the house. In Miyazaki, a newborn kitten might be placed in a wooden measuring box as a charm to stop it growing too big. Some nekomata even repaid kindness. In another Kagawa tale, a priest saved a cat from fishermen who were about to kill it. About three years later it had become a nekomata, and it repaid him by ridding his temple of a huge rat. ### In art and theatre Edo writers enjoyed nekomata anecdotes. The *Baiō zuihitsu* tells of a teahouse in the spring of Kansei 8 (1796), where five or six regulars ate and drank and told the owner to collect payment at their lodgings as usual. When he went, he learned they had died seven years earlier. Remembering that they had eaten three flounder whole, head and bones included, he concluded they must have been nekomata. In prints, Utagawa Kuniyoshi placed a comic nekomata at the centre of his graffiti-style picture *Nitakaragura kabe no mudagaki*. On the kabuki stage, the Saga cat-disturbance play bore the word in its title, *Hana no Saga Nekomata Zōshi*. Its story is told in the bakeneko article. ### Frequently asked questions ### What is the difference between a nekomata and a bakeneko? *Bakeneko* is the broad word for any transforming cat. *Nekomata* is the older word and names a particular kind, usually defined by its forked tail. The nekomata also has a second, separate tradition as a man-eating mountain beast. In practice the two names overlap heavily. ### Why does a nekomata have two tails? Dictionaries define the nekomata as a cat whose tail has split with age, and folk accounts from Kagawa and Miyazaki describe the split. The earliest texts, from 1233 and around 1330, do not mention the tail at all, so the feature seems to have been attached to the name later. ### What was the first record of a nekomata? The courtier Fujiwara no Teika's diary *Meigetsuki* records, in 1233, a rumour that a nekomata in Nara had eaten several people in one night. He described it as having a cat's eyes and a body as long as a dog's. ### What happens in Tsurezuregusa episode 89? People gossip that nekomata live in the mountains and that old house cats can turn into them. A linked-verse monk walking home at night is jumped on beside a stream and falls in, screaming for help. It turns out to be his own dog welcoming him home. ### Are nekomata dangerous? In most folk tales, yes: they eat people, take the place of old women and disturb the dead. But some traditions show nekomata that leave peacefully if politely sent away, and even one that repays a priest who saved its life. ### Sources - [Kotobank: 猫股 (Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, citing *Meigetsuki* 1233 and *Tsurezuregusa*; Daijisen; Heibonsha)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%8C%AB%E8%82%A1) - [Yoshida Kenkō, *Tsurezuregusa*, episode 89 (annotated Japanese text, Wikisource)](https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%BE%92%E7%84%B6%E8%8D%89_%28%E6%A0%A1%E8%A8%BB%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E6%96%87%E5%AD%B8%E5%A4%A7%E7%B3%BB%29) - [Nichibunken Kaii/Yōkai Densho Database: nekomata records](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/ksearch.cgi?Name=%E3%83%8D%E3%82%B3%E3%83%9E%E3%82%BF&Pref=&Area=%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BD) - [Nichibunken record C0730350-000: Fukushima, Nekoishi below Mount Nekoma](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C0730350-000) - [Nichibunken record 0030050: Niigata, the nekomata of Nakanomata](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0030050) - [Nichibunken record 1231302: Yamagata, Hayasuke's sword](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1231302) - [Nichibunken record 0640028: Matsue, the singing temple cat (1913)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0640028) - [Nichibunken record 0640390: Marugame, forked tail and the farewell meal](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0640390) - [Nichibunken record C0411105-000: Kagawa, red-bean rice and red towel](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C0411105-000) - [Nichibunken record C4510104-000: Miyazaki, the cat's mountain training](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C4510104-000) - [Nichibunken record 0470056: Kagawa, the cat that replaced a grandmother](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0470056) - [Nichibunken record 2460015: Ishikawa, the arrow and Okiku](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2460015) - [Nichibunken record 0200080: Ehime, cats kept from the dead](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0200080) - [Nichibunken record 0470122: Kagawa, the grateful nekomata](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0470122) - [Nichibunken record 3610007: *Baiō zuihitsu*, the dead regulars (1796)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=3610007) - [Waraku (Shogakukan): nekomata legends, Nekomata-yama and Kuniyoshi](https://intojapanwaraku.com/rock/culture-rock/9581/) - [japan.je: Bakeneko](https://japan.je/yokai/bakeneko.html) - [Wikipedia: Nekomata (pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nekomata) --- ## Ushi-oni (牛鬼): Ox-Demon Yokai of Western Japan URL: https://japan.je/yokai/ushi-oni.html ### What is the ushi-oni? The *ushi-oni* (牛鬼), "ox demon", is a monster of western Japan's coasts, rivers and deep pools. The name covers several quite different things. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten*, Japan's largest historical dictionary, gives three main senses. One is a general ox-shaped demon, close to the ox-headed jailers of the Buddhist hells. The second is a regional monster: a sea creature in Shimane, and a creature of river pools in places such as Nishimuro in Wakayama and Tosa in Kōchi. The third is not a monster at all. It is the huge red ox-demon float carried in autumn festivals around Uwajima in Ehime Prefecture. No single description holds for all of them. Some tellings give the creature an ox's head on a demon's body. Others give it a demon's head on an ox's body. Some say nobody has ever seen it clearly. Most stories make it a killer, but a few end with it being worshipped. ### An old name The word is older than most yokai names. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* gives as its earliest example a list in Sei Shōnagon's *Makura no Sōshi* (*The Pillow Book*, late tenth century). There *ushioni* appears in a run of things with frightening names, between *ikisudama* (a living person's wandering spirit) and *ikari* (an anchor). Nothing in that passage says what the ushi-oni looked like. The dictionary's own note on the word suggests where the early image came from. The Buddhist hells, as described in texts such as Genshin's *Ōjōyōshū*, are guarded by *gozu*, demons with an ox's head on a human body. The dictionary thinks the *ushi-oni* of classical literature followed that model. The late-Heian tale collection *Konjaku Monogatarishū* has "a demon with an ox's head". The dictionary points out that the local legends recorded later usually turn this around. In them the creature has a demon's head, with one or two horns, on an ox's body. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* also cites the guidebook *Tōkaidō meishoki* (around 1659) for a place where "long ago an ushi-oni came out and ran about". A more detailed early account appears in the essay collection *Isetsu machimachi* (1748). Its author says the ushi-oni is found in Izumo Province. When rain goes on and the air is damp, people meet it at night by a certain bridge. Nichibunken's yokai database summarises the anecdote. A man crossing the bridge found many glowing white things fluttering around him and clinging to him. When he asked at a nearby house, he was told that he must have met the ushi-oni. ### Sekien's ushi-oni Toriyama Sekien put the ushi-oni in his illustrated catalogue of monsters, *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō* (1776). The National Diet Library's digitised copy, an 1805 printing, shows it on its own page. A heavy, shaggy beast crouches in tall, wind-blown grass at the water's edge. Its head is half hidden in the grasses, and a clawed foot reaches forward. Sekien gave only the name, with no caption to explain it. The ushi-oni had been painted before Sekien, in the illustrated monster scrolls known as *bakemono-zukushi*. Sawaki Sūshi's *Hyakkai zukan* (1737), now in the Fukuoka City Museum, includes a figure labelled うし鬼, *ushi-oni*. The museum showed that section in its 2026 exhibition of ghost and yokai paintings. The same kind of scroll also includes the *nure-onna*, as our article on [Nure-onna](https://japan.je/yokai/nure-onna.html) describes. ### On the coast: Shimane and the wet woman The richest coastal stories come from Iwami, on the Sea of Japan coast of present-day Shimane Prefecture. Nichibunken's database holds several from local-history articles of 1933. In one, from Ōda, four men fishing for mackerel at night hear a voice from the shore calling "Shall I come? Shall I come?" One of them answers "Come if you like." An ushi-oni leaps into the sea and chases them. They escape into the house nearest the water, and the monster flees from a charm of Izumo Taisha pasted on a pillar. In another, an old fisherman catches an ushi-oni, carries it home and throws it down in front of his boat shed. When a young man strikes its head with an oar, it turns out to be an old camellia root. The best-known Iwami stories pair the ushi-oni with the *nure-onna*, the "wet woman". She appears by the water at night and hands a passer-by a baby. In a version from Gōtsu, the baby turns as heavy as stone and cannot be dropped. Then the ushi-oni comes out of the sea to catch the victim who is stuck holding it. The full stories are told in our [Nure-onna](https://japan.je/yokai/nure-onna.html) article. A 1991 study, "Ushi-oni kō", collected more Iwami tales. In one, from Hamada, an ushi-oni lives in a sea cave and quarrels with a great spider. In another, a man chanting the *nenbutsu* drives one off, but his hair falls out afterwards. Further east along the same sea, at Kumihama on Kyoto's Tango coast, fishermen spoke of the ushi-oni less as a beast than as a kind of spell. A 1974 collection explains that when even a skilled fisherman, on a rainy night, rowed all night and still could not reach the spot he was making for, he was said to have been "caught by the ushi-oni". ### In the hills and pools Away from the sea, the ushi-oni lives in waterfalls and deep pools, and many places are named after it. Collectors in Hongū, in the Kumano mountains of Wakayama, recorded in 1985 that the ushi-oni had once been the most feared thing of all. One informant described it as having a demon's head and, below the neck, the body of an ox. Others said that nobody had ever seen it properly. It was said to come down from the mountains on the night of Setsubun or on New Year's Eve, and to slip into cattle sheds without a sound. People who were seen by it would die. Several legends end with a hero killing it, usually an archer or a hunter. A 1915 report from Hikari in Yamaguchi says that in the Tenbun era (1532–1555) an ushi-oni drove the people off an island, until a man from Iyo and a local archer shot it. A rock where it sharpened its tusks is still pointed out. In Tokushima a hunter named Heishirō is said to have killed one living on a mountain. Its blood flowed for seven days and nights. Not every ushi-oni stays an enemy. In Toyoura, near Shimonoseki in Yamaguchi, one story collected in 1992 tells of a young man who visited a woman every night and was shot by her husband. The young man fled and was found dead at the foot of a mountain. When the village suffered misfortune afterwards, people enshrined him as an *ushi-oni-gami* (an ushi-oni deity), and the misfortune stopped. The Heibonsha encyclopedia suggests one down-to-earth source for the name. The Japanese serow, a wild goat-antelope that keeps to remote mountains, was seldom seen in western Japan. Many farmers who did see one feared it as an ox-like monster and called it *ushi-oni*. ### The Uwajima floats In the south of Ehime the ushi-oni became a festival guardian. The Nipponica encyclopedia describes it as a procession figure in autumn festivals of the Uwa district. A long neck carries a demon's head with ox-like horns. The body, five or six metres long, is woven from split bamboo and covered in palm fibre or red cloth, and it ends in a tail shaped like a sword. Dozens of young men carry it. Children follow behind, blowing bamboo trumpets. To drive out evil, the float pushes its head into each house in turn, and Nipponica notes that it may get rough with households that have a bad local reputation. A popular story says the figure was first used by Katō Kiyomasa in the invasion of Korea in 1592. Nipponica treats this only as something "it is said" and considers the float part of the same family as the lion figures that lead other festival processions. The best-known appearance is in Uwajima city in late July. The Britannica Japan encyclopedia notes that on 23–24 July, while the Warei Shrine holds its summer festival, ushi-oni floats entered by neighbourhood associations, companies and groups parade through the city. It stresses that these floats are organised separately from the shrine festival itself. Smaller communities have their own reasons. A 1959 report from Kikuma, in Mikame on the Uwa Sea, says that in a year when the ushi-oni was not brought out an epidemic broke out, so it has been brought out every year since. A 1973 report from Ehime gives two origin stories: the float was built to drive out the gods of an epidemic, or it was made to calm the vengeful spirit of an ox-like monster that had ruined the crops. ### Frequently asked questions ### What does an ushi-oni look like? It depends on the region. Classical texts seem to follow the ox-headed demons of Buddhist hell. Many local legends describe a demon's head on an ox's body. Sekien drew a shaggy, clawed beast in the reeds at the water's edge. Some villages said no one had ever seen it clearly. ### Where do ushi-oni legends come from? Mostly from western Japan: the Iwami coast of Shimane, Wakayama and the Kumano mountains, Kyoto's Tango coast, Yamaguchi, and Shikoku, especially Ehime and Tokushima. They are tied to the seashore, river pools and waterfalls. ### What is the connection between the ushi-oni and the nure-onna? In 1933 accounts from Iwami in Shimane, the nure-onna hands a passer-by a baby. The ushi-oni then comes out of the sea to chase the victim, who cannot get rid of the baby. Both also appear in the same eighteenth-century monster scroll, Sawaki Sūshi's *Hyakkai zukan* (1737). ### Is the ushi-oni always evil? No. Most tales make it a deadly menace that hunters or archers kill. But near Shimonoseki one was enshrined as a deity to end its curse, and in southern Ehime the ushi-oni float is paraded to drive away disease and bad luck. ### When is the Uwajima ushi-oni festival? Ushi-oni floats parade through Uwajima in late July, at the same time as the summer festival of Warei Shrine. Britannica Japan gives the parade days as 23–24 July. Many other communities in southern Ehime bring out ushi-oni at their autumn festivals. ### Sources - [牛鬼: *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten*, *Daijisen*, Nipponica and Heibonsha entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%89%9B%E9%AC%BC-439538) - [和霊大祭: Britannica Japan entry (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%92%8C%E9%9C%8A%E5%A4%A7%E7%A5%AD-156633) - [東海道名所記: dating of the *Tōkaidō meishoki* (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%9D%B1%E6%B5%B7%E9%81%93%E5%90%8D%E6%89%80%E8%A8%98-103198) - [Toriyama Sekien, *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō*, 1805 printing, ushi-oni page (National Diet Library Digital Collections)](https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2553975/1/36) - [NDL Image Bank: Toriyama Sekien's yokai books (publication dates)](https://www.ndl.go.jp/imagebank/column/sekienyokai) - [Fukuoka City Museum exhibition release: Sawaki Sūshi, *Hyakkai zukan* (1737), うし鬼 section (PR Times)](https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000426.000027592.html) - [Nichibunken yokai database: *Isetsu machimachi*, the ushi-oni at the bridge in Izumo](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=3140004) - [Nichibunken: four fishermen and the Izumo Taisha charm, Ōda (1933)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0640484) - [Nichibunken: the ushi-oni that was a camellia root, Ōda (1933)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0640485) - [Nichibunken: Nure-onna and Ushi-oni, Gōtsu (1933)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0640516) - [Nichibunken: the ushi-oni and the great spider, Hamada (1991)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0850099) - [Nichibunken: the nenbutsu and the falling hair, Gōtsu (1991)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0850094) - [Nichibunken: "caught by the ushi-oni" at sea, Kumihama, Kyoto (1974)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0590010) - [Nichibunken: demon's head and ox's body, Hongū, Wakayama (1985)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0700303) - [Nichibunken: the ushi-oni at Setsubun, Hongū (1985)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0700309) - [Nichibunken: the silent visitor to the cattle shed, Hongū (1985)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0700305) - [Nichibunken: no one has seen its true form, Hongū (1985)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0700308) - [Nichibunken: the island ushi-oni of the Tenbun era, Hikari, Yamaguchi (1915)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0640074) - [Nichibunken: the hunter Heishirō, Tokushima (1962)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0730028) - [Nichibunken: the enshrined ushi-oni of Toyoura, Yamaguchi (1992)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0700538) - [Nichibunken: the Kikuma ushi-oni and the epidemic, Ehime (1959)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0190009) - [Nichibunken: two origins of the festival ushi-oni, Ehime (1973)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0200001) - [Ushi-oni (Wikipedia, pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushi-oni) --- ## Kitsune (狐): Japanese Fox Spirit in Folklore URL: https://japan.je/yokai/kitsune.html ### What is a kitsune? *Kitsune* is simply the ordinary Japanese word for a fox, and that is the first thing to understand about the kitsune of folklore. Over many centuries the real red fox of the farming villages gathered a second identity: a clever, long-lived creature able to bewitch people, change its shape and serve the gods. When people today speak of kitsune as yokai, they mean this second, supernatural fox, but the line between the animal at the edge of the rice field and the spirit in the story was never sharply drawn. That double nature explains why the kitsune is so hard to pin down. In one tale it is a loving wife and mother; in another it leads a drunk traveller into a ditch; in a third it is the honoured messenger of a major Shinto deity. Folklorists usually sort these roles into two broad camps. Benevolent foxes, sometimes called *zenko*, are linked with the deity Inari. Wild or field foxes, called *yako* or *nogitsune*, are the troublemakers of village lore. Both kinds are kitsune, and much of their appeal lies in never knowing which one you have met. ### Appearance and powers The defining power of the kitsune is transformation. Foxes in Japanese stories take human form, most famously as beautiful young women, but also as monks, old men, relatives of the person they mean to deceive, or even inanimate things such as trees. In the classical kyōgen comedy *Tsurigitsune* ("Fox Trapping"), an old fox disguises itself as a hunter's uncle, a priest named Hakuzōsu, to talk him out of setting traps; actors play the part in a special fox mask. Kitsune were also credited with illusions of every kind. Village stories describe foxes that made people see a warm bath where there was really a cesspit, or serve horse dung that looked like rice cakes. Glowing lights in the night fields were called *kitsunebi*, "fox fire," and were said to lure travellers off the path. A rain shower that falls while the sun is shining is still known in Japanese as *kitsune no yomeiri*, "the fox's wedding," as if a fox bridal procession were passing unseen. The idea that a fox's power grows with age, and that the oldest foxes have many tails, came to Japan from Chinese fox lore. Chinese accounts describe a fox that can take human shape at fifty years and becomes a "heavenly fox" after a thousand years, and the nine-tailed fox appears in early Chinese classics. Japanese tradition took up the image: some stories say a fox gains a tail with each century of life, and the nine-tailed fox became the mark of the most ancient and dangerous of them all. The darkest power attributed to foxes was possession, *kitsunetsuki*. Stories of people seized by fox spirits are attested from the Heian period, and the *Nihon ryōiki* fox wife may be an early example of the idea. The Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto* notes that foxes were believed both to deliver oracles and to haunt households, which gave rise to shamanic practitioners known as *kitsune tsukai*, "fox handlers." ### Origins and history Foxes enter the Japanese written record very early. The *Nihon Shoki*, completed in 720, records foxes as omens: a white fox reported from Iwami Province in 657, and in 659 a fox that snatched a vine from a labourer's hand, read afterwards as one of the signs that Empress Saimei was about to die. The first true fox story comes in the *Nihon ryōiki*, a collection of Buddhist tales compiled in the early ninth century. In it, a man from Mino Province marries a beautiful woman who bears him a son. The family dog hates her, and one day it frightens her into revealing her true form as a fox. Her husband tells her that since they share a child, she should keep coming back to sleep with him, and the tale explains that this is why the animal is called *kitsune*: read one way, the word suggests "come and sleep." This is a folk etymology, not real linguistic history, but it shows how early the fox wife became a Japanese story type. From the Heian period onward, fox tales multiply. The great twelfth-century anthology *Konjaku monogatarishū* includes foxes that disguise themselves and pay for it, and a fox that repays a man for returning a jewel it had lost. By the medieval period the fox had also become bound up with the cult of Inari. ### Kitsune and Inari Inari is one of the most widely worshipped deities in Japan. Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto, the head shrine, dates its enshrinement of Inari Ōkami to 711, and counts around thirty thousand Inari shrines across the country. Inari is above all a deity of rice and harvests, later also of commerce and household prosperity. The fox is Inari's messenger, not Inari itself. The *Encyclopedia of Shinto* explains several threads that tied the two together: the folk belief that the mountain deity was led down to the rice paddies in spring by a fox; places where the deity was welcomed being known as "fox mounds"; and a play on words, since one of the food deities associated with Inari, Miketsu-no-kami, sounds like "three fox gods." At Fushimi, a subsidiary shrine called Myōbusha (or Byakkosha) honours fox spirits directly. This is why pairs of stone foxes guard Inari shrines all over Japan, and why the white fox in particular is a good omen. Shinto and Buddhist priests have long discouraged identifying the deity with the fox, but popular devotion has always blurred them. ### Famous legends **Tamamo-no-Mae.** The most notorious kitsune is the court beauty Tamamo-no-Mae, whose story took shape in medieval tales. Many retellings set her at the court of the retired Emperor Toba in the twelfth century, while the Muromachi-period prose versions name Emperor Konoe. She dazzles the court with her learning and beauty until the emperor falls gravely ill; a court diviner, named in the tales as Abe no Yasuchika, unmasks her as a fox with nine tails. She flees to the plain of Nasu, where warriors sent by the emperor hunt her down, and her spirit passes into a poisonous boulder called the *Sesshō-seki*, "killing stone." The rock still stands near the hot springs of Nasu in Tochigi Prefecture. In March 2022 it was found split in two; local officials put the break down to rain and freezing temperatures working on old cracks. **Kuzunoha, mother of Abe no Seimei.** The celebrated court diviner Abe no Seimei was a real tenth-century figure, but legend gave him a fox for a mother. In this story a white fox, rescued from hunters by a man named Abe no Yasuna, returns in the form of a woman called Kuzunoha, marries him and bears his son. When her nature is discovered she leaves, writing a farewell poem that tells her family to seek her in the Shinoda forest. The earliest known version appears in a book printed in 1662, and the tale was later staged as the puppet play *Ashiya Dōman ōuchi kagami* (1734). **The fox of Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura.** In this puppet-theatre classic, first staged in Osaka in 1747 and adapted for kabuki the following year, a young fox takes the shape of Satō Tadanobu, one of the warrior Yoshitsune's retainers, in order to stay close to a drum made from the skins of his fox parents. When the deception is exposed, his devotion moves Yoshitsune to give him the drum, along with the name Genkurō. ### In art and popular culture Foxes run through Japanese art, from Noh and kyōgen masks to woodblock prints. One of the best known is Utagawa Hiroshige's *New Year's Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree, Ōji* (1857), from *One Hundred Famous Views of Edo*. It illustrates a local legend that on the last night of the year foxes from the surrounding provinces gathered at a tree near Ōji Inari Shrine, and that farmers read the coming harvest from their fires. In modern popular culture the nine-tailed fox is everywhere. Kurama, the nine-tailed fox sealed inside the hero of the manga *Naruto*, is probably the most widely known example. Akira Kurosawa's 1990 film *Dreams* opens with a boy who spies on a foxes' wedding procession in the rain. ### Frequently asked questions ### Are kitsune good or evil? Neither, consistently. Folklore distinguishes benevolent foxes linked with Inari from wild field foxes that trick, mislead or possess people, and many stories fall somewhere in between. The fox wife and Kuzunoha are sympathetic figures, while Tamamo-no-Mae is a villain. ### How many tails can a kitsune have? Up to nine. The idea that a fox grows more powerful, and in some tellings gains more tails, as it ages came to Japan from Chinese fox lore, and the nine-tailed fox stands for the oldest and most powerful of them. ### Is the kitsune the god Inari? No. In Shinto the fox is Inari's messenger, which is why stone foxes guard Inari shrines. Popular belief has often blurred the two, but shrine and temple priests have long discouraged treating the fox as the deity itself. ### What is a kitsune's wedding? *Kitsune no yomeiri*, "the fox's wedding," is the Japanese name for rain that falls while the sun shines. The image is of an invisible fox bridal procession passing by, and it is still an everyday expression. ### Sources - [Kitsune (Wikipedia, used as a pointer to primary texts)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsune) - [Inari Shinkō, Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9027) - [Nihongi, tr. W. G. Aston, vol. 2 (Internet Archive)](https://archive.org/details/nihongi2asto) - [Kitsune: Come and Sleep (EBSCO Research Starters)](https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/kitsune-come-and-sleep-and-foxes-wedding-japanese-fairy) - [About Fushimi Inari Taisha (official site)](https://inari.jp/en/) - [Kitsune, JAANUS dictionary of Japanese art (fox masks, Tsurigitsune)](https://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/jaanus/record/kitsune) - [Inari Ōkami (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inari_%C5%8Ckami) - [Kuzunoha (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuzunoha) - [Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshitsune_Senbon_Zakura) - [Tamamo-no-Mae (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamamo-no-Mae) - [Ancient Japanese stone said to contain demon cracks open (Smithsonian Magazine, 2022)](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-japanese-stone-said-to-contain-demon-cracks-open-180979729/) - [Abe no Seimei, Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9603) - [Hiroshige, New Year's Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree, Ōji (Brooklyn Museum)](https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/objects/121730) --- ## Kappa (河童): Japanese River Yokai URL: https://japan.je/yokai/kappa.html ### What is a kappa? The kappa is Japan's best-known water yokai: a child-sized creature said to live in rivers, ponds and lakes, which could drag people and animals into the water to drown them. The name is written 河童, usually glossed as "river child," but it was never the only one. Across Japan the same kind of being was called *kawatarō* ("river boy"), *kawako*, *gatarō*, *enkō* in parts of Shikoku and western Honshū, *hyōsube* in southern Kyūshū, and many other local names. Edo-period scholars writing in a learned, Chinese-influenced style often used *suiko*, "water tiger." What unites these creatures is less a fixed body than a set of habits: they live in fresh water, they are dangerous to swimmers, horses and cattle, and they are oddly bound by rules of courtesy and promise-keeping. That mixture of menace and good manners is what makes the kappa so memorable. ### Appearance and powers The classic kappa of Edo-period descriptions is about the size of a young boy, greenish or yellowish, scaly or slimy, with webbed hands and feet, a snout or beak, a shell on its back like a turtle's, and a fringe of hair around the top of its head. In that bare crown sits its most famous feature, a shallow hollow called the *sara*, or "dish," which holds water. As long as the dish stays full, the kappa is strong, on land as well as in water. If the water spills or dries up, it weakens and, in some tellings, may even die. Not every kappa looked like this. Older images were often hairy and ape-like, while later ones became more turtle- or frog-like, and different regions had their own versions. The variety is a reminder that the "standard" kappa is partly a product of Edo-period encyclopedias and pictures, which gathered scattered local beliefs into a single recognisable creature. Kappa were credited with great strength for their size. They loved sumo and would challenge passers-by to wrestle, and they were said to pull horses and cattle into the water as well as people. The most gruesome belief concerned the *shirikodama*, an imaginary organ that the kappa was said to pull out of its victims through the anus, leaving them dead or senseless. Kappa were also said to dislike iron and other metals, as well as sesame and deer antler. ### Origins and history Where the kappa came from is not settled. The great folklorist Yanagita Kunio argued that it was a fallen water deity, a *suijin* once worshipped and later reduced to a goblin as belief in it faded, and Michael Dylan Foster's study of the kappa likewise describes it as a once malicious water deity. Other scholars have pointed to Chinese river-god traditions, especially in the kappa's habit of dragging horses into the water; Orikuchi Shinobu suggested that the head-dish might derive from the hat of a rice-field deity. Kappa beliefs also served a very practical purpose. Stories of a creature lurking in the water warned children away from deep pools and fast rivers, and that use continues in the warning signs still seen near water in some towns. The written record of the kappa as we know it belongs largely to the Edo period (1603–1868). The illustrated encyclopedia *Wakan sansai zue* (1712) describes the *kawatarō* as a creature that steals crops and attacks cattle. Naturalists and scholars of the period collected kappa reports eagerly: *Suiko kōryaku* (1820) gathered kappa anecdotes with illustrations, and the illustrated sheet *Suiko jūnihin no zu* shows twelve kinds, some of them turtle-like. Edo collections of strange tales, comic paintings and the occasional ukiyo-e print all featured them. ### Famous legends **The kappa and the bargain.** The most widespread kappa tale is a story of capture and release. A kappa tries to drag a horse into a river and loses: it is caught, or its arm is cut off. To win back its freedom or its arm, the kappa makes a bargain. Often it swears never again to harm the people or animals of that village, sometimes in a written pledge; in many versions it teaches its captor a secret medicine for setting bones or healing wounds. Some old families and temples still say they hold such a pledge, a recipe, or the kappa's preserved hand. One early written example appears in the *Seiban kaidan jikki* of 1754, and Ushiku Pond in Ibaraki Prefecture is known for a version in which a kappa reunited with its severed hand gives a healer its recipe for a wonder salve. **The bowing kappa.** Kappa are said to be extremely polite. The standard way to escape one is to bow deeply: the kappa must bow back, the water spills from its dish, and it is left helpless until someone refills it. The same trick is said to work before a sumo bout. **Kusenbō and the kappa of Kyūshū.** The rivers of northern Kyūshū are especially rich in kappa lore. Legend makes Kusenbō a kappa chief said to command nine thousand followers, and around the Chikugo River the kappa are tied to the Suitengū water shrine in Kurume. In the same region a music-and-dance tradition known as *kappa-gaku* is said to appease the spirits of the Heike warriors defeated at the end of the twelfth century. ### Regional traditions and offerings The kappa's favourite food is the cucumber, and people gave it cucumbers to keep it friendly. In Edo-period Edo they floated cucumbers down the rivers to appease the kappa, and offerings of cucumbers are still made at some shrines. The cucumber sushi roll is called *kappa-maki* for the same reason. In Tōno, Iwate Prefecture, the town made famous by Yanagita Kunio's *Tōno monogatari* (1910), kappa are part of local identity. The book records local accounts of kappa preying on women, and a stream behind Jōken-ji temple, known as Kappabuchi, is said to be the creatures' home. The Tōno tourism association notes a small shrine to the kappa beside the stream, where expectant mothers leave red cloth offerings as they pray to be able to nurse their babies. In Aomori, the kappa is worshipped as a deity under the name Suiko-sama. These places preserve the older, sacred side of the kappa, closer to the water god Yanagita had in mind than to the cartoon. ### In literature and popular culture Over the twentieth century, the kappa went from a feared drowner to one of Japan's friendliest mascots, a process Michael Dylan Foster has traced in detail. Akutagawa Ryūnosuke's satirical novella *Kappa* (1927) follows a man who stumbles into a kappa country and uses it to mock human society. After the Second World War the cartoonist Shimizu Kon drew a charming, rounded kappa that spread a cute image of the creature, and a kappa family he created became the mascot of the Kizakura sake brewery from the mid-1950s. Tokyo's kitchenware district, Kappabashi, has a local legend that kappa helped build its bridge, though the name is usually traced to a merchant called Kappaya Kihachi. Kappa remain favourites in manga and anime, from the yokai of Mizuki Shigeru, whose kappa bronze statues line Mizuki Shigeru Road in Sakaiminato, to Keiichi Hara's 2007 film *Summer Days with Coo*, about a boy who befriends a young kappa. ### Frequently asked questions ### What does a kappa's dish do? The *sara*, a water-filled hollow on top of the kappa's head, is the source of its strength. While the dish holds water, the kappa is powerful even out of the river; if the water spills, it becomes weak or helpless until the dish is refilled. ### Why do kappa like cucumbers? Folklore simply makes the cucumber the kappa's favourite food, and people offered cucumbers to win its goodwill or keep it from harming swimmers. In Edo, cucumbers were floated down rivers for the kappa, and the cucumber sushi roll is called *kappa-maki* after it. ### How do you defeat a kappa? The classic method is to bow to it. Kappa are extremely polite and must return the bow, which spills the water from their dish and leaves them powerless. Kappa were also said to dislike iron and sesame. ### Are kappa real? Kappa are creatures of folklore, not a known animal. Some temples and families keep relics said to be kappa hands or mummies. These belong to the tradition rather than proving it: none has been confirmed as an unknown animal, and one is thought to be made from whale bone. ### Sources - [Kappa (folklore), Wikipedia (used as a pointer to primary texts)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kappa_%28folklore%29) - [Kappa, JAANUS dictionary of Japanese art, Columbia University](https://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/jaanus/node/3340) - [Michael Dylan Foster, "The Metamorphosis of the Kappa", Asian Folklore Studies 57/1 (1998)](https://asianethnology.org/article/149194-the-metamorphosis-of-the-kappa-transformation-of-folklore-to-folklorism-in-japan) - [Kappabuchi, Tōno Tourism Association](https://tonojikan.jp/ml/?p=445) --- ## Tengu (天狗): Mountain Goblin Yokai of Japan URL: https://japan.je/yokai/tengu.html ### What is a tengu? The tengu is the spirit of Japan's mountains: a winged, bird-like being that haunts high forests and remote peaks, commands great powers and enormous pride, and over the centuries has been cast as an enemy of Buddhism, a teacher of warriors, and a revered guardian. Few yokai have changed character as dramatically. The tengu of a twelfth-century tale and the tengu on a souvenir mask at a mountain temple today are related, but they are not the same creature. The name is written 天狗, "heavenly dog," and that is the first puzzle. Nothing about the tengu of Japanese art looks like a dog. The answer lies in the word's journey from China, where it named something quite different, to Japan, where it was attached to a mountain goblin and eventually to some of the most respected spirits in Japanese religion. ### Appearance and powers Two main kinds of tengu appear in Japanese art. The *karasu-tengu*, or "crow tengu," has a bird's head and beak, wings and often feathers, and usually plays the role of a lesser tengu or a follower. The greater tengu, *daitengu*, are more human in form: red-faced, with a strikingly long nose, wings on their backs, and the dress of the *yamabushi*, the mountain ascetics of the Shugendō tradition, including their small black cap (*tokin*) and the pompom-decorated sash. The long nose seems to be a comparatively late development, probably dating from around the fourteenth century, perhaps as a humanised version of the bird's beak. Tengu are masters of the sword and of martial arts. They fly, and in many stories they disguise themselves or snatch people away into the mountains. A greater tengu is often shown carrying a fan of feathers, *hauchiwa*, which in folk tales can raise great winds or make a person's nose grow and shrink. Above all, tengu are proud. In Japanese, to "become a tengu," *tengu ni naru*, means to grow conceited. ### Origins and history The Chinese *tiangou*, "heavenly dog," was a fierce, dog-like creature associated with meteors and with war. The word first appears in Japan in the *Nihon Shoki*, the court chronicle completed in 720. In an entry for the ninth year of Emperor Jomei's reign (637), a great star moves across the sky from east to west with a noise like thunder. Some say it is a falling star, others "earth-thunder," but the Buddhist monk Bin (Min) declares that it is neither: it is the Celestial Dog, whose bark sounds like thunder. In this first Japanese appearance, the tengu is not a bird or a mountain spirit at all, but a portent in the sky. By the Heian period the word had come to name a very different being. In the *Konjaku monogatarishū*, the great story collection of the early twelfth century, tengu are troublesome opponents of Buddhism. They mislead the faithful, set fires at temples, play tricks on priests, carry off monks and possess women. A belief grew that proud or corrupt monks might themselves be reborn as tengu, and the *Tengu zōshi* picture scroll, dated 1296 and now in the Nezu Museum, satirises the arrogant clergy of the great temples by showing them as beaked tengu. Not every medieval tengu was a villain. The Kamakura-period Buddhist collection *Shasekishū* already describes good tengu that command the bad ones and protect the Buddhist teaching. From the thirteenth century, tengu also became closely associated with the yamabushi, the ascetics who trained in the same mountains the tengu were said to haunt, which is why tengu wear yamabushi dress. From about the seventeenth century, tengu were more and more often presented as protectors of particular temples, mountains and forests. Some scholars have also seen the influence of Garuda, the bird deity of Hindu and Buddhist tradition, known in Japan as Karura, in the tengu's winged form. ### Famous legends **Sōjōbō and the young Yoshitsune.** The most famous tengu is Sōjōbō, the great tengu of Mount Kurama north of Kyoto. Legend says that the boy Ushiwakamaru, later the celebrated general Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1159–1189), was sent to Kurama's temple as a child and secretly learned swordsmanship and strategy from the tengu in the valley of Sōjōgatani. The story is best known from the Noh play *Kurama Tengu*, in which the great tengu, disguised as a mountain priest, befriends the boy at a cherry-blossom viewing, reveals himself, and promises to teach him the secrets of the art of war. The older chronicle of Yoshitsune's life, the *Gikeiki*, describes Sōjōgatani as a deserted place haunted by tengu. **Emperor Sutoku, the tengu emperor.** Sutoku was a real emperor who lost the Hōgen Rebellion of 1156 to his brother Go-Shirakawa and was exiled to Sanuki on Shikoku, where he died in 1164. In the war tale *Hōgen monogatari*, Sutoku, embittered when the sutras he had copied in exile are sent back to him, swears a curse in his own blood, lets his hair and nails grow wild, and becomes a great tengu while still alive. He is remembered as one of the great vengeful spirits of Japanese history, and the tengu Sagamibō is said to guard his tomb at Shiramine. **Torakichi, the tengu's apprentice.** Belief in tengu was still very much alive in the nineteenth century. In 1822 the scholar Hirata Atsutane published *Senkyō ibun*, a long work based on his interviews with Torakichi, a teenage boy from Edo who claimed to have been taken away and trained by tengu in the other world. Atsutane questioned him at length about the tengu's realm, treating his answers as evidence of a hidden spiritual world. The book is a vivid record of how seriously some people took the tengu's habit of spiriting away children. ### Regional traditions and sacred mountains Many mountains in Japan have their own named tengu. Sōjōbō rules Kurama, and Tarōbō of Mount Atago, west of Kyoto, was counted by the scholar Hayashi Razan among the greatest of them. At Mount Takao on the western edge of Tokyo, the temple of Yakuō-in is a centre of tengu and Izuna faith, and statues of a long-nosed tengu and a crow tengu stand before its Izuna Gongen hall. The temple explains the beaked one as a tengu still in training and the long-nosed one as a seasoned ascetic, and says tengu act as messengers of the gods and buddhas, punishing evildoers and protecting the good. Its principal deity, Izuna Daigongen, is described as combining several figures, including Karura, the Buddhist form of Garuda. The long nose also links the tengu to the Shinto deity Sarutahiko, whom the *Nihon Shoki* describes as having a nose seven hands long. Sarutahiko is often regarded as one model for the long-nosed tengu. ### In art, theatre and popular culture Tengu have been a favourite subject in Japanese art since the medieval picture scrolls. The scenes of Yoshitsune learning swordsmanship from the tengu of Kurama were painted and printed again and again, and during the Edo period the tengu took on a lighter, sometimes comic image alongside the fearsome one. The Noh play *Kurama Tengu* keeps the Kurama legend on the stage. In modern popular culture, tengu appear in films, manga and games, from the crow-tengu characters of the *Touhou Project* series to fighting-game characters. The Pokémon Shiftry is said to be based on them. ### Frequently asked questions ### Are tengu good or evil? Both, depending on the period and the story. Early Japanese tales present tengu as enemies of Buddhism who trick monks and spirit people away, while later tradition, from about the seventeenth century, increasingly treats them as protective mountain spirits worshipped at temples and shrines. ### Why do tengu have long noses? The long nose is a fairly late feature, probably added around the fourteenth century, perhaps as a human version of the beak of the earlier bird-like tengu. It is also linked with the long-nosed deity Sarutahiko and has come to symbolise the tengu's pride. ### What is the difference between a karasu-tengu and a daitengu? The *karasu-tengu*, or crow tengu, has a bird's head and beak and is usually a lesser tengu. The *daitengu*, or great tengu, is more human in form, with a red face, long nose and the dress of a mountain ascetic. ### Why are tengu called "heavenly dogs"? The name comes from the Chinese *tiangou*, a dog-like omen linked with meteors. Its first Japanese use, in the *Nihon Shoki*, is for a thundering meteor in 637; only later did the word come to mean the winged mountain spirit. ### Sources - [Tengu (Wikipedia, used as a pointer to primary texts)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengu) - [Tengu, JAANUS dictionary of Japanese art, Columbia University](https://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/jaanus/record/tengu) - [Nihongi, tr. W. G. Aston, vol. 2 (Jomei, year 9), Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/nihongi2asto) - [Nihongi, tr. W. G. Aston, vol. 1 (Sarutahiko), Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/nihongi1asto) - [Kurama-Tengu (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurama_Tengu) - [Wilburn Hansen, When Tengu Talk: Hirata Atsutane's Ethnography of the Other World (University of Hawai'i Press)](https://muse.jhu.edu/book/8304) - [Sutoku Tennō, yokai.jp](https://yokai.jp/en/yokai/sutoku-tenno) - [Mt. Takao Yakuōin Temple (Hachioji tourism)](https://www.hkc.or.jp/en/article/yakuoin.php) --- ## Tanuki (狸): Shape-Shifting Raccoon Dog of Folklore URL: https://japan.je/yokai/tanuki.html ### What is a tanuki? The *tanuki* (狸) is two things at once. It is a real animal, the Japanese raccoon dog, a small, round, masked member of the dog family that lives in forests and on the edges of towns across Japan. And it is one of the best-loved figures in Japanese folklore: the *bake-danuki*, or "shapeshifting tanuki", a trickster that can take on the form of people and objects, play tricks on travellers and beat its belly like a drum. Because the animal is unfamiliar outside East Asia, English writers have long struggled with the name. Nineteenth-century translators usually called it a "badger", and modern ones sometimes call it a "raccoon". It is neither: raccoons and badgers belong to entirely different families. In this encyclopedia we simply say tanuki. Where its rival the fox (*kitsune*) is elegant, aloof and often dangerous, the tanuki of later folklore is comic, greedy, sociable and a little foolish. That reputation has made it a symbol of good cheer and good business, and its pottery likeness now stands outside shops, inns and eateries all over Japan. ### Appearance and powers The folklore tanuki looks much like the real one, only more so: plump, round-bellied, with a dark mask around the eyes. Its great gift is transformation. A tanuki can appear as a monk, a beautiful woman, a teakettle, a lantern or a whole phantom house, and it uses these shapes to deceive. A Japanese saying holds that "the fox has seven transformations, the tanuki eight", making the tanuki one degree better at disguise, though the basis of the ranking is unclear, and in many stories the two animals swap roles. Two other traits run through tanuki lore. The first is the belly drum: tanuki are said to puff up their stomachs and drum on them, a habit already described in the *Honchō Shokkan*, an encyclopedia of foodstuffs published in 1697. Old Edo had its own version of the mystery, *tanuki-bayashi*, the sound of festival drumming heard deep in the night with no musicians anywhere to be found. It was counted among the "seven mysteries" of the Honjo and Banchō districts, and a legend of Shōjō-ji temple in Kisarazu, about tanuki dancing in the temple garden, became a famous children's song. The second trait is the one visitors to Japan notice first: the tanuki's enormous scrotum. Edo-period humour exaggerated it without limit; a saying claims it can be stretched to cover eight tatami mats, and in some folktales a tanuki spreads it out as a room to fool travellers, only to be found out when someone drops a pipe ember or a needle on the "floor". One frequently repeated explanation links the image to Kanazawa, where goldsmiths are said to have wrapped gold in tanuki skin to beat it into leaf; the connection is plausible but best treated as a tradition rather than a proven origin. ### Origins and history Shapeshifting tanuki are very old. The *Nihon Shoki*, the eighth-century court chronicle, records under the thirty-fifth year of Empress Suiko (627) that in Mutsu, in the far north, there was an animal that "turned into a human and sang". The character used, 狢, can mean several burrowing animals, but Japanese scholarship generally reads it here as tanuki, making this the earliest widely recognised record of a transforming tanuki. Tanuki also appear in the Buddhist tale collection *Nihon Ryōiki* and in the medieval *Uji Shūi Monogatari*. These early tanuki are uncanny rather than funny. The lovable, pot-bellied trickster is largely a creation of the Edo period (1603–1868), when tanuki tales multiplied in print, in picture books and in local legend, and some powerful tanuki were even worshipped at shrines. ### Famous legends **Bunbuku Chagama.** The "lucky teakettle" is the best-known tanuki story, and it exists in two quite different forms. The version told at Morin-ji, a Sōtō Zen temple founded in 1426 in Tatebayashi, Gunma Prefecture, concerns a priest named Shukaku who served the temple and owned a kettle that never ran dry, providing tea for more than a thousand monks at a great service. Long afterwards he was found to be a tanuki (some tellings say a *mujina*) and departed. The temple still keeps the kettle, which visitors can view, and tanuki statues line its approach. The fairy-tale version, which reached English as early as 1871 in A. B. Mitford's *Tales of Old Japan*, starts with a kettle at Morin-ji that sprouts the head and tail of a tanuki when set over the fire. The alarmed priest sells it to a tinker; the kettle-tanuki performs in a travelling show, walks a tightrope, makes the tinker rich, and is finally returned to the temple as a treasure. **Kachi-kachi Yama.** The "Crackling Mountain" shows the tanuki at its darkest. A tanuki captured by an old farmer tricks the farmer's wife into freeing it, kills her, and serves her to her husband as soup. A hare avenges her: it sets fire to the bundle of sticks on the tanuki's back, treats the burns with a pepper poultice, and finally lures it onto the river in a boat made of clay, which crumbles. The tale is a reminder that the comic tanuki of today grew out of a much more dangerous animal. **The tanuki of Shikoku and Sado.** Shikoku is especially rich in tanuki legend. Tokushima (old Awa Province) tells of a great war between tanuki factions led by Kinchō and Rokuemon, and one celebrated tanuki lord, Inugami Gyōbu, is said to command 808 followers. On Sado Island, Danzaburō-danuki was so powerful that he was enshrined as a popular deity. Shibaemon of Awaji Island and the Hage-tanuki of Yashima in Kagawa are also often listed among the great tanuki of Japan. ### In art and pop culture The tanuki statues that greet customers outside restaurants and shops are a modern tradition. Their standard form is credited to the potter Fujiwara Tetsuzō, who settled in Shigaraki in Shiga Prefecture in 1936. When Emperor Hirohito visited Shigaraki in 1951, the town lined his route with flag-waving tanuki, a scene that delighted him and drew national attention. The well-known "eight lucky traits" of the statue were devised only in 1952: a hat for preparedness, big eyes for good judgement, a smiling face, a large belly for calm resolve, a sake flask, a promissory note for trustworthiness, a money purse, and a sturdy tail. On screen, Studio Ghibli's *Pom Poko* (1994), directed by Takahata Isao, follows a community of tanuki using every transformation they know to resist the bulldozing of the Tama Hills outside Tokyo for a new town, gathering much of the old lore into one film. ### Frequently asked questions ### Is a tanuki a raccoon? No. The tanuki, or Japanese raccoon dog, is a member of the dog family. It looks a little like a raccoon because of its dark facial mask, but raccoons and badgers belong to different families of mammals. Older English books often translate tanuki as "badger". ### Is Bunbuku Chagama a real story? It is a real traditional tale with a real home. Morin-ji temple in Tatebayashi, Gunma, tells a legend of a priest named Shukaku who owned a never-emptying kettle and turned out to be a tanuki, and it keeps a kettle that visitors can still see. The popular fairy-tale version, with the kettle walking a tightrope in a travelling show, was already in print in English in 1871. ### Why do tanuki statues have big testicles? The oversized scrotum is an old comic exaggeration from the Edo period, when sayings and folktales claimed it could be stretched over eight tatami mats. On today's Shigaraki statues it is read as a purse of money, one of the figure's eight lucky traits. A link to gold-leaf making in Kanazawa is often cited as the origin but is not firmly proven. ### What is the difference between a tanuki and a kitsune? Both are shapeshifting animals, but they have different characters. Foxes tend to be refined, seductive and sometimes dangerous, while tanuki are jolly, greedy and prone to comic failure. A proverb gives the fox seven transformations and the tanuki eight. ### What powers do tanuki have? In folklore they can transform into people, objects and illusory buildings, lead travellers astray, and drum on their swollen bellies. Some legendary tanuki of Shikoku and Sado were treated as powerful local deities. ### Sources - [化け狸 — Japanese Wikipedia (Nihon Shoki passage, Honchō Shokkan, tanuki-bayashi, regional tanuki)](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8C%96%E3%81%91%E7%8B%B8) - [Bake-danuki — Wikipedia (pointer; Kanazawa gold leaf, 1952 traits)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bake-danuki) - [Japanese raccoon dog — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_raccoon_dog) - [A. B. Mitford, *Tales of Old Japan* (1871) — Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13015) - [Bunbuku Chagama — Wikipedia (temple and folktale versions, translations)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunbuku_Chagama) - [Tanuki statue — Wikipedia (Fujiwara Tetsuzō, 1951 imperial visit, eight traits)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanuki_statue) - [茂林寺 (Morin-ji) — Japanese Wikipedia (sect, founding, kettle on view)](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8C%82%E6%9E%97%E5%AF%BA) - [Pom Poko — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pom_Poko) --- ## Yurei (幽霊): Japanese Ghosts URL: https://japan.je/yokai/yurei.html ### What is a yurei? *Yūrei* (幽霊) is the ordinary Japanese word for the ghost of a dead person. The two characters mean something like "dim" or "faint" and "spirit", and the word sits alongside near-synonyms such as *bōrei* (亡霊, "departed spirit") and *shiryō* (死霊, "spirit of the dead"). Where many yokai are creatures in their own right (foxes, goblins, animated objects), a yurei was once a human being. What keeps it from moving on is the manner of its death or the feeling it carried out of life. In the traditional picture, every person has a soul, a *reikon*. After death that soul should be guided by funeral and memorial rites until it joins the family ancestors, who are welcomed back each summer at Obon. Things go wrong when a death is sudden or violent, when the rites are neglected, or when the dead person dies gripped by jealousy, love, hatred, grief or a thirst for revenge. A soul in that state may linger as a yurei until the rite is performed or the emotional knot is undone. ### Appearance and powers The "classic" Japanese ghost is so familiar that it is easy to forget it is a convention with a history. She (the iconic yurei is usually a woman) wears the white clothing in which the dead were dressed for burial, sometimes with a small white triangular cloth on the forehead, known as a *tenkan* or *hitai-eboshi*. Her long black hair hangs loose and tangled. Her arms are raised with the hands drooping limply from the wrists, and below the waist she fades away into nothing. Floating balls of pale fire, *hitodama*, may drift beside her. Yurei are tied to particular people and places rather than roaming at random. They are said to appear in the dead of night, in the "hour of the ox" around two in the morning, and they favour graves, riverbanks and willow trees. Their powers are mostly those of presence: they can be seen and heard by the person they have come for, they can possess, sicken or drive a victim mad, and the most dangerous among them can pursue an enemy to death. Not every yurei is hostile. The *ubume* is the ghost of a woman who died in childbirth; in tales of this kind, which Japanese tradition also calls "child-raising ghosts" (*kosodate yūrei*), a dead mother returns to care for the child she left behind, often bringing it sweets. Folklorists have sorted ghosts into rough types. Beside the ubume there are *funa-yūrei*, the drowned, who rise around boats at sea and ask for a ladle so they can fill the hull with water; the safe answer, according to tradition, is to hand over a ladle with its bottom knocked out. Most feared of all is the *onryō*, the spirit that died with a grudge. ### Origins and history The fear of the angry dead is old in Japan, and it was a matter of state long before it was a matter of theatre. The Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto* describes *goryō*: spirits, especially of people who had lost their positions of power, that were blamed for calamities and epidemics falling on the population at large. Rites to calm and send them away, called *goryō-e*, became part of court religion. The same encyclopedia separates the onryō from the goryō: an onryō is not an epidemic deity, and its harm is aimed at specific people. That personal, targeted grudge is the engine of most yurei stories. The look of the yurei is much younger than the belief. Earlier pictures show ghosts in the form they had in life. By the Edo period (1603–1868) they were increasingly drawn as corpses laid out for burial, with white robes and the triangular headcloth. The footless ghost is often credited to the painter Maruyama Ōkyo (1733–1795), but Japanese scholarship treats that as a popular myth: a footless ghost already appears in an illustrated *jōruri* (puppet-play) book printed in Kyoto in 1673. Through the early 1700s, artists drew ghosts with two legs, with thin legs, or with a hazy lower body, and as late as the 1780s one writer remarked that some ghosts had legs and some did not. The convention settled only gradually, helped along by prints, paintings and the stage. A scroll known as *Oyuki no maboroshi* (The Ghost of Oyuki), attributed to Ōkyo, is held by the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas, and paintings of this kind became so popular that whole collections were formed. The rakugo storyteller Sanyūtei Enchō (1839–1900), a master of ghost stories, gathered hanging scrolls of wandering spirits; fifty of them were later given to Zenshō-an, the Tokyo temple where he is buried, which shows them every August during the Obon season. ### Famous legends **Tōkaidō Yotsuya Kaidan.** Tsuruya Nanboku IV's kabuki play opened at the Nakamura-za in Edo in the summer of 1825; the date of its premiere, 26 July by the modern calendar, is now marked in Japan as "Ghost Day". Its heroine Oiwa is poisoned and disfigured as part of a scheme that lets her husband, Iemon, marry into a richer family. She dies and returns again and again, haunting Iemon and those who wronged her until they are destroyed. The play was so successful that Oiwa became the model vengeful ghost of the Japanese stage. **Banchō Sarayashiki.** The story of Okiku, the "plate mansion" ghost, exists in many versions. In the folk form she is a servant accused of losing one of a set of ten precious plates and killed for it; thrown into a well, she rises each night to count the plates, "one, two..." up to nine, and wails for the missing tenth. A puppet-play version opened in 1741, a kabuki version followed in 1824, and in 1916 the playwright Okamoto Kidō rewrote it as a tragic love story. A well at Himeji Castle is pointed out as Okiku's. **The peony lantern.** Okiku and Oiwa are often grouped with Otsuyu, the lovesick ghost of *Botan Dōrō* ("The Peony Lantern"), as the three great yurei of Japan. Otsuyu shows the other face of the yurei: not wrath but a love that refuses to end at death. ### Protection and folk practice The surest way to quiet a yurei, according to tradition, is to do what it lacks: perform the missing rites, give the body a proper burial, or in some way settle the matter that keeps it bound. Buddhist priests and mountain ascetics were engaged to hold services for those who had died in ways likely to produce a restless ghost, and some especially dangerous spirits were enshrined and worshipped so that their anger would be turned to protection. Paper talismans called *ofuda*, placed at doorways, are said to keep malevolent ghosts out. Onryō are the hardest case; a spirit made of a grudge is not easily talked out of it. ### In art, theatre and pop culture Edo-period kabuki, ukiyo-e prints and hanging-scroll paintings fixed the image of the white-robed, long-haired, footless woman, and that image has never gone away. It returned with force in 1998, when Nakata Hideo's film *Ringu* gave the world Sadako. Her long black hair and white clothes are not in Suzuki Kōji's original novel; they were a deliberate revival of the classical female ghost of paintings and kabuki, moved into a world of videotapes and television sets. The J-horror boom that followed, including the *Ju-on* films, carried the yurei into global horror. ### Frequently asked questions ### What is the difference between yurei and yokai? A yurei is specifically the ghost of a dead human being, held in this world by an unfinished rite or a powerful emotion. "Yokai" is a much broader word covering all kinds of strange beings and phenomena, from shapeshifting animals to haunted objects. In English-language guides yurei are often listed among the yokai, but in Japanese the two are usually distinguished. ### Why do Japanese ghosts have no feet? The footless ghost is an artistic convention that took shape during the Edo period. It is often credited to the painter Maruyama Ōkyo, but a footless ghost already appears in a Kyoto puppet-play book of 1673, and for decades afterwards artists drew ghosts both with and without legs. Paintings, prints and kabuki staging gradually made the fading lower body standard. ### Why do yurei wear white? They are shown in the white clothing in which the dead were dressed for burial, sometimes with a small white triangular cloth on the forehead. Earlier art showed ghosts as they looked in life; the white-robed corpse image became standard during the Edo period. ### Who are the three most famous Japanese ghosts? They are usually named as Oiwa of *Yotsuya Kaidan*, Okiku of *Banchō Sarayashiki*, and Otsuyu of *Botan Dōrō*, the peony lantern story. The first two are tales of betrayal and revenge, the third a tale of love beyond death. ### Is Sadako from Ringu a yurei? Yes, in the sense that matters. Sadako is a vengeful dead woman, and her look (long black hair, white clothes) was a conscious revival of the classical female ghost of Edo-period paintings and kabuki, added in the 1998 film rather than taken from the novel. ### Sources - [Goryō — Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=8659) - [幽霊 — Japanese Wikipedia (footless ghosts, 1673 illustration, Yotsuya premiere and Ghost Day, funa-yūrei)](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B9%BD%E9%9C%8A) - [Yūrei — Wikipedia (pointer; classifications, appearance, protection)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y%C5%ABrei) - [Yotsuya Kaidan — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yotsuya_Kaidan) - [Banchō Sarayashiki — Wikipedia (versions and dates)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancho_Sarayashiki) - [Maruyama Ōkyo, *Oyuki no maboroshi* — Spencer Museum of Art](https://spencerart.ku.edu/art/collections-online/artist/27050) - [Encho Matsuri and Ghost Paintings — Japan Tourism Agency multilingual database](https://www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db/en/R1-00107.html) - [Encho Matsuri: History — Japan Tourism Agency multilingual database](https://www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db/en/R1-00105.html) - [J-Horror Rises Again — Nippon.com](https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/g02632/) --- ## Oni (鬼): Japanese Demons and Ogres URL: https://japan.je/yokai/oni.html ### What is an oni? The oni is the great monster of Japanese tradition, the figure English usually translates as "demon" or "ogre." In its most familiar form it is a huge, horned, wild-haired brute with fangs and claws, red or blue skin, a loincloth of tiger skin and an iron club. That picture is so fixed today that it appears on festival masks, roof tiles and children's picture books all over Japan. But the oni was not always this creature, and it was never only a villain. The Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto* describes the oni as a misshapen supernatural visitor from the other world who can bring either disaster or blessing, and therefore one that was both feared and worshipped. Over more than a thousand years the word has covered invisible spirits of plague, vengeful ghosts, the jailers of the Buddhist hells, outsiders on the margins of society, and masked deities who visit villages at the New Year. Understanding the oni means following how these strands came together. ### Appearance and powers The classic oni is a giant with one or two horns, bulging eyes, a wide fanged mouth and a mane of hair. It is enormously strong and, in many stories, eats people. Heian-period tales repeatedly describe oni devouring a victim in a single mouthful, a motif known in Japanese as *oni hitokuchi*, "the oni's one bite." Oni can also fly, vanish, and take human form to deceive their prey; a disguised oni is a common turn in the legends below. The details of its costume carry a curious explanation that is often repeated. The northeast was considered the unlucky "demon gate," *kimon*, through which evil entered, and in the old system of directions it lies between the Ox and the Tiger, *ushitora*. One hypothesis holds that the oni's ox-like horns and tiger-skin loincloth are a visual pun on that direction. Whether or not it began that way, the belief in the demon gate had real effects: the northeast corners of the walls of the Kyoto Imperial Palace are notched inward to ward off oni, and Enryaku-ji on Mount Hiei, which lies northeast of Kyoto, is often said to guard that gate, though some historians doubt that the temple was sited for this reason. ### Origins and history The character 鬼 comes from Chinese, where it is read *gui* and refers to the spirit of a dead person. The Japanese word *oni* has a separate history. The tenth-century dictionary *Wamyō ruijushō* explained it as coming from *on*, "hidden," because oni conceal themselves and do not wish to be seen. That fits the oldest layer of belief, in which oni were invisible bringers of disease, death and disaster, and only later took on visible, monstrous bodies. Oni appear in Japan's earliest writings. The *Izumo no kuni fudoki*, a provincial gazetteer of the early eighth century, tells of a one-eyed oni that ate a man. The *Nihon Shoki* (720) records that in 661, on the night after Empress Saimei died at Asakura in Kyūshū, a demon wearing a great hat was seen on the top of Mount Asakura looking down on her funeral, to the wonder of all the people. The same chronicle mentions the use of peaches to ward off evil spirits, a Chinese belief that also echoes in later oni tales. Buddhism reshaped the oni profoundly. Merged with Indian demons such as the *rakshasa* and *yaksha*, oni became the wardens of hell who torment the dead on the orders of King Enma, and the horse-headed and ox-headed hell guards, *mezu* and *gozu*, joined their ranks. Paintings of the hells gave the oni much of its now-standard look. The Noh theatre added another layer: its founder Zeami wrote that oni on the stage are either vengeful spirits that possess the living or demons of hell. The jealous woman transformed into a horned demon, represented by the *hannya* mask, comes from this tradition. The *Encyclopedia of Shinto* also points to a social dimension. People on the edges of the Japanese world, such as foreign arrivals, rebels, bandits, mountain dwellers and wandering ritual specialists, were at times called oni. A thirteenth-century collection, the *Kokon chomonjū*, describes castaways who landed on an island off Izu as "demons" with wild hair and dark red bodies. ### Famous legends **Shuten-dōji.** The most famous oni is Shuten-dōji, the "sake-drinking boy," who lived with his band of demons on Mount Ōe northwest of Kyoto, raiding the capital and carrying off young women. The court sends the warrior Minamoto no Raikō (Yorimitsu) with a small band of companions. The gods of three great shrines give them a magic sake, a cord and a helmet. Welcomed into the demon's fortress, the heroes share the drugged sake, and when Shuten-dōji falls into a stupor they cut off his head, which flies at Raikō but is stopped by the helmet. The story was popular by the late fourteenth century, when the oldest surviving illustrated scroll was painted, and a rival version sets it on Mount Ibuki. **Ibaraki-dōji and the severed arm.** One of Raikō's companions, Watanabe no Tsuna, is remembered for fighting the oni Ibaraki-dōji, at the Rashōmon gate of Kyoto in some versions and at the Modoribashi bridge in others. Tsuna cuts off the demon's arm and keeps it as a trophy. Later the oni returns disguised as Tsuna's aged aunt, asks to see the arm, and snatches it back before flying away. Ukiyo-e artists such as Kuniyoshi and Yoshitoshi made the encounter a favourite subject. **Momotarō.** In the folk tale beloved of every Japanese child, a boy born from a giant peach sets out with a dog, a monkey and a pheasant to raid Onigashima, the island of the oni, and returns with their treasure. Here the oni has become a straightforward villain for a children's adventure. ### Setsubun and the oni in folk practice Every year at Setsubun, the day before the traditional start of spring in early February, households and temples across Japan throw roasted soybeans while shouting "*Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi!*" ("Oni out, good fortune in!"). The custom grew out of *tsuina*, an exorcism rite of Chinese origin practised at the ancient court, in which a masked exorcist drove out the demons of pestilence. Over time *tsuina* was absorbed into Buddhist New Year ceremonies and became tied to Setsubun, and bean-throwing as the standard way of chasing out oni is said to have spread from aristocrats and samurai in the Muromachi period. Not every oni of folk ritual is driven away. The *Encyclopedia of Shinto* describes a third type of oni as good kami, seen in New Year rites where costumed "oni" dancers stamp and drive out evil to bring blessings. Oni-faced roof tiles, *onigawara*, are set on temple and house roofs to keep misfortune away. In Akita Prefecture, the masked *namahage* who visit homes on New Year's Eve to scold lazy people and bless the household look much like oni, but tradition regards them as incarnations of the mountain deities. The custom was inscribed by UNESCO in 2018 as part of *Raihō-shin*, ritual visits of deities in masks and costumes. ### In modern popular culture Modern oni have grown less frightening. They appear as gruff guardians, comic villains and even heroes in manga, anime and games, from the spirit-world staff of *YuYu Hakusho* to the playable oni Arataki Itto in *Genshin Impact*. Setsubun shops sell paper oni masks for children, and the oni in modern picture books is often more lovable than terrifying, a long way from the hidden plague-bringer of the earliest texts. ### Frequently asked questions ### What is the difference between oni and yokai? *Yokai* is the broad umbrella term for the strange and supernatural beings of Japanese folklore, and oni are one kind of yokai. Oni form an unusually old and distinctive group, rooted in ancient spirit belief and the Buddhist hells, and some traditions treat them as kami rather than mere monsters. ### Are oni evil? Most legends cast oni as violent man-eaters, but not all. Scholars of Shinto describe them as ambivalent beings able to bring disaster or blessing, and oni figures appear as protectors on roof tiles and as good spirits in some New Year rituals. ### Why do people throw beans at oni? At Setsubun, people scatter roasted soybeans and shout "Oni out, good fortune in!" to drive misfortune from the home before spring. The rite descends from the ancient court exorcism called *tsuina*. ### Why do oni wear tiger-skin loincloths? One often-repeated explanation links the oni to the northeast "demon gate," a direction named after the Ox and the Tiger. On this view the oni's horns and tiger skin are a picture of that unlucky direction, though it remains a hypothesis rather than an established origin. ### Sources - [Oni, Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9979) - [Oni (Wikipedia, used as a pointer to primary texts)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oni) - [Nihongi, tr. W. G. Aston, vol. 2 (Internet Archive)](https://archive.org/details/nihongi2asto) - [Shuten dōji, JAANUS dictionary of Japanese art, Columbia University](https://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/jaanus/record/shutendoji) - [Yoshitoshi, Watanabe no Tsuna and the Demon of Rashōmon (Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin)](https://allenartcollection.oberlin.edu/objects/7125/watanabe-no-tsuna-and-the-demon-of-rashomon) - [Watanabe no Tsuna (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watanabe_no_Tsuna) - [Namahage Museum: What Are the Namahage? (Japan Tourism Agency)](https://www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db/en/R1-01078.html) --- ## Tsukumogami (付喪神): Household Objects That Come Alive URL: https://japan.je/yokai/tsukumogami.html ### What is a tsukumogami? A *tsukumogami* is a household object that has come alive. Brooms, sandals, lutes, rice pots, mirrors, rosaries and writing boxes can all qualify. The standard modern dictionary definition is a spirit said to lodge in an implement that has passed a hundred years, after which it can change shape and cause people harm. The idea is old, but its classic statement comes from a single Muromachi-period illustrated scroll, the *Tsukumogami-ki* or *Tsukumogami emaki*. That scroll gave the creatures their name, their written form 付喪神, and their famous rule of a hundred years. Unlike foxes or cats, a tsukumogami is not an animal that learns to shape-shift. It is a thing that was made, used and thrown away, and its power to frighten comes from that history. In the oldest story, the tools turn into monsters because people discarded them without thanks. ### The Tsukumogami scroll Kyoto University Library holds a two-scroll colour copy of the tale, which it describes as a Muromachi-period work. Its own copy is an Edo-period transcription, and its colophon repeats an earlier note dated to the sixth year of Kanbun (1666). The library has put the whole scroll online, with a plain modern-language retelling. The text opens by citing a book called the *Onmyō zakki*: an implement that has passed a hundred years acquires a spirit and leads people's hearts astray, and this is called a tsukumogami. That is why, the scroll explains, households carry out the year-end soot-sweeping (*susuharai*) and throw their old tools into the lanes. They are trying to escape the trouble a tsukumogami would bring. The story is set in the Kōhō era of the 960s. After one year's cleaning, the discarded tools of the capital gather and complain that they served their households faithfully for years and were rewarded by being kicked into the road by oxen and horses. They resolve to become monsters and take revenge. A rosary, the monk Ichiren, urges them to repay injury with kindness and is beaten for his trouble. A learned old document, Master Kobumi, then proposes a plan based on yin-yang theory. On the night of *setsubun*, when yin and yang change places, the tools will give up their lives and let the god of creation remake them. On that night they become monsters of every kind: men and women, old people and children, demons and beasts. They settle behind Mount Funaoka, north of the city, raid the capital, and eat people and cattle. They feast, write poetry, and found a shrine to their own god, whom they call Henge Daimyōjin. On the fifth day of the fourth month they parade their portable shrine east along Ichijō Avenue at night. There they run into the regent's procession. Flames burst from an amulet he wears, a copy of the *Sonshō darani* spell, and the monsters flee. The emperor orders rites at court. On the sixth day, sword-bearing guardian boys (*gohō dōji*) appear in a halo of light and fly north to subdue the monsters. Chastened, the tools seek out the rosary monk they once beat, beg his forgiveness, and become his disciples. Each eventually attains Buddhahood. The library's commentary notes the scroll's purpose: it uses the enlightenment of non-sentient things to argue for the superiority of Shingon esoteric Buddhism. If old tools can become buddhas, the closing lines ask, why not people? ### Why a hundred years? The number 99 can be read *tsukumo* in Japanese, and the word carries a literary echo. It recalls a poem in episode 63 of the tenth-century *Tales of Ise*: "one year short of a hundred years, her *tsukumo* hair", a poetic image of an old woman's white hair. The Edo antiquarian Tō Teikan's essay *Kōko shōroku* drew the same connection. He quoted the *Onmyō zakki* passage, explained the soot-sweeping as a way of avoiding tsukumogami that were "a year short of a hundred", and pointed to the same line of verse. So the hundred years should not be read as an exact rule. It stands for great age. The Kyoto retelling makes the same point in passing: when the tools transform, it remarks that they had already lived more than a hundred years, so the change came at once. ### Object monsters before and after Tools with faces were painted well beyond this one scroll. The most famous example is the *Hyakki yagyō emaki* (Night Parade of a Hundred Demons) held by Shinju-an, a sub-temple of Daitokuji in Kyoto. It is a sixteenth-century Muromachi scroll and an Important Cultural Property. It has no text, and alongside its blue and red demons march monsters made from implements such as a bow and a kettle stand. The Nipponica encyclopedia suggests it shows the kind of procession that the Tsukumogami tale describes. In the Edo period the theme passed to print. The painter Toriyama Sekien's series of yokai picture books ended with *Hyakki tsurezure-bukuro* (1784). The National Diet Library notes that it is filled with everyday implements turned into yokai, among them a biwa lute, a koto and a cooking pot. It also notes that Sekien's designs show the influence of the earlier picture scrolls. The idea also survived in oral tradition. A 1933 report from the Morioka area of Iwate tells of a beggar sleeping in the garden of an old temple who heard a drinking party in the kitchen. When he peeped in, he saw geta, straw sandals, rice bowls and other junk dancing. They all fled when the first cock crowed. In the same year the custom historian Ema Tsutomu listed the objects most often said to transform: wooden statues, guardian figures, masks and Jizō images, along with puppet-theatre dolls, brooms, fans and flutes. ### Respect for old things Tsukumogami are often explained today as a lesson in caring for possessions. The oldest text supports a version of this: the tools turn monstrous because they were discarded without gratitude. But the *Tsukumogami-ki* is a Buddhist sermon built on yin-yang theory, not a statement of a general belief that every object has a spirit. Japan does have rites for objects that have served their owners. In the needle memorial (*hari-kuyō*), held on 8 February or 8 December, women rest from sewing and push old and broken needles into tofu or konnyaku, then take them to a shrine or temple or float them down a river. At Hōkyōji in Kyoto, known as the "doll temple", unwanted dolls are gathered for a memorial service on 10 October. These rites have their own histories and are not described as tsukumogami rituals in the sources. Still, they share the same instinct: that an object long used deserves a proper farewell. ### Frequently asked questions ### What does tsukumogami mean? It is the name for a household object that has gained a spirit with age. The name appears in the Muromachi-period *Tsukumogami* scroll. *Tsukumo* can be read as 99, "one year short of a hundred", and in classical poetry it was an image of very old age. ### Do objects really become tsukumogami after 100 years? That is the rule given in the *Tsukumogami* scroll, which quotes a book called the *Onmyō zakki*. The number is best read as a symbol of great age rather than an exact count. In the story, what turns old tools into monsters is not their age alone but their resentment at being thrown away. ### Are tsukumogami good or evil? In the original story they begin as vengeful monsters that attack the capital and eat people. They then repent and end as Buddhist disciples who attain enlightenment. In later folklore they are often closer to pranksters, like the junk in the Iwate tale that dances at night and runs at cockcrow. ### What are some examples of tsukumogami? The scroll's characters include a rosary monk, a club and an old document. Picture scrolls and prints show monster lutes, koto, pots, kettle stands, bows and other implements. Folk records add sandals, rice bowls, brooms, fans, flutes and dolls. ### Where can I see the Tsukumogami scroll? Kyoto University Library has published its Edo-period copy online in full, alongside an illustrated modern-language retelling. The related Shinju-an *Night Parade of a Hundred Demons* is an Important Cultural Property in Kyoto. ### Sources - [Kyoto University Rare Materials Digital Archive: *Tsukumogami* (2 scrolls), catalogue record](https://rmda.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/item/rb00013599) - [Kyoto University Library: illustrated synopsis of *Tsukumogami* (Otogi-zōshi series, no. 5)](https://rmda.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/item/rb00013599/explanation/otogi_05) - [Kotobank: 付喪神 (Digital Daijisen; Heibonsha World Encyclopedia)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%BB%98%E5%96%AA%E7%A5%9E) - [Kotobank: 百鬼夜行絵巻 (Nipponica; Heibonsha; Daijisen)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%99%BE%E9%AC%BC%E5%A4%9C%E8%A1%8C%E7%B5%B5%E5%B7%BB) - [Nichibunken record 4860001: Tō Teikan, *Kōko shōroku*, on tsukumogami](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=4860001) - [Nichibunken record 0640420: Morioka, dancing sandals and bowls (1933)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0640420) - [Nichibunken record 0550237: Ema Tsutomu on transforming objects (1933)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0550237) - [*Ise monogatari*, episode 63 (Japanese text, Wikisource)](https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/%E4%BC%8A%E5%8B%A2%E7%89%A9%E8%AA%9E) - [National Diet Library Image Bank: Toriyama Sekien's yokai books](https://www.ndl.go.jp/imagebank/column/sekienyokai) - [Kotobank: 針供養 (Daijisen; Nihon Kokugo Daijiten; Heibonsha; Nipponica)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%87%9D%E4%BE%9B%E9%A4%8A) - [Kotobank: 人形供養 (Heibonsha, under Hōkyōji)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%BA%BA%E5%BD%A2%E4%BE%9B%E9%A4%8A) - [Wikipedia: Tsukumogami (pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukumogami) --- ## Yuki-onna (雪女): Snow Woman of Japanese Legend URL: https://japan.je/yokai/yuki-onna.html ### What is a yuki-onna? The *yuki-onna* (雪女), "snow woman", is the spirit of winter storms in Japanese folklore: a pale, silent woman who appears out of falling snow, most often at night and most often to people caught far from home. She is one of the most widely known yokai in Japan and one of the few whose story is famous abroad, largely thanks to a single retelling by Lafcadio Hearn in 1904. She has many local names. Depending on the region she may be *yuki-musume* ("snow girl"), *yuki-jorō* ("snow lady"), *yukinba* or *yuki-onba* ("snow hag"), or *tsurara-onna* ("icicle woman"), and stories about her have been recorded from Aomori and Akita in the far north down to Ehime in Shikoku and Ōita in Kyushu. The International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken), whose folklore database gathers reports from local histories and folklore journals, holds accounts of her from Niigata, Fukushima, Gunma, Miyagi, Iwate, Nagano, Kyoto and Tottori, among others. ### Appearance and powers Almost every account agrees on whiteness. Recorders in Gunma heard that on snowy nights the yuki-onna "comes wearing a white kimono"; in Tottori, that in heavy snow "a woman in white comes riding on the snow". She is usually beautiful, and her beauty is part of the danger. Some details are startlingly local: in one Niigata tradition, a single round hollow in the snow is the footprint of the one-legged yuki-onna, and in another the tracks she leaves are dotted with blood, and anyone who meets her is sure to be killed. What she does varies just as much. In Hearn's version she kills with her breath, which streams out "like a bright white smoke" and leaves her victim frozen. Elsewhere she is said to drain the life from those she meets (in Iwate and Miyagi), to drink blood (in Ōita), or to take children's livers (in Niigata). A hunter's account recorded in Miyagi offers practical advice: if a yuki-onna appears, do not step aside, run back or speak to her, or she will devour you; instead run straight at her. Water and heat are a recurring theme. In Okayama, giving her water makes her swell, while hot water makes her vanish; in Tottori she is driven off with hot water, and a Gifu tradition advises offering her hot tea rather than cold water. The *tsurara-onna* tale from Ojiya in Niigata takes this to its logical end: a mysterious bride who refuses to bathe is finally made to, and nothing is left in the tub but an icicle. ### Origins and history The snow woman is older than the printed page can quite show. The earliest literary appearance usually cited is in the *Sōgi Shokoku Monogatari*, a collection of tales bearing the name of the medieval *renga* poet Sōgi, in which the narrator reports seeing a yuki-onna while staying in Echigo Province, today's Niigata. By the Edo period she was a familiar figure: *haikai* poets wrote verses about her, some of which were quoted in the essay collection *Kiyū Shōran*, and Toriyama Sekien included her in his illustrated catalogue of yokai, *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō*, first published in 1776. It is natural to connect her with the real hazards of the snow country, where a sudden blizzard could kill a traveller or a woodcutter within sight of home, and many of her stories are, at heart, about deaths of exactly that kind. She also served as a warning to children. A mother in Gunma would settle a child who would not sleep by telling it that on snowy nights someone comes to take away a crying child; in Tōno, in Iwate, the yuki-onna was said to come out on the Little New Year or on full-moon nights to gather children to play. ### Famous legends **Hearn's "Yuki-Onna".** In *Kwaidan* (1904), Lafcadio Hearn tells of two woodcutters from a village in Musashi Province, old Mosaku and his eighteen-year-old apprentice Minokichi, who are caught by a snowstorm and shelter in a ferryman's hut. In the night a woman in white enters, breathes on Mosaku and kills him, then bends over Minokichi, but spares him because he is young, warning him that if he ever tells anyone what he saw, she will know and kill him. A year later Minokichi meets a lovely girl named O-Yuki on the road; they marry, and she bears him ten children while never seeming to age. One night he tells her about the strange woman he once saw, who looked just like her. O-Yuki reveals that it was she, spares him only for the children's sake, and melts into white mist that drifts out through the smoke-hole. Hearn wrote in his preface that the tale was told to him by a farmer of Chōfu, in Nishitama District of Musashi, as a legend of his native village, and that he did not know whether it had ever been written down in Japanese. The village of Chōfu he meant lies in today's city of Ōme in western Tokyo, which has since marked its connection to the story with a monument; it is not the modern city of Chōfu. No version of the marriage-and-broken-promise plot written before Hearn is known, and Japanese scholars still debate how much of it came from his informant and how much from Hearn himself. **The snow woman with a baby.** A much older-looking pattern overlaps with the *ubume*, the ghost of a woman who died in childbirth. In the Aizu district of Fukushima, a 1928 report noted, the yuki-onna takes the form of an ubume. In a tale collected in Kurihara in Miyagi, a young samurai meets a snow woman carrying a baby, who asks him to hold it; when she vanishes, the infant is cold as ice and will not let go of his arms. In some northern versions a man who endures the weight of the child is rewarded with great strength. **A visitor at New Year.** In Miyama, in the mountains north of Kyoto, an old woman preparing the New Year rice cakes sensed someone under the eaves. She opened the paper screen to find a beautiful, pale woman standing there; the old woman shouted at her and the woman disappeared, leaving only footprints in the snow. The villagers said it was the yuki-onna. ### Regional traditions and variants Later collectors found stories close to Hearn's in several places. A version told in Tōno has a son who watches his father die from the snow woman's breath, is sworn to silence, marries a beautiful wife and, when he finally speaks, sees her turn into the yuki-onna and leave the children in his care. Another, set on Mount Shirouma in Nagano, names its heroine Koyuki. Both were recorded in the late twentieth century, long after *Kwaidan* had become well known in Japan, so their relationship to Hearn's story is an open question. Some traditions give the snow woman a more benevolent role, linking her to the New Year deities and to visitors who leave gold behind. ### In art, film and pop culture Sekien's print established a visual type, and Hearn's story fixed the plot that most people now know. That plot was filmed as "The Woman of the Snow", one of four Hearn stories in Kobayashi Masaki's anthology film *Kwaidan* of the mid-1960s, with Kishi Keiko as Yuki, and again as *The Snow Woman* (1968). Kurosawa Akira's *Dreams* (1990) includes a snow-woman episode in its "Blizzard" segment. Since then she has become a familiar character in modern manga, anime and games, though the village tales collected over the past century show a figure far stranger and more varied than any single modern version. ### Frequently asked questions ### Is yuki-onna good or evil? She is both, depending on the story. Many local accounts make her a killer who freezes, drains or devours those she meets, while others present her as a mysterious visitor or even a bringer of fortune. Hearn's famous version makes her a loving wife and mother who is still capable of deadly anger. ### Where does the story of yuki-onna come from? She is an old folk figure of the snow country, first appearing in literature in a tale of a sighting in Echigo (Niigata) and pictured by Toriyama Sekien in 1776. The best-known plot, the snow woman who marries the man she spared, comes from Lafcadio Hearn's *Kwaidan* (1904), which he said he heard from a farmer in what is now Ōme, Tokyo. ### How do you escape a yuki-onna? Folklore gives different answers. Some traditions say she can be driven away with hot water or should be offered hot tea, and a hunter's account from Miyagi advises running straight at her rather than turning away or speaking to her. ### Is yuki-onna a ghost? Not usually. She is generally treated as a spirit or yokai of snow and winter rather than the ghost of a dead person, though some regional tales blend her with the *ubume*, the ghost of a woman who died in childbirth. ### Sources - [Lafcadio Hearn, *Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things* (1904) — Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1210) - [怪異・妖怪伝承データベース: 雪女 (30 records) — Nichibunken](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/ksearch.cgi?Name=%E9%9B%AA%E5%A5%B3&Pref=&Area=%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BD) - [雪女 — Japanese Wikipedia (regional names and traits, Sōgi Shokoku Monogatari, Ōme monument, origin debate)](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%9B%AA%E5%A5%B3) - [Toriyama Sekien, *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō* — Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2021666551/) - [Yuki-onna — Wikipedia (pointer; film adaptations)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuki-onna) - [Kwaidan (Kobayashi Masaki) — The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/films/629) --- ## Noppera-bo (のっぺらぼう): Faceless Ghost of Japanese Folklore URL: https://japan.je/yokai/noppera-bo.html ### What is a noppera-bo? A *noppera-bō* is a faceless apparition. From behind, or at a distance, it looks like an ordinary person: a weeping girl, a monk on a mountain path, a child playing in a lane. When it turns around, the face has no eyes, no nose and no mouth, only smooth, blank skin. Dictionaries define the yokai simply as a monster with no eyes, nose or mouth on its face, and note that similar tales are told all over Japan. The noppera-bō is not usually dangerous. Its whole power lies in the moment of the reveal. In story after story, the victim runs, faints or falls ill, but is not attacked. That makes it one of the purest examples of a Japanese yokai whose purpose is simply to frighten. ### The word *Noppera-bō* began as an ordinary adjective. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* gives its first meaning as something completely flat and even, without bumps or hollows, with an example from a satirical *dangibon* (comic sermon book) of 1754. Later meanings include something with no variation at all. The novelist Natsume Sōseki used it in *Sanshirō* (1908) for students who sit through lectures and graduate in a blank, featureless way. The same dictionary gives a separate sense, a tall monster with no eyes, nose or mouth, and its earliest example of that sense comes from the comic verse collection *Yanagidaru* in 1813. A close cousin, *nuppera-bō*, appears even earlier, in a haikai collection of 1704, written with characters meaning "no face". The dictionary's note explains that the word originally described anything flat and smooth. Applied to a head it meant a shaven pate. Applied to a face it could mean heavy make-up or a featureless monster. Applied to character it meant someone vague and impossible to pin down. A related figure in Edo-period yokai scrolls and books is the *nuppeppō*. It is drawn as a squat, round lump with a face, arms and legs, and no clear line between head and body, and it is sometimes counted as a kind of noppera-bō. ### Hearn's "Mujina" The noppera-bō's most famous appearance in English is Lafcadio Hearn's story "Mujina", in *Kwaidan* (1904). It is set on Kii-no-kuni-zaka, a slope on the Akasaka road in Tokyo, with a wide old moat on one side and the long walls of a palace on the other. Hearn says that before street lamps and rickshaws, people would walk miles out of their way rather than climb it alone after dark. He admits he does not know why the slope is named after Kii Province. The answer is that the residence of the Kii branch of the Tokugawa family once stood on its west side. Hearn's witness is an old merchant of the Kyōbashi quarter. Hurrying up the slope late one night, he sees a young woman crouching by the moat and crying. He fears she means to drown herself and begs her to tell him what is wrong. At last she turns, drops her sleeve and strokes her face with her hand, and he sees that it has no eyes, nose or mouth. He runs until he reaches the lantern of a roadside noodle-seller. He collapses there, and he cannot bring himself to describe what he saw. The noodle-seller asks whether it was anything like *this*, and strokes his own face, which turns as smooth as an egg. At the same moment the light goes out. The title points to the culprit. A *mujina* is a folk name for the tanuki or the badger. Like the fox and the tanuki, it was believed to bewitch people. Hearn never explains this to his readers. He says only that the slope was feared "All because of a Mujina that used to walk there", and leaves the reader to infer that both faces were the same animal's trick. ### Who is behind the blank face? Japanese reference works note that the noppera-bō is sometimes said to be a mujina or tanuki in disguise. The connection turns up in local tradition as well as in Hearn. A 1938 report from Takayama in Gifu, filed under both *mujina* and *noppera-bō*, tells of a carpenter at work behind an old house. He saw a girl of about seven, in a long-sleeved kimono, dancing in the lane between two storehouses. When he called to her she turned around, and she had no face. Then she vanished, leaving behind only a pair of worn-out geta. Other accounts name no culprit at all. The faceless figure simply appears, and the story ends when the witness flees. ### Regional encounters The details change from place to place, but the shape of the encounter stays strikingly constant. In Kagawa on Shikoku, several collections record the same tale from the mountains of Nakatado. At dusk a man walking alone over a pass called Kubikiri-tōge ("Neck-Cutting Pass") is relieved to see a monk in black robes walking ahead of him. He calls out, and when the monk turns, the face is blank. The man runs back the way he came. In Osaka's merchant quarter of Senba, a story recorded in 1962 tells of a girl of seventeen or eighteen in a bright *yūzen*-dyed kimono, crying in the drizzle with her face hidden in her sleeve. When a passer-by tugged the sleeve aside, she was a noppera-bō. Then her body began to stretch, until he was looking up at something as tall as a telegraph pole. The noppera-bō is not confined to roads. On the island of Kuchinoerabu, south of Kyushu, fishermen who landed at a river mouth for drinking water heard a strange cry upstream. A creature with no eyes or nose and a shining, bald head came down at them. They fled to their boat, and it followed them into the sea up to its chest. A storyteller on Sado Island likewise told of a faceless monster met out on the sea, and of a man who saved himself by throwing *setsubun* beans at it, the beans scattered every year to drive out demons. ### The second scare What makes Hearn's version so effective is its doubled ending. The victim escapes the first faceless figure and runs to someone he trusts, only to meet the same blank face again. In Hearn the second face belongs to the noodle-seller. The Osaka tale reaches for a similar twist in a different way: the first shock is the missing face, and the second is the body growing taller and taller. In each case the moment of relief is the trap. That structure explains why the noppera-bō works so well in the retelling of ghost stories. The faceless yokai has no history to explain and no grudge to settle. It needs only a lonely place, someone kind enough to stop, and a turn of the head. ### Frequently asked questions ### Is a noppera-bo dangerous? Almost never. In nearly every recorded story the noppera-bō only shows its blank face, and the harm comes from the victim's own terror. Some versions end with the creature vanishing or the witness fleeing in panic. None of the records consulted here describe it injuring anyone. ### What is the difference between a noppera-bo and a mujina? A *mujina* is a folk name for the tanuki or the badger, one of the animals said to bewitch people. *Noppera-bō* names the faceless apparition. In Hearn's story "Mujina", and in some local tales, the faceless figure is understood to be a mujina in disguise. ### Where does the Mujina story take place? On Kii-no-kuni-zaka, a slope in Moto-Akasaka in Tokyo's Minato ward. Hearn did not know where the name came from, but it refers to the Kii branch of the Tokugawa family, whose residence stood beside the slope. ### Why does the noppera-bo have no face? The folklore gives no single reason. The word itself began as an everyday description of something flat and smooth. Where a cause is given, the faceless figure is often an animal such as a mujina or tanuki playing a trick. ### Is the noppera-bo a ghost or a yokai? It is usually treated as a yokai rather than a *yūrei*, because it is not the spirit of a particular dead person and has no grudge to settle. It exists to frighten, often as the disguise of a shape-shifting animal. ### Sources - [Kotobank: のっぺらぼう (Digital Daijisen; Nihon Kokugo Daijiten; Daijisen Plus)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%AE%E3%81%A4%E3%81%BA%E3%82%89%E3%81%BC%E3%81%86-3215720) - [Kotobank: ぬっぺら坊 (Nihon Kokugo Daijiten)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%AC%E3%81%A4%E3%81%BA%E3%82%89%E5%9D%8A-2071781) - [Kotobank: ぬっぺっぽう](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%AC%E3%81%A4%E3%81%BA%E3%81%A4%E3%81%BD%E3%81%86-1698543) - [Kotobank: 狢 (Nipponica, entry by Inokuchi Shōji)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%8B%A2) - [Kotobank: 紀伊国坂 (Daijisen Plus)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%B4%80%E4%BC%8A%E5%9B%BD%E5%9D%82) - [Lafcadio Hearn, "Mujina", in *Kwaidan* (1904), Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1210) - [Nichibunken Kaii/Yōkai Densho Database: noppera-bō records](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/ksearch.cgi?Name=%E3%83%8E%E3%83%83%E3%83%9A%E3%83%A9%E3%83%9C%E3%82%A6&Pref=&Area=%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BD) - [Nichibunken record 1830067: Takayama, the faceless girl and the geta (1938)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1830067) - [Nichibunken record 2440001: Sado, tonchibu and the setsubun beans (1958)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2440001) - [Nichibunken record 0470124: Kagawa, the monk at Kubikiri Pass (1985)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0470124) - [Nichibunken record C3720078-000: Kagawa Prefectural History, the faceless monk](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C3720078-000) - [Nichibunken record 0030407: Kagawa, Kubikiri Pass (1991)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0030407) - [Nichibunken record 2180483: Osaka Senba, the girl in yūzen (1962)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2180483) - [Nichibunken record 1630001: Kuchinoerabu-jima, the shining bald monster (1968)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1630001) - [Wikipedia: Noppera-bō (pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noppera-b%C5%8D) --- ## Jorogumo (絡新婦): Spider-Woman Yokai URL: https://japan.je/yokai/jorogumo.html ### What is a jorogumo? The *jorōgumo* is a spider yokai that takes the shape of an attractive woman. In the stories, a man is approached by a stranger, often in a lonely house, at a waterfall or deep in the mountains, and drawn in by her charm or by a proposal of marriage; only later does he find the threads, the webs and, in the grimmest tales, the bodies of earlier victims. The jorogumo belongs to a large family of Japanese shapeshifting animals, but it is one of the few whose true form is an insect-like creature rather than a mammal. The name is worth untangling. Spoken Japanese simply says *jorōgumo*, and the native spelling is 女郎蜘蛛, "young-woman spider" or "courtesan spider", where *jorō* is a word for a young woman or courtesan. The spelling 絡新婦, used by the Edo-period artist Toriyama Sekien and in many yokai books, is a different matter: it is a Chinese term borrowed for its meaning and given the Japanese reading, so its characters (roughly "entangling new bride") do not spell out the sounds of the word. The same name belongs to a real animal. *Jorōgumo* is the ordinary Japanese name of *Trichonephila clavata*, a large orb-weaving spider found across much of East Asia, including Japan. The yokai and the spider share a name, but the folklore spider can be any size and is often imagined as a huge, ancient creature. ### Appearance and powers In human form the jorogumo is usually a young woman, sometimes an older woman acting on her daughter's behalf, and sometimes a woman carrying a baby. Her powers are those of a spider turned to deception: she can cast threads over a sleeping or resting person, bind them, and drag them away. Toriyama Sekien's print shows her as a spider-woman directing a swarm of small spiders that breathe fire, a picture of a creature that commands others of its kind. Not every story is about seduction. Several of the best-known legends concern a spider that is the guardian, or *nushi*, of a waterfall or deep pool, a powerful being of the place that can be dangerous or protective depending on how it is treated. ### Origins and history The jorogumo comes into view in the tale collections of the Edo period (1603–1868), the great age of printed ghost stories. In *Tonoigusa*, compiled by Ogita Ansei, a young samurai meets a woman of about nineteen or twenty carrying a child. Sensing that she is not human, he cuts at her, and she escapes into the ceiling. The next day he finds a spider of one or two *shaku* (very roughly 30 to 60 centimetres) bearing his sword wound, surrounded by the remains of the many people it had killed. The *Taihei Hyakumonogatari*, published in 1732, tells a quieter and stranger story. A man named Magoroku in Takada, in Mimasaka Province (today's Okayama Prefecture), is visited by a woman in her fifties who says her daughter of sixteen or seventeen wishes to marry him. When he refuses, the scene dissolves around him, and he finds under the eaves a small jorōgumo and a mass of webbing. By the late eighteenth century the jorogumo was established enough for Sekien to include it in his illustrated yokai catalogues, the first of which, *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō*, appeared in 1776. His image and his choice of the 絡新婦 spelling have shaped how the creature has been drawn ever since. ### Famous legends **Jōren Falls.** The Jōren Falls (*Jōren no taki*) in the Amagi mountains of the Izu Peninsula, Shizuoka Prefecture, are said to be home to a jorōgumo who is the master of the falls. In the version recorded in the Shizuoka prefectural history, a farmer resting above the falls notices a spider winding its thread around his foot. He quietly moves the thread to a mulberry stump nearby; the ground shakes, and the stump is dragged into the falls. Other tellings give the story a human face: a woodcutter drops his axe into the pool, a beautiful woman returns it and tells him never to speak of what he has seen, and when he lets the secret slip he dies, in one version found lifeless in the pool the next day. **Kashikobuchi, Sendai.** The same thread-and-stump trick appears in many places, and one of the best-known is Kashikobuchi, a pool on the Hirose River in Sendai. When the stump is pulled under, a voice from the water is said to call out "clever, clever" (*kashikoi*), which local tradition gives as the origin of the pool's name. Here the spider is honoured rather than feared: it is worshipped as a protector against drowning, and a stone inscribed to "the spirit of the spider" (妙法蜘蛛之霊) still stands at the site. A further local tale tells of an eel from the same pool who took the form of a woman and asked a man named Genbei to help her in a fight with the spider; he promised, then hid, and the eel lost. ### Regional traditions and variants Most traditional jorogumo stories are local legends attached to a particular waterfall, pool or house, rather than a single national story. The Nichibunken folklore database, which indexes reports from local histories and folklore journals, records the spider as the master of Jōren Falls; the Kashikobuchi legend belongs to Sendai; and the Edo tales place their spider-women in provincial towns. The jorogumo should not be confused with the *tsuchigumo*, a different spider yokai with its own history, best known from the tale of the warrior Minamoto no Raikō. You may read online that a spider becomes a jorogumo when it reaches a certain great age. That idea is often repeated in English, but we have not been able to trace it to any premodern Japanese source, and the Edo-period tales above say nothing about it. ### The real jorōgumo spider The animal behind the name is a striking creature. Adult females measure roughly 17 to 30 millimetres in body length and are boldly marked, with a yellow abdomen banded in dark blue-green and touched with red, and long dark legs ringed with yellow; the males are far smaller and drab. Like other orb-weavers, they hang their prey in large wheel-shaped webs. The species is not dangerous to people. Bites are unlikely, and its venom is not considered medically significant, with effects compared to a bee sting. So the folklore spider's appetite for travellers is pure legend. In recent years the jorōgumo has become newsworthy in the United States: it was first spotted in Georgia in 2013, confirmed there in 2014, and has since spread to other states, carrying with it the English common name "Joro spider", borrowed from the yokai. ### Frequently asked questions ### Is the jorogumo spider real? Yes and no. *Jorōgumo* is the real Japanese name of a large orb-weaving spider, *Trichonephila clavata*, common in Japan and now also found in parts of the United States. The shapeshifting spider-woman of folklore, however, is a legendary creature. ### Are joro spiders dangerous to humans? No. The real spider rarely bites, and its venom is not medically significant to people; a bite is usually compared to a bee sting. The folklore of man-eating spider-women has nothing to do with the real animal's behaviour. ### What does jorogumo mean? The word is usually written 女郎蜘蛛, "young-woman spider" or "courtesan spider". The alternative spelling 絡新婦, roughly "entangling new bride", was borrowed from Chinese for its meaning and does not reflect the word's sound. ### What is the difference between a jorogumo and a tsuchigumo? They are separate yokai. The jorogumo is a spider that disguises itself as a woman, known mainly from Edo-period tales and local waterfall legends, while the tsuchigumo is a giant earth spider with a much older and different history, famous from the tale of Minamoto no Raikō. ### Do jorogumo become spider-women after 400 years? That claim is widely repeated online, but we could not trace it to any premodern Japanese source, and the Edo-period tales do not mention it. It is best treated as a modern addition to the legend. ### Sources - [絡新婦 — Japanese Wikipedia (name, Tonoigusa and Taihei Hyakumonogatari tales, Jōren Falls and Kashikobuchi legends)](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B5%A1%E6%96%B0%E5%A9%A6) - [怪異・妖怪伝承データベース: 女郎蜘蛛 (Jōren Falls records, *Shizuoka-kenshi*) — Nichibunken](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/ksearch.cgi?Name=%E5%A5%B3%E9%83%8E%E8%9C%98%E8%9B%9B&Pref=&Area=%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BD) - [Sendai City cultural-property supporters' activity record, July 2025 (Kashikobuchi spider memorial stone)](https://www.city.sendai.jp/sebikatsuyo/documents/202507hozonkeisyo.pdf) - [幽霊 — Japanese Wikipedia (date of *Taihei Hyakumonogatari*, 1732)](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%B9%BD%E9%9C%8A) - [Toriyama Sekien, *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō* — Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2021666551/) - [Jorōgumo — Wikipedia (pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jor%C5%8Dgumo) - [Trichonephila clavata — Wikipedia (size, markings, venom, US spread)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichonephila_clavata) --- ## Rokurokubi (轆轤首): Long-Necked Yokai URL: https://japan.je/yokai/rokurokubi.html ### What is a rokurokubi? A *rokurokubi* is a person, usually a woman, whose neck stretches at night. By day she looks entirely ordinary. Once she is asleep, her head rises far above her body on a long, thin neck, to lick the oil in the lamp, to drink, or to wander. Japanese dictionaries define the rokurokubi as a monster whose long neck stretches and shrinks at will, and they note a second sense: a sideshow act of the same name. The same dictionaries also give *nukekubi*, "slipping-out head", as another name for it. That is a reminder that the word has long covered two different ideas. In one, the neck stretches but stays attached. In the other, the head comes off completely and flies about on its own. The Nipponica encyclopedia defines the rokurokubi as a strange phenomenon in which the neck stretches at midnight to lick lamp oil, or the head flies. ### Origins and earliest records Why the creature is called *rokuro*-kubi is not clear. *Rokuro* is the word for a potter's wheel, a pulley or windlass, and the sliding collar that opens an umbrella. The folklorist Inokuchi Shōji, writing in Nipponica, lists several guesses. The name might come from the feel of clay drawn up on a potter's wheel, from the work of woodturners, from an optical illusion, or from the way an umbrella's handle seems to lengthen as its collar is pushed up. None is proven. The word is already in use by the early Edo period. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* cites, as its earliest example, a comic linked verse in the haikai anthology *Takatsukuba* (1638). It pairs people who "slip out by night" with a rokurokubi spotted by moonlight. The joke works because the creature's defining habit, getting out at night, was already familiar. The flying head has Chinese roots. Inokuchi notes that the *Soushen ji*, a Chinese collection of strange tales from the Six Dynasties period, tells of a maidservant of a general of the state of Wu whose head flew out every night. Edo essayists repeated Chinese reports of a people called *hitōban*, "flying-head barbarians". The *Seikai zokudan* describes them with a red line around the neck, flying at night with their ears for wings and eating insects. One Edo miscellany even lists a "Flying-Head Country" among Japan's legendary neighbours, alongside countries of giants, dwarfs and long-armed people. ### The stretching neck in Edo writing Edo essayists collected rokurokubi reports with a mix of horror and curiosity, and many treated the condition as an illness rather than a curse. Tachibana Shunki's *Hokusō sadan* records that in the tenth month of Kansei 1 (1789), in Tsuruga in Echizen, a household heard a maidservant groaning late at night. They went to see if she was ill and found her head climbing a folding screen. It rose a foot or two, fell back and rose again. Nichibunken's database files the account under *rikonbyō*, the illness in which the soul leaves the body. The *Kasshi yawa* tells of a maid suspected of being a rokurokubi. Her employer watched her sleep and saw a vapour rise from her chest, and then her neck stretched until her head was resting against the transom. In Ban Kōkei's *Kanden kōhitsu*, a haikai poet who spent the night with a courtesan in the Shin-Yoshiwara quarter found her neck stretched about a foot as she slept. Ban suggested that she simply had unusually elastic skin on her neck. Others framed it as heredity or retribution. Satō Seiyū's *Chūryō manroku* reports a "rokurokubi village" deep in the mountains of Yoshino, whose people all wore neck-wraps from childhood. A sequel to the *Kasshi yawa* blames a farmer for killing a white dog: his daughter became a rokurokubi, and one night her wandering head was bitten to death by a white dog. In a happier story told by Ishikawa Kōsai, a rich family's daughter had a neck that stretched five or six feet at night. One husband fled, but her marriage to a doctor cured her. In Ihara Saikaku's *Shoen ōkagami*, a courtesan's head slips out and visits a man without her knowing anything about it. How did the two kinds of rokurokubi come together? A study by Maesaka Hideki notes that the encyclopedia *Wakan sansai zue* describes the head and body as joined by a fine thread. Some yokai writers suggest this is where the long neck came from: artists drew the thread, and viewers took it for a neck. ### Hearn's "Rokuro-Kubi" The story most English readers know is Lafcadio Hearn's "Rokuro-Kubi", published in *Kwaidan* (1904). It is in fact a nukekubi tale. A samurai of the Kikuji house in Kyushu becomes a wandering priest named Kwairyō after his lord's fall. One night in the mountains of Kai province, a woodcutter gives him shelter in a lonely cottage. When he goes for a drink of water, he finds five bodies lying in the next room without their heads. He remembers a rule from the *Sōshinki*, Hearn's spelling of the *Soushen ji*: if the body of a rokuro-kubi is moved while its head is away, the head can never return. He drags the master's body outside and finds the heads in the woods, eating worms and insects and discussing how to eat him. In the fight that follows, the master's head bites onto his sleeve and will not let go, even after it dies. Kwairyō walks on to Suwa in Shinano with a goblin's head dangling from his robe. ### Local traditions The rokurokubi was told aloud as well as written down. On the old road between Iwamura and Akechi in Gifu, a long-haired, red-tongued rokurokubi was said to hang down from the pines. It was thought to be a transformed snake, and people said the trees' branches all point downward because of it. A samurai who met it waited for it in a pass between two hills and cut off its long neck. In Ibaraki in Osaka, a merchant couple in the early Meiji years were said to have seen their daughter's neck stretch night after night. Prayers did not help, and when the rumour spread, the family moved away. In Kagawa, people said a nukekubi could be recognised by a ring around her neck, and warned against marrying such a woman. In Sendai, a temple was said to have moved to its present site because a nukekubi licked the priest's neck with a cold tongue whenever he chanted the evening sutras. In Chiba, a legend tells of the diviner Abe no Seimei fleeing on his wedding night when his bride turned out to be a rokurokubi. ### Sideshows, theatre and prints The rokurokubi also became a sideshow act (*misemono*). A 1957 recollection from Ina in Nagano describes the reality: a curtain, a pretty girl in front of it, and a head that now and then rose high above her. Kabuki borrowed the name too. A dictionary of play titles lists two pieces popularly called *Rokuro-kubi*, one first staged at Osaka's Naka-za in 1837 and one at Tokyo's Haruki-za in 1897. The National Diet Library notes that Toriyama Sekien and Utagawa Toyokuni drew the rokurokubi as a woman. Tsukioka Yoshitoshi broke the pattern with a male rokurokubi bursting from a wicker basket. Comic stories joked that a rokurokubi had no trouble with sake, but that dry *okara* (soy pulp) was hard going on the way down. ### Frequently asked questions ### What is the difference between rokurokubi and nukekubi? A rokurokubi, in the modern sense, has a neck that stretches while staying attached. A nukekubi's head comes off entirely and flies about at night. Older Japanese sources use the two names interchangeably, and dictionaries still give *nukekubi* as another name for the rokurokubi. ### Is a rokurokubi a yokai or a human? Mostly human. Nearly every story describes an ordinary person, often a young woman or servant, whose neck stretches or whose head wanders while she sleeps, often without her knowing. Edo writers explained it as an illness, an inherited condition or karmic punishment. ### Why do rokurokubi lick lamp oil? Licking the oil in the night lamp is one of the habits most often attributed to them. Nipponica lists it alongside explanations that the neck stretches in search of food or water, or when the sleeper's mind relaxes. ### Where does the rokurokubi come from? The flying-head form has Chinese roots. The *Soushen ji* tells of a maid whose head flew every night, and Edo essayists repeated Chinese accounts of a "flying-head" people. The neck-stretching form seems to have developed in Japan, possibly from pictures of the thread said to join a flying head to its body. ### Is Lafcadio Hearn's "Rokuro-Kubi" accurate to the folklore? Hearn's story follows the older, head-detaching type rather than the stretching neck. Its key rule, that moving the body strands the head, comes from the Chinese *Soushen ji*, which Hearn cites by name. ### Sources - [Kotobank: ろくろ首 (Nipponica, entry by Inokuchi Shōji)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%82%8D%E3%81%8F%E3%82%8D%E9%A6%96-747671) - [Kotobank: 轆轤首 (Daijisen; Nihon Kokugo Daijiten; kabuki title dictionary)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%BD%86%E8%BD%A4%E9%A6%96) - [Nichibunken Kaii/Yōkai Densho Database: rokurokubi records](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/ksearch.cgi?Name=%E3%83%AD%E3%82%AF%E3%83%AD%E3%82%AF%E3%83%93&Pref=&Area=%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BD) - [Nichibunken record 3680007: *Hokusō sadan*, Tsuruga 1789](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=3680007) - [Nichibunken record 3200012: *Seikai zokudan*, the hitōban](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=3200012) - [Nichibunken record 3540022: *Zassetsu nōwa*, the Flying-Head Country](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=3540022) - [Nichibunken record 0700550: *Kasshi yawa*, the vapour from the chest](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0700550) - [Nichibunken record 3170028: *Kanden kōhitsu*, Shin-Yoshiwara](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=3170028) - [Nichibunken record 3950051: *Chūryō manroku*, the Yoshino village](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=3950051) - [Nichibunken record 0700551: *Kasshi yawa* sequel, the white dog](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0700551) - [Nichibunken record 0700552: Ishikawa Kōsai, the cured bride](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0700552) - [Nichibunken record 0700549: Saikaku, *Shoen ōkagami*](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0700549) - [Nichibunken record 0700545: *Wakan sansai zue*, the thread (Maesaka 2001)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0700545) - [Nichibunken record 1460476: Gifu, the snake rokurokubi](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1460476) - [Nichibunken record 0550079: Ibaraki, Osaka (Meiji era)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0550079) - [Nichibunken record 0470035: Kagawa, the ring on the neck](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0470035) - [Nichibunken record C0411205-000: Sendai, the nukekubi of Kōzen-in](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C0411205-000) - [Nichibunken record 0030209: Chiba, Abe no Seimei's bride](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0030209) - [Nichibunken record 0160024: Ina, the sideshow (1957)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0160024) - [Nichibunken record 0700553: Edo comic tale, sake and okara](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0700553) - [National Diet Library Image Bank: Toriyama Sekien's yokai books](https://www.ndl.go.jp/imagebank/column/sekienyokai) - [Lafcadio Hearn, *Kwaidan* (1904), Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1210) - [Wikipedia: Rokurokubi (pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rokurokubi) --- ## Baku (獏): Dream-Eating Beast of Japanese Folklore URL: https://japan.je/yokai/baku.html ### What is the baku? The *baku* (獏, also written 貘) is the beast that eats bad dreams. In Japan it is best known as a charm. People drew it, wrote its name on pillows and on New Year pictures of the treasure ship, and called on it after a nightmare. Japanese dictionaries describe it as an imaginary animal from China, put together from parts of other animals. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* gives the usual list: the trunk of an elephant, the eyes of a rhinoceros, the tail of an ox and the feet of a tiger, on a body shaped like a bear's. The baku has two lives. In China it was a beast whose skin kept away disease and whose picture kept away evil. In Japan it took on the job it is famous for today, eating nightmares. The same word also became the Japanese name of a real animal, the tapir. ### The mo in China The Chinese name is *mo* (貘). The oldest Chinese dictionaries treat it as a real animal. The *Shuowen jiezi*, the classic Chinese character dictionary, as quoted in the online dictionary Zdic, says it is "like a bear, yellow and black, and comes from Shu", the region of modern Sichuan. Other early glosses collected there say it licks up and eats copper and iron, and that its teeth are so hard that iron hammers break on them. The scholar Su Song is quoted as saying that people of the Tang dynasty painted the mo on screens. The text that fixed its image is a short piece by the Tang-dynasty poet Bai Juyi, "In Praise of a Mo Screen" (*Mo ping zan*). Its preface reads, in a rough translation: "The mo has the trunk of an elephant, the eyes of a rhinoceros, the tail of an ox and the feet of a tiger, and lives in the mountain valleys of the south. Sleeping on its skin wards off pestilence; drawing its shape wards off evil." Bai explains that he had long suffered from headaches, kept a small screen around his head when he slept, and had a painter put the mo on it. He adds that, according to the *Classic of Mountains and Seas*, the beast eats only iron and copper. The poem itself turns this into a joke about his own times. In the distant past, it says, weapons were few and metal was plentiful, so the mo ate its fill. Now iron is melted for weapons and copper is cast into Buddhist statues, and not an ounce is left, so the poor mo must starve. "It is not the mo that is to be pitied," Bai ends, "but the times." Bai's preface talks about pestilence and evil, not dreams. Japanese reference works disagree about where the dream-eating comes in. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* and the Heibonsha *Mypedia* encyclopedia describe the Chinese beast itself as an eater of nightmares. A Nippon.com article says the opposite, that the baku gained the ability to devour bad dreams only after it reached Japan. The Chinese passages quoted above do not mention dreams. ### The baku in medieval Japan The baku was being used as a charm in Japan by the early fourteenth century. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* gives as its first Japanese example a line from the Enkyō-bon text of the *Heike monogatari*, copied in 1309–10. Roughly translated, it says that what people still call the baku, draw in pictures and use as a protective charm is this very beast. The passage says nothing about dreams. The dictionary illustrates its entry with a baku from the *Chōjū giga*, the famous animal scrolls. The Edo-period scholar Kojima Seisai, in the essay collection *Kanchū seiwa*, believed the dream-eating idea was old. According to the summary in the Nichibunken *Kaii-Yōkai* database, he wrote that the baku's dream-eating was known early. He pointed to the character 獏 on the sail of a treasure-ship picture associated with Emperor Go-Yōzei, who reigned from 1586 to 1611. He also noted a picture of a baku on a pillow in the *Ruijū zōyōshō*, a court furnishings manual completed around 1146 according to Nipponica. That is Kojima's reading of the manual, and this article has not checked the manual itself. ### Treasure ships and the first dream The baku's best-known job in Japan was guarding the first dream of the New Year. People put a picture of a *takarabune*, a treasure ship, under the pillow to bring a lucky dream. The custom is described in more detail on the [Seven Lucky Gods](https://japan.je/yokai/seven-lucky-gods.html) page. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* says the practice is believed to have existed already in the Muromachi period, and that at court pictures were handed out with the character for the nightmare-eating baku drawn on the sail. Originally, it says, the custom belonged to New Year's Eve or the night of Setsubun and was meant to drive away misfortune. The oldest surviving designs show a ship carrying only ears of rice. Ships crowded with the seven gods and treasure became popular in the middle of the Edo period. Nipponica's entry on the treasure ship cites the Edo essay collection *Kiyū shōran*. Drawing on the *Anzai zuihitsu*, that work says ship pictures were unknown in ancient times but can be found from the Muromachi period on. Nipponica explains that the character for baku was written on the sail because the baku was said to eat bad dreams. Heibonsha's *Sekai Daihyakka* adds that in the medieval period a picture of a rice-laden ship was laid under the pillow on New Year's Eve. If a bad dream came, the picture was thrown into water. The picture's first purpose, it suggests, was to send bad luck away over the sea. ### "Let the baku eat last night's dream" Folklore surveys of the twentieth century recorded short spells that hand a bad dream over to the baku. All of them are in the Nichibunken database. - In Aso, Kumamoto Prefecture, a 1936 report says that after a bad dream you should say three times, as soon as you get up, "I will let the baku eat last night's dream." - In Ogachi District, Akita Prefecture, a 1940 report says that if you had a bad dream on the night of the second day of the New Year, you should look up at the sky the next day and say three times, "I give last night's dream to the baku of heaven." The baku would then eat it. - In the Shōnai region of Yamagata Prefecture, an old man told a 1957 survey that a baku in the sky rules over dreams. After a bad dream you should say nothing to anyone, face the sun, and say three times, "I offer last night's dream to the baku of heaven." - In Yuzawa, Akita Prefecture, a 1977 survey recorded the words "I give it to the baku", said three times to escape misfortune. One record points the other way. A 1965 survey of a village in Miyazaki Prefecture found that before a coffin was carried out, people said twice, "We won't let the baku eat it" or "We won't let the *kasha* eat it." The kasha is a demon that steals corpses. Here the baku appears as a danger, not a protector. The record gives no explanation. ### The iron-eater, carvings and the tapir The Chinese idea of the mo as an eater of iron and copper also came to Japan. It is often used to explain baku carvings on religious buildings. A TV Tokyo programme about Nikkō, broadcast on 16 January 2021, said that the baku is among the most common animals in the 5,173 carvings at Nikkō Tōshōgū. It explained that the baku eats iron and copper, so it can only live in peaceful times, because in wartime its food becomes weapons. That is a modern explanation of the carvings. This article has not found an Edo-period document stating that it was the builders' intention. The Japan Tourism Agency's multilingual explanation database has a text on a baku-shaped pillow said to have been used by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537–1598). It describes the pillow as wooden, covered on top with leather and cotton. The text suggests the pillow was meant to keep away nightmares, and perhaps weapons too, since the baku eats metal. It adds that baku were often carved on gates for a similar reason. The text gives these as possibilities, not established facts. Japanese uses the same word for the tapir, the hoofed animal of Southeast Asia and the Americas. Dictionaries such as the *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* and *Daijisen* list the tapir as a second meaning of baku. Nippon.com explains that the tapir was named after the mythical beast because its long snout recalls the baku's elephant trunk. It notes that Japanese zoos usually write the animal's name in katakana, バク. ### Frequently asked questions ### Does the baku really eat dreams? In Japanese belief it does, and that is its main role. People asked it to eat bad dreams with spells and pillow charms. In the Chinese sources quoted here, the mo protects against disease and evil and eats iron and copper. They do not mention dreams. Japanese reference works disagree about whether the dream-eating began in China or in Japan. ### What does a baku look like? The standard description goes back to the Tang poet Bai Juyi: an elephant's trunk, a rhinoceros's eyes, an ox's tail and a tiger's feet. Japanese dictionaries add a body shaped like a bear's. ### Why is "baku" written on treasure-ship pictures? Pictures of a treasure ship were put under the pillow at New Year to bring a lucky first dream. According to the *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* and Nipponica, the character for baku was written on the sail because the baku eats bad dreams. Pictures of this kind were handed out at the imperial court. ### Is the baku the same as the tapir? No. The baku is an imaginary beast. Japanese later used the same word for the tapir, apparently because its long snout looks like the baku's trunk. ### Is the baku dangerous? In almost all Japanese folklore it is a helper. One 1965 record from Miyazaki Prefecture is an exception. In it, mourners recite a spell to stop the baku, like the corpse-stealing *kasha*, from taking the dead. ### Sources - [貘: *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* and Heibonsha *Mypedia* entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%B2%98) - [獏: *Daijisen* entry (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%8D%8F) - [Bai Juyi, *Mo ping zan* with preface, from the *Quan Tang wen* (Chinese Wikisource)](https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E8%B2%98%EF%BC%88%E8%AE%80%E9%99%8C%EF%BC%8C%E7%99%BD%E8%B1%B9%E4%B9%9F%EF%BC%89%E5%B1%8F%E8%B4%8A%EF%BC%88%E4%B8%A6%E5%BA%8F%EF%BC%89) - [貘: *Shuowen jiezi*, Kangxi dictionary and other glosses (Zdic)](https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E8%B2%98) - [宝船: *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten*, Nipponica and Heibonsha entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%AE%9D%E8%88%B9-92818) - [類聚雑要抄: Nipponica entry (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%A1%9E%E8%81%9A%E9%9B%91%E8%A6%81%E6%8A%84) - [後陽成天皇: *Daijisen* entry (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%BE%8C%E9%99%BD%E6%88%90%E5%A4%A9%E7%9A%87) - [Nichibunken record 5290001: Kojima Seisai, *Kanchū seiwa*, on the baku](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=5290001) - [Nichibunken record 1233109_005: Aso, Kumamoto (1936)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1233109_005) - [Nichibunken record 1231054_007: Ogachi, Akita (1940)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1231054_007) - [Nichibunken record 1060001: the baku of heaven, Shōnai (1957)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1060001) - [Nichibunken record 1422114_001: Yuzawa, Akita (1977)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1422114_001) - [Nichibunken record 2360804: the baku and the kasha, Miyazaki (1965)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2360804) - [TV Tokyo, *Shutsubotsu! Adomachikku Tengoku*, Nikkō episode (16 January 2021)](https://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/adomachi/backnumber/20210116/141351.html) - [Japan Tourism Agency multilingual explanation: Hideyoshi's baku-shaped pillow (PDF, MLIT)](https://www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db/common/001554760.pdf) - [Nippon.com: "Real Animals and Mythical Counterparts" (2015)](https://www.nippon.com/en/nipponblog/m00079/) - [Wikipedia: Baku (mythology) (pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku_%28mythology%29) --- ## Kuchisake-onna (口裂け女): Slit-Mouthed Woman Legend URL: https://japan.je/yokai/kuchisake-onna.html ### What is Kuchisake-onna? Kuchisake-onna, the "slit-mouthed woman", is the most famous of Japan's modern yokai. She does not come from a medieval scroll or an Edo-period picture book. She grew out of children's gossip in the late 1970s. In the classic version she is a tall woman in a long coat, with her lower face hidden behind a white gauze mask of the kind Japanese people often wear in cold and hay-fever season. She steps into the path of a child walking home alone and asks, *"Watashi kirei?"* ("Am I pretty?"). If the child says yes, she pulls down the mask to show a mouth that runs from ear to ear, and asks the question again. What sets her apart from older yokai is that her birth can be roughly dated. Folklorists can point to a prefecture, a season and a newspaper column. That makes her one of the clearest examples of how a monster is made, how it spreads, and how it outlives the panic that created it. ### Appearance and powers Reports gathered by local folklore societies in the 1980s and 1990s are indexed in the Nichibunken (International Research Center for Japanese Studies) database of strange phenomena and yokai lore. They agree on the central image and disagree on almost everything else. A 1986 report from Akune in Kagoshima gives her short hair and lipstick. A 1990 report from Fukuoka says the visible half of her face is beautiful, that she runs unnaturally fast, and that she can turn violent without warning. A 1989 report from Setagaya in Tokyo says she is fond of the number three. She therefore haunts Sangenjaya, whose name contains the word "three", and knocks on the doors of room 3 in apartment blocks. In that version she laughs loudly at children who run away, but she never chases them. The story picked up costumes and weapons as it travelled. Iikura Yoshiyuki, a folklorist at Kokugakuin University, wrote about the legend for nippon.com. The variations he heard in interviews include a red coat, a sickle, superhuman speed and a hatred of hair pomade. The writer Yoshida Yūki, who researches modern ghost stories, argues that her most violent features belong mainly to the 1979 boom. These include the attacks on children and the knife or scissors. Earlier versions, in his reading, mostly had her show her mouth and give chase. ### Origins and history The usual account traces the rumour to Gifu Prefecture at the end of 1978. One theory that Iikura reports places it in the town of Yaotsu. There, an elderly woman from a farming family was said to have seen a slit-mouthed woman standing in a corner of her garden. A local newspaper wrote up the story, and children repeated it and added to it. Japanese accounts name the paper as the *Gifu Nichi Nichi Shimbun*, now the *Gifu Shimbun*. They date its first mention of the rumour to a short column on 26 January 1979. The rumour then left Gifu. Iikura links its speed to cram schools, which were attracting more and more children at the time. *Juku* brought together pupils from different school districts, so a story told in one classroom reached several others within days. Children then passed it on to cousins in other cities by telephone. Other newspapers and television stations picked it up, and within about six months it was being told across Japan. A Shizuoka prefectural history records simply that around 1979, primary-school children were talking about where Kuchisake-onna would appear. Adults took it more seriously than a schoolyard tale usually earns. Iikura notes that teachers and parents patrolled the streets and arranged for children to walk home in groups. He also points out that cram-school pupils were walking unfamiliar streets after dark, past drinkers and night workers. In his view, the slit-mouthed stranger gave that very real anxiety a face. The panic faded about as fast as it had spread, around the start of the 1979 summer holidays, when children stopped meeting every day. The figure stayed, though. In Iikura's words, she became an established monster. ### Did she exist before 1979? It is often said that Kuchisake-onna is far older, and English-language yokai references sometimes trace her to the Edo period. The evidence for an unbroken line is thin. Yoshida's research suggests that stories about a woman with a slit mouth were circulating across Japan by the mid-to-late 1970s, a few years before the Gifu boom. The earliest media record he found ends with the "monster" revealed as an ordinary woman wearing frightening make-up. Nichibunken's database holds 59 reports under the name *kuchisake-onna*. All of them come from folklore journals and prefectural histories published between 1986 and 1999. The safest summary is that older tales of women with uncanny mouths may have fed the legend, but the character people know today took shape in 1978–79. ### Protection and folk practice Like many school legends, Kuchisake-onna came with escape rules, and these spread as widely as the legend itself. The best-known remedy is pomade, the scented hair oil once popular with men. A 1999 survey of high-school students in Utsunomiya, Tochigi, recorded that saying *"pomade"* three times makes her vanish. Japanese retellings often explain that she hates the smell because the surgeon who disfigured her wore it, but this is a later explanation, not part of the earliest reports. The same 1999 report says she is delighted if you give her *bekkō-ame*, a hard amber candy made from caramelised sugar, and Iikura heard the same remedy. In many tellings she stops to pick up the sweets, and that gives you time to run. Many retellings also advise a non-committal answer such as "you look average". The idea is that it confuses her long enough for you to escape, since both "yes" and "no" are said to end badly. Some rules are taboos rather than escapes: one 1998 collection from Kyoto records that anyone who says her name aloud must say *"gomen nasai"* ("I'm sorry") ten times. These rules show the legend working as children's folklore usually does. A frightening story arrives together with a ritual that lets the listener feel in control of it. ### In film, manga and pop culture Kuchisake-onna moved quickly from rumour to screen. The director Shiraishi Kōji's feature film *Kuchisake-onna* (released in English as *Carved*) opened in Japan in March 2007, with Mizuno Miki as the slit-mouthed woman. *Kuchisake-onna 2* followed in 2008. It is set in Gifu Prefecture in 1978 and offers a fictional origin story that ties the legend to the place and year where the real rumour began. She has since become a regular figure in manga, anime and horror games, and she usually appears beside Hanako-san and other school ghosts as the face of the modern Japanese urban legend. ### Frequently asked questions ### Is Kuchisake-onna real? No. Kuchisake-onna is a rumour, and there is no evidence that any such creature exists. The rumour itself is a real historical event, though. It began in Gifu Prefecture around the end of 1978, reached the newspapers in early 1979, and frightened children across Japan until the summer holidays that year. ### What do you say to Kuchisake-onna? Folk tradition offers several answers. The best known are to say "pomade" three times, to give her *bekkō-ame* hard candy, or to give a vague answer such as "you look average" so that she hesitates and you can get away. These remedies vary from region to region, like the legend itself. ### Where did the Kuchisake-onna legend start? Most accounts trace it to Gifu Prefecture in late 1978. One theory names the town of Yaotsu. The story spread from there through schools, cram schools and the press, and by the middle of 1979 it was known across Japan. ### Why does Kuchisake-onna hate pomade? The hatred of pomade was one of the details children added as the rumour spread, and Iikura records it among the variants he collected. Later retellings explain it by saying her surgeon used the hair oil, but there is no single original reason. It works mainly as a ready-made magic word that children could use. ### Is Kuchisake-onna a yokai or a ghost? She is usually counted as a modern yokai, or *gendai yōkai*, and is the classic example of an urban legend. Some retellings give her a human past as a disfigured woman. Even so, she behaves less like a *yūrei* tied to one person's death than like a roaming monster with rules of her own. ### Sources - [Iikura Yoshiyuki, "Japanese Urban Legends from the 'Slit-Mouthed Woman' to 'Kisaragi Station'" (nippon.com)](https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/g00789/) - [Iikura Yoshiyuki, same article, Chinese edition naming the *Gifu Nichi Nichi Shimbun* (nippon.com)](https://www.nippon.com/cn/japan-topics/g00789/) - [Yoshida Yūki, excerpt from *Gendai Kaidan Kō* on the pre-1979 rumour (Bunshun Online, 2022)](https://bunshun.jp/articles/-/53564) - [Nichibunken Kaii/Yōkai Densho Database: all 59 *kuchisake-onna* records](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/ksearch.cgi?Name=%e3%82%af%e3%83%81%e3%82%b5%e3%82%b1%e3%82%aa%e3%83%b3%e3%83%8a&Pref=&Area=%e5%85%a8%e5%9b%bd) - [Nichibunken record 0490056: Akune, Kagoshima (1986)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0490056) - [Nichibunken record 1140522: Setagaya, Tokyo (1989)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1140522) - [Nichibunken record 0210002: Fukuoka (1990)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0210002) - [Nichibunken record C0222223-000: Shizuoka prefectural history (1991)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C0222223-000) - [Nichibunken record 0890010: Kyoto (1998)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0890010) - [Nichibunken record 0970138: Utsunomiya, pomade and *bekkō-ame* (1999)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0970138) - [allcinema: *Kuchisake-onna* (2007), dir. Shiraishi Kōji](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/326733) - [eiga.com: *Kuchisake-onna 2* (2008)](https://eiga.com/movie/53569/) - [Wikipedia: Kuchisake-onna (pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuchisake-onna) --- ## Hannya (般若): The Noh Demon Mask and Its Meaning URL: https://japan.je/yokai/hannya.html ### What is a hannya? The hannya is a woman whose jealousy or resentment has grown so strong that it has turned her into a demon. Unlike most figures in this encyclopedia, it is known above all as an object: a carved and painted mask from the Noh theatre. Japanese dictionaries define *hannya* first as that mask, a demon-woman's face with two horns and a mouth split wide. From there the word came to mean the demon-woman herself. Long before the mask became a souvenir and a tattoo design, it served one precise dramatic purpose. In the second half of a play, it showed the audience that a woman had crossed the line from human anguish into something no longer human. The word itself has a surprising origin. *Hannya* is the Japanese reading of the Sanskrit Buddhist term *prajñā*, "wisdom", familiar from the *Hannya Shingyō*, or Heart Sutra. How a word for enlightened wisdom came to name a jealous demon is one of the mask's small mysteries, discussed below. ### Appearance: a face in two halves A hannya mask has two sharp horns at the temples, round eyes inlaid with gilded metal, and a gaping mouth with gold teeth and fangs. Fine, dishevelled strands of hair fall across the forehead. The Victoria and Albert Museum, which holds a red hannya carved in 2000 by the Kobe mask-maker Suzuki Nohjin, describes the subject as a female serpent-demon consumed by jealousy and hatred. Its description also notes that the shade of the face signals the woman's rank, with a paler face meaning higher status. What makes the mask more than a monster face is its brow. The Tokyo National Museum's description of a hannya in its collection draws attention to the eyebrows, drawn in the shape of the character for "eight" (八). Beneath the fury they suggest the deep loneliness, sorrow and suffering of a noble, beautiful woman. The result is a face that rages in its lower half and grieves in its upper half. The-noh.com's mask database calls the expression a fusion of jealousy, grudge, sorrow and grief, and the Tamagawa University museum describes it as women's inner resentment, passion, jealousy, anger and sadness distilled to the limit. ### Origins of the mask and its name Noh took shape in the fourteenth century under the actor-playwrights Kan'ami and Zeami. Mask types multiplied over the following centuries. The-noh.com describes an older, flatter and cruder type called *hiragata-hannya*, said to date from the Kamakura period and to be the ancestor of the classic form. The refined, triangular hannya is traditionally credited to Hannya-bō, a monk-carver from Nara active in the Muromachi period. Japanese reference works generally date him to the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. That attribution has never been firmly documented, and museum catalogues call it a tradition rather than a fact. There are several explanations for the name. The first is simply that the type was named after Hannya-bō. A second, recorded by the Tamagawa University Museum of Education, traces it to a line in the play *Aoi no Ue*, where the possessing spirit cries out in fear at the *hannya-goe*, the voice of a priest chanting the Hannya (Wisdom) sutra. A third, offered by the-noh.com, says that carving such a demon called for real wisdom, *hannya*, from the mask-maker. Like other Noh masks, hannya were copied from celebrated originals over generations, and the copies are valued in their own right. One hannya in the Tokyo National Museum has two notches carved between the nostrils on its back. That mark identifies it as the work of Kawachi, a leading carver who died in 1645, and its features suggest he copied it from a mask owned by the Konparu school of Noh. ### Stages of transformation Noh has a whole family of masks for women overcome by resentment, and they are often read as stages along a single path. *Namanari*, "half-formed", has only small horns and painted human eyebrows. The-noh.com describes it as the living apparition of a deserted wife and calls it a preliminary stage of becoming the demon shown by the hannya. It is used in *Kanawa*. The hannya is the middle stage. Beyond it lies the *ja*, or "serpent", mask. It is darker red, more brutal, and has almost no trace of the woman left. The-noh.com credits its tradition to the heads of the Kongō school and lists its use in *Dōjōji*. The hannya also comes in colours, though these mark the kind of character more than the stage of change. The Tamagawa University museum explains that the *shiro-hannya*, the white hannya, keeps a sense of refinement even at its most terrible. It is the mask for the aristocratic Lady Rokujō in *Aoi no Ue*. The *aka-hannya*, the red hannya, is used for more bestial roles, such as the girl turned serpent in *Dōjōji* and the man-eating hag of *Kurozuka*. ### The plays The hannya is worn by the *shite*, or lead actor, in the second half of several plays. The best known are *Aoi no Ue*, *Dōjōji*, *Kurozuka* (called *Adachigahara* in the Kanze school) and *Momijigari*. The-noh.com counts the first three as Noh's great female-demon plays. *Aoi no Ue* ("Lady Aoi") is drawn from *The Tale of Genji*. Genji's wife Aoi lies gravely ill, represented on stage only by a folded robe. A shrine medium summons the spirit that is tormenting her. It turns out to be the living spirit of Lady Rokujō, a former crown prince's widow whom Genji has neglected, and who was humiliated when her carriage was shoved aside at the Kamo Festival. When a mountain ascetic begins his prayers, her jealousy takes visible form as a demon-woman. She attacks the priest, is subdued, and at last finds peace. *Dōjōji* is set at a temple in Kii Province, today's Wakayama, on the day a new bell is to be hung. A dancer slips past the ban on women, leaps into the bell as it falls, and reappears as a serpent. The priests explain that years earlier a girl who believed a monk had betrayed her turned into a snake and burned him alive beneath the temple's old bell. *Kurozuka* is different. It shows a woman who is a demon from the start, a solitary old woman on the plain of Adachigahara who hides a room piled with corpses. Here the mask shows not jealousy but a terrible secret exposed. ### Beyond the Noh stage The Dōjōji story passed into kabuki as the dance *Kyōganoko Musume Dōjōji*. It was first performed at Edo's Nakamura-za theatre in 1753 and ends with the dancer reappearing from the bell as a serpent-demon. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* dictionary records that the word came to mean the demon-woman herself, not only her mask. Today the hannya face appears far beyond the stage, on festival masks, souvenirs and tattoos. Its double expression, rage below and grief above, is what has kept it compelling for five centuries. ### Frequently asked questions ### What does a hannya mask mean? It shows a woman transformed into a demon by jealousy, resentment or betrayal. The mask is meant to hold rage and sorrow at once. The mouth and horns show fury, while the brow conveys grief and loneliness. On the Noh stage it marks the moment when a woman's suffering becomes something inhuman. ### Is the hannya a demon? Yes and no. The hannya is a woman who has *become* a demon, an *oni* or demon-woman, through her own emotions. She is not a separate species of monster. She stays human enough to suffer, which is why many Noh plays end with her spirit pacified by prayer rather than simply destroyed. ### Why is it called hannya? *Hannya* means Buddhist "wisdom" (Sanskrit *prajñā*). The mask is traditionally said to be named after Hannya-bō, a monk-carver of the Muromachi period. Other explanations link it to a line about sutra chanting in *Aoi no Ue*, or to the wisdom needed to carve it. None is proven. ### What is the difference between a white and a red hannya? The white hannya is the more refined form, used for the noble Lady Rokujō in *Aoi no Ue*. The red hannya is used for more savage roles such as those in *Dōjōji* and *Kurozuka*. The colour signals the character's rank and nature rather than a fixed stage of transformation. ### Is the hannya mask male or female? Female. The hannya always represents a woman, even when, as is traditional in Noh, a man plays the role. Male demons and demon-gods wear masks from other families, which the-noh.com groups under *kishin*. ### Sources - [the-noh.com Noh Masks Database: Hannya](http://www.the-noh.com/sub/jp/index.php?mode=db&action=e_view_detail&data_id=11&class_id=1) - [the-noh.com: Hiragata-hannya](http://www.the-noh.com/sub/jp/index.php?mode=db&action=e_view_detail&data_id=12&class_id=1) - [the-noh.com: Namanari](http://www.the-noh.com/sub/jp/index.php?mode=db&action=e_view_detail&data_id=61&class_id=1) - [the-noh.com: Ja](http://www.the-noh.com/sub/jp/index.php?mode=db&action=e_view_detail&data_id=57&class_id=1) - [the-noh.com Plays Database: Aoi no Ue](https://www.the-noh.com/en/plays/data/program_006.html) - [the-noh.com Plays Database: Dōjōji](https://www.the-noh.com/en/plays/data/program_013.html) - [the-noh.com Plays Database: Kurozuka](https://www.the-noh.com/en/plays/data/program_035.html) - [Tamagawa University Museum of Education: Noh mask "Hannya (white)"](https://www.tamagawa.ac.jp/museum/archive/2007/186.html) - [Tokyo National Museum via ColBase/Japan Search: Noh mask Hannya (C-1554)](https://jpsearch.go.jp/en/item/cobas-59053) - [Tokyo National Museum via ColBase/Japan Search: Noh mask Hannya by Kawachi (C-1555)](https://jpsearch.go.jp/en/item/cobas-59054) - [Victoria and Albert Museum: Aka-Hannya mask by Suzuki Nohjin, FE.3-2004](https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O446938/noh-mask-suzuki-nohjin/) - [JAANUS (Japanese Architecture and Art Net Users System): hannya](https://aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/h/hannya.htm) - [Kotobank: 般若 (Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, Nipponica)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%88%AC%E8%8B%A5-118535) - [Kotobank: 京鹿子娘道成寺 (Kyōganoko Musume Dōjōji)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%BA%AC%E9%B9%BF%E5%AD%90%E5%A8%98%E9%81%93%E6%88%90%E5%AF%BA) - [Wikipedia: Hannya (pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannya) --- ## Bakeneko (化け猫): Japanese Monster Cat URL: https://japan.je/yokai/bakeneko.html ### What is a bakeneko? *Bakeneko* literally means "changed cat" or "transforming cat". It is the general Japanese name for a cat with uncanny powers. The standard dictionary definition is simply a cat that changes into people, or a cat that has that kind of magical power. Most bakeneko start out as ordinary animals, often a family's own pet. They change because they have grown old, grown unusually large, or been wronged. Then they begin to do things no cat should: talking, walking upright, dancing, taking human shape, and in the darker stories killing a member of the household and quietly taking that person's place. Bakeneko belong to the same family of shape-shifting animals as the fox and the tanuki, with one difference: foxes and tanuki live out in the fields, but the cat lives inside the house. Much of the bakeneko's power to frighten comes from that closeness. ### Appearance and powers In the oldest and most widespread belief, a cat becomes uncanny by living too long or growing too big. A 1930 report from the island of Iki by the folklorist Orikuchi Shinobu records the belief that a tomcat turns into a bakeneko once it reaches seven *kin*, a little over four kilograms. Once transformed, the bakeneko's commonest trick is disguise. Folk records from all over Japan describe cats taking the shape of a woman, an old woman or a husband. In Sendai, people said an old cat once sat up in a cherry tree dressed as an old woman, with a hand towel on her head, turning a spinning wheel. Other powers recur across the stories. A bakeneko can speak. It can bewitch people and lead them astray, and it can survive arrows and bullets that would kill an ordinary animal. Edo-period writers loved anecdotes of cats that gave themselves away by talking. The essay collection *Shin Chomonjū* tells of a red cat kept at a sub-temple of Zōjōji in Edo during the Genroku era (1688–1704). It fell from a beam while chasing a mouse and cried out the Buddhist invocation *"Namu sanbō!"* When people said it must be a *nekomata*, it vanished. The most famous image is the cat licking lamp oil at night. Edo households often burned cheap fish oil, such as sardine oil, in their paper-shaded *andon* lamps, so a cat at the lamp dish had an ordinary explanation. Seen as a shadow on a paper screen, though, it became the best-known sign of a cat turning monstrous. ### Bakeneko and nekomata The two words overlap so much that Japanese sources often use them for the same creature. Broadly, *bakeneko* is the general term for any transforming cat. *Nekomata* names a particular kind, usually pictured with a tail forked in two, a feature often connected with the *mata* ("fork") in its name. A common rule of thumb in modern yokai books is that a bakeneko has one tail and a nekomata has two. The nekomata is the older idea. It appears in the essay collection *Tsurezuregusa*, written around 1330 by Yoshida Kenkō. In episode 89, people report a creature called a *nekomata* that lives deep in the mountains and eats people. Someone else adds that even outside the mountains, a cat that grows old can become a nekomata and attack people. A linked-verse poet walking home alone at night hears this, panics when something leaps at him by a stream, and falls into the water shouting for help. Neighbours with torches find that the "nekomata" was his own dog, which had recognised its master in the dark. The joke works because the belief was already familiar. It also contains the key idea behind every bakeneko story, that a house cat can turn into a monster with age. ### The Nabeshima cat disturbance The most famous bakeneko of all is the cat of the Nabeshima family of Saga. The tale grew out of a real political transition in Hizen Province, today's Saga Prefecture. After the warlord Ryūzōji Takanobu died in 1584, real power passed to his retainer Nabeshima Naoshige. In 1607 Takanobu's grandson Takafusa died at the age of 22 after trying to take his own life. The Nabeshima were confirmed as rulers of the domain, and Ryūzōji descendants went on petitioning for their house to be restored. Japanese encyclopedias explain that later storytellers recast this succession dispute as a tale of a vengeful cat. It took shape in *kōdan* storytelling, in popular "true record" books and on the kabuki stage. The kabuki version, *Hana no Saga Nekomata Zōshi*, was written by Segawa Jokō III and is dated to 1853. The details of its first production differ between sources. One kabuki title dictionary lists a first performance at Edo's Nakamura-za in the ninth month of 1853. Heibonsha's encyclopedia says the planned production was stopped after protests from Saga domain. In the play's plot, the lord of a thinly disguised domain kills a blind musician over a game of *go*. The musician's cat takes the form of the dowager lady and torments the lord night after night, until the loyal retainer Itō Sōta sees through the disguise and drives it off. ### Regional traditions Bakeneko lore was never limited to Saga: the Nichibunken database lists dozens of local reports, from Okinawa to Niigata. In Aso, Kumamoto, a pet cat was said to have eaten its old mistress and taken her shape. It was found out only when a hunter wounded it with a special bullet that never misses, and the old woman's bones were discovered under the floor. In Hitoyoshi, also in Kumamoto, a disturbance at the castle led to the founding of Shōzen-in temple in 1625. The temple is nicknamed the "cat temple", and it is said to have a room that no one can sleep in. Hunters' tales from Tanba in Hyōgo tell of a cat in the form of a woman that dodged twelve arrows with a pot lid before falling to a thirteenth arrow its owner had kept hidden. On Sado Island, an old woman who rolled in the sand like a cat was said to have gained a cat's uncanny power and become a feared mountain spirit. She was later enshrined as Nekotara Tennyo. In Miyazaki in Kyushu and in Gunma, cat-monsters were blamed for snatching corpses from funeral processions. In Miyazaki this creature was called *kasha*. A 1978 report from the Mera mountains says this is why a coffin must never be set down on the way to the grave. ### In art, theatre and pop culture Cat-disturbance plays (*neko-sōdō-mono*) formed a recognised genre of late Edo kabuki. One play from 1827, staged at Edo's Kawarazaki-za, came to be known simply as *Bakeneko*. Utagawa Kuniyoshi's triptych *Scene from a Ghost Story: The Okazaki Cat Demon* is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It shows a monstrous cat tearing through bamboo blinds above a calm nobleman, while the women beside it are revealed as the cat in disguise. Tsukioka Yoshitoshi's 1867 print shows Itō Sōta catching the Saga cat at the moment it reveals its true form. The tradition moved easily into film. *Kaibyō* (monster-cat) films followed. The actress Irie Takako, for example, appeared in two released in 1953, *Kaidan Saga Yashiki* and *Kaibyō Arima Goten*. Bakeneko still turn up throughout manga, anime and games. ### Protection and folk practice Much bakeneko belief is really about death and the household. In Kanagawa, people believed that if a cat stepped over a corpse, the dead body could rise. They said that if such a corpse drank from the kitchen water bucket with a ladle, it would gain the strength of a thousand men and become a nekomata. That is why a broom or a blade was laid beside the dead. The practical message of these stories is that cats belong to the household, but they need to be watched. ### Frequently asked questions ### What is the difference between bakeneko and nekomata? *Bakeneko* is the broad term for any cat that transforms or has magical powers. *Nekomata* is a particular kind, usually pictured with a forked tail and often described as more dangerous. Japanese sources often blur the two. A common modern rule of thumb is one tail for a bakeneko and two for a nekomata. ### What powers does a bakeneko have? In folklore, bakeneko can take human form, often by killing and impersonating a member of the household. They can also speak, walk on their hind legs, bewitch people and shrug off ordinary weapons. Some stories also blame them for stealing corpses or making the dead move. ### What is the Nabeshima bakeneko story? It is the story of a cat that avenges its murdered master by haunting the lord of Saga in the guise of a noblewoman, until a loyal retainer exposes it. The story dramatises the real seventeenth-century transfer of power in Saga from the Ryūzōji family to the Nabeshima. It became famous through storytelling, kabuki and woodblock prints. ### Why do bakeneko lick lamp oil? Edo-period lamps often burned cheap fish oil, which a hungry cat would understandably lick. Lit from behind a paper screen, the shadow of a cat at the lamp looked uncanny, and it became the classic sign of a cat turning into a monster. ### Are bakeneko evil? Not always. Many bakeneko stories are about revenge for a real wrong, such as a murdered owner, and some cats are simply mischievous. The most frightening are the cats that replace people. ### Sources - [Yoshida Kenkō, *Tsurezuregusa*, episode 89 (Japanese text, Wikisource)](https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%BE%92%E7%84%B6%E8%8D%89_%28%E6%A0%A1%E8%A8%BB%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E6%96%87%E5%AD%B8%E5%A4%A7%E7%B3%BB%29) - [Kotobank: 化猫 (Nihon Kokugo Daijiten; kabuki title dictionary)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%8C%96%E7%8C%AB) - [Kotobank: 鍋島騒動 (Heibonsha World Encyclopedia, Nipponica, Daijisen)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%8D%8B%E5%B3%B6%E9%A8%92%E5%8B%95-108408) - [Nichibunken Kaii/Yōkai Densho Database: bakeneko records](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/ksearch.cgi?Name=%E3%83%90%E3%82%B1%E3%83%8D%E3%82%B3&Pref=&Area=%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BD) - [Nichibunken record 2260097: Iki, a tomcat of seven kin (Orikuchi, 1930)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2260097) - [Nichibunken record C0410603-000: Sendai, cat as old woman spinning](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C0410603-000) - [Nichibunken record 1040006: Hitoyoshi "cat temple"](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1040006) - [Nichibunken record 1230203: Aso, cat replaces its mistress](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1230203) - [Nichibunken record 1230565: Tanba, the hunter and the pot lid](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1230565) - [Nichibunken record 3760007: Sado, Nekotara Tennyo](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=3760007) - [Nichibunken record 1850012: Miyazaki, kasha and the coffin](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1850012) - [Nichibunken record 3490095: *Shin Chomonjū*, the talking temple cat](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=3490095) - [Nichibunken record 1232370: Kanagawa, cats, corpses and the broom](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1232370) - [Waraku (Shogakukan): fish oil in Edo andon lamps](https://intojapanwaraku.com/rock/culture-rock/128979/) - [Metropolitan Museum of Art: Kuniyoshi, *Scene from a Ghost Story: The Okazaki Cat Demon*, JP1563](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/45282) - [Egenolf Gallery: Yoshitoshi, *Itō Sōta and the Cat Demon of Saga* (1867)](https://egenolfgallery.com/products/yoshitoshi-%e8%8a%b3%e5%b9%b4-ito-yosota-and-the-cat-demon-of-saga-%e4%bc%8a%e6%9d%b1-%e8%88%87%e6%83%a3%e5%a4%aa) - [allcinema: Irie Takako filmography](https://www.allcinema.net/person/pdf/119386) - [Wikipedia: Bakeneko (pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakeneko) --- ## Hanako-san (トイレの花子さん): Ghost of the School Toilet URL: https://japan.je/yokai/hanako-san.html ### Who is Hanako-san? *Toire no Hanako-san*, "Hanako of the toilet", is the best-known ghost of Japanese schools. She is said to live in one stall of a girls' toilet, most often the third stall on the third floor. If you knock and call her name, a girl's voice answers. Sometimes that is all that happens. In other versions something reaches out, or she wants you to play, or she chases you. Hanako-san is not a figure from old scrolls or Edo-period picture books. She belongs to *gakkō no kaidan*, the "school ghost stories" that children tell one another, and her story is passed on in schoolyards rather than in books. That makes her a modern legend, like Kuchisake-onna. Because she lives in children's talk rather than in a fixed text, almost every school seems to have its own version. ### The ritual The best way to see what children actually say about Hanako-san is through the folklore surveys collected in the Nichibunken database (the International Research Center for Japanese Studies). Its records of her come from regional folklore journals published between 1990 and 2001. They show both a shared core and a great deal of local variation. A 1999 survey of high-school students in Tochigi Prefecture records the version most people know. Hanako-san lives in the third stall of the third-floor toilet. You knock on the door three times and say *"Hanako-san, asobimashō"* ("Hanako-san, let's play"). She answers *"Hāi"* and appears. Another student in the same survey, from Utsunomiya, described a quieter form. You call "Hanako-san" three times at a closed stall, and she knocks three times from inside in reply. Other schools had other rules. In a 1992 report from Yamagata City, a second-year primary pupil said Hanako-san was in the second stall from the left in the toilets on the west side of the school. A 1998 survey in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, recorded a taboo rather than a summons: no one should go into the third stall from the front, because Hanako-san or other ghosts appear there and pull people in. ### Many Hanako-sans The surveys show how freely children reshaped her. A 1990 report from Yamagata says that if you call "Hanako-san" as you leave the toilet, a voice answers "Hāi". A gentle reply means you are safe. A reply in an unpleasant voice that seems to rise from deep underground means something may happen, so take care. The same report records a version in which Hanako-san is not a girl at all. In that version she is a three-headed lizard three metres long, which uses a girl's voice to lure people close. In a 1990 report from a Yokohama primary school, Hanako-san had a male counterpart, Yōsuke-san, in the boys' toilet. Other children there named Tarō-san and Jirō-san instead. Some rules were taboos about her name. A Kobe high-school student told a 2001 survey that anyone who says "Hanako-san" aloud must face north and say *"gomen nasai"* ("I'm sorry") ten times. A university student from Matsue, recalling her primary school, said simply that Hanako-san would chase anyone who refused to play with her. Retellings often give her a tragic past, but the records collected from children seldom include one. In the reports above she has no backstory at all. She is a voice, a knock, a set of rules and, now and then, a hand. ### How old is the legend? Her origin is uncertain, and it is best stated carefully. English-language yokai references often say the legend goes back as far as the 1950s. Japanese writers point a little earlier. Both nippon.com and the book site Real Sound report an account from about 1948 at a primary school in Iwate Prefecture, in present-day Kitakami. There, a girl's voice was said to come from the third stall of the gymnasium toilet, and a white hand reached up from the bowl. Real Sound names its source as a companion volume to Asazato Itsuki's dictionary of modern yokai. Neither article says how the account was first recorded, so it is best treated with some caution. The folklorist Yoshioka Kazushi, interviewed by nippon.com, concludes that Hanako-san seems to have begun as one of the many "hand from the toilet" stories. Stories about schools themselves are much older than Hanako-san. Yoshioka notes that they began circulating once the 1872 *Gakusei* education law created schools across Japan. ### The 1990s boom What made Hanako-san a national figure was the school-ghost boom of the 1990s. According to Yoshioka, the category of "school ghost stories" took hold after the folklorist Tsunemitsu Tōru published a collection in 1990 in Kodansha's KK Bunko series. Tsunemitsu had gathered the stories from his own pupils while teaching at a junior high school. Kodansha followed with a children's series, and Poplar Publishing started a rival series the next year. These became a new genre of children's literature and set off a huge boom. The boom reached the cinema in the summer of 1995. *Toire no Hanako-san*, directed by Matsuoka Jōji and distributed by Shochiku, opened on 1 July. In it, rumours that a new transfer student is Hanako-san spread through a primary school troubled by a series of crimes. A week later, on 8 July, Toho released *Gakkō no Kaidan* (*School Ghost Stories*), directed by Hirayama Hideyuki and credited as based on Tsunemitsu and the Japanese Folktale Society. Yoshioka also traces how she gained a face. At first Hanako-san was only a voice. In the 1990s, children's books, manga and anime fixed her image as a girl with a bobbed haircut, a white blouse and a red skirt, which is how most people picture her today. Real Sound suggests that older images of red-clad children, among them the zashiki-warashi, may have shaped that look. ### Hanako-san today Hanako-san has kept changing. The manga *Jibaku Shōnen Hanako-kun* (*Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun*) by AidaIro, serialised in Square Enix's *Monthly G Fantasy*, was adapted as a television anime that began on TBS in January 2020. It plays on the school rumour that a "Hanako-san" in the third stall of the third-floor girls' toilet of the old school building will grant any wish. Yoshioka sees school ghost stories as more than idle scares. In his account, they work as a rite of passage that binds a group of children together and as a way of talking to one another. He found that toilets were the most common setting, followed by ordinary classrooms. Haunting the places children use every day lets them attach rules to the ghost, such as which stall, what time and what words to say, and those rules give them a sense of control over their fear. He also believes that a story like Hanako-san's would struggle to spread nationwide today. Children's friendships have split into small groups that share their own stories, and they have far less unsupervised time after school. ### Frequently asked questions ### How do you summon Hanako-san? The best-known version says to go to the third stall of the girls' toilet on the third floor, knock three times and say "Hanako-san, let's play". Her answer is said to be "Hāi". Every school seemed to have its own variation, though, including different stalls, different words and different results. ### Is Hanako-san dangerous? It depends on the telling. In many reports she only answers or appears. Others say she pulls people into the toilet or chases anyone who will not play, and a few make her something far stranger. She is a children's legend, so the danger is part of the dare. ### Is Hanako-san a real story? She is a real legend, not a real ghost. Folklorists have collected her story from schools across Japan since at least 1990, and one reported version dates to about 1948. Her backstories vary from telling to telling, and none of them is documented as history. ### When did the Hanako-san legend start? No one knows for certain. English-language sources often say the 1950s. Japanese sources cite an account from an Iwate primary school around 1948, and most of the versions collected by folklorists date from the 1990s. ### Why is Hanako-san always in the third stall? Not always: some schools placed her in the second stall from the left or the third from the front. In the collected versions, threes keep recurring: three knocks, three calls and the third floor. No source records a single original reason. ### Sources - [Yoshioka Kazushi, interview on school ghost stories (nippon.com, Japanese, 2023)](https://www.nippon.com/ja/japan-topics/g02322/) - [Real Sound Book: the roots of Hanako-san, Kokkuri-san and Kuchisake-onna (2024)](https://realsound.jp/book/2024/05/post-1670048.html) - [Nichibunken Kaii/Yōkai Densho Database: *Hanako-san* records](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/ksearch.cgi?Name=%E3%83%8F%E3%83%8A%E3%82%B3%E3%82%B5%E3%83%B3&Pref=&Area=%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BD) - [Nichibunken record 0970079: third floor, third stall, Tochigi (1999)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0970079) - [Nichibunken record 0970080: three calls and three knocks, Utsunomiya (1999)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0970080) - [Nichibunken record 1140615: second stall from the left, Yamagata (1992)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1140615) - [Nichibunken record 0890009: the forbidden third stall, Hamamatsu (1998)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0890009) - [Nichibunken record 1140574: a gentle voice or a dreadful one, Yamagata (1990)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1140574) - [Nichibunken record 1140575: the three-headed lizard, Yamagata (1990)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1140575) - [Nichibunken record 2210104: Hanako-san and Yōsuke-san, Yokohama (1990)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2210104) - [Nichibunken record 2610019: the name taboo, Kobe (2001)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2610019) - [Nichibunken record 2610018: play or be chased, Matsue (2001)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2610018) - [Yokai.com: Toire no Hanako-san (the "1950s" dating in English references)](https://yokai.com/toirenohanakosan/) - [Jorudan: *Toire no Hanako-san* (1995), dir. Matsuoka Jōji](https://movie.jorudan.co.jp/film/27930/) - [eiga.com: *Gakkō no Kaidan* (1995), dir. Hirayama Hideyuki](https://eiga.com/movie/35622/) - [Anime! Anime!: *Jibaku Shōnen Hanako-kun* TV anime (2020)](https://animeanime.jp/article/2020/02/20/51710.html) - [Wikipedia: Hanako-san (pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanako-san) --- ## Tamamo-no-Mae (玉藻前): Nine-Tailed Fox Legend URL: https://japan.je/yokai/tamamo-no-mae.html ### Who is Tamamo-no-Mae? Tamamo-no-Mae is the most famous fox in Japanese legend. She was a court lady of extraordinary beauty and learning who won the heart of the retired emperor Toba in the twelfth century. She was then exposed as a fox with golden fur and nine tails that had already brought ruin to kingdoms in India and China. Driven out of the capital, she was hunted down on the plain of Nasu in Shimotsuke Province, today's Tochigi Prefecture. There her spirit entered a great boulder, the *Sesshō-seki* or "Killing Stone", which killed any bird, beast or person that came near. Her story belongs to legend, not history. Toba was real, and so was the stone, which still sits on a volcanic hillside above the hot-spring village of Nasu-Yumoto. The court lady herself has no place in the historical record. What makes the legend unusual is its scale. Most Japanese fox tales are local affairs, but Heibonsha's *World Encyclopedia* notes that this one stretches across India, China and Japan. ### Appearance and powers In her human form Tamamo-no-Mae is above all brilliant. The Noh play *Sesshōseki* has her answer every question put to her without hesitation, and her name is linked to that brilliance. One night, the play says, an autumn wind blew out the lamps of the palace, and light streamed from her own body to fill the hall. From that time the ruler fell ill. A diviner was summoned and declared that she was not human. In the play this is the *onmyōji* Abe no Yasunori. Japanese encyclopedias also give the name as Abe no Yasunari or Yasuchika, a sign of how the story changed between tellings. Her true form is the *kinmō kyūbi no kitsune*, the golden-haired, nine-tailed fox, sometimes described as white-faced as well. Her powers are those of the great fox spirits: perfect disguise, bewitching charm, and the ability to drain a ruler's health and judgement. After death her malice lived on in the stone. Nasu's real volcanic vents made that idea easy to believe. Hydrogen sulphide and other gases seeping from the ground kill insects and small animals, and the encyclopedias suggest the legend grew from people blaming the rock itself. ### Origins and history The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* dictionary gives 1477 as the earliest dated use of the word *sesshō-seki* it records, in a commentary on the Chinese *Records of the Grand Historian*. That passage already mentions the killing stone of Nasu. By the Muromachi period (1336–1573) the full story had taken literary form in two works. One is the illustrated prose tale *Tamamo no Sōshi*, one of the short narratives later grouped as *otogi-zōshi*. The other is the Noh play *Sesshōseki*. Its author is unknown, though it is sometimes attributed to Sa'ami. Even in the Noh text, the fox already recalls troubling the courts of India, China and Japan. Heibonsha's encyclopedia notes that the legend grew enormously in the Edo period (1603–1868). The best-known works include Takai Ranzan's illustrated novel *Ehon Sangoku Yōfuden* ("The Wicked Women of Three Lands", 1804) and Shikitei Sanba's *Tamamo-no-Mae Sangoku-den-ki* (1809). For the puppet theatre there was *Ehon Zōho Tamamo-no-Mae Asahi no Tamoto* (1806). The kabuki playwright Tsuruya Nanboku made his own version in 1821. These retellings filled in the fox's earlier careers abroad, where she was a royal consort who drove kings to cruelty and their kingdoms to collapse. ### The Noh play *Sesshōseki* The Noh play remains the classic telling. The high priest Gennō is crossing the plain of Nasu when he sees birds drop dead from the sky above a large stone. A village woman warns him away and tells him the story of Tamamo-no-Mae. She explains how the lady was unmasked, fled to Nasu, and was shot down by hunters led by the warriors Miura-no-suke and Kazusa-no-suke. Then she reveals that she is the stone's spirit, and vanishes. Gennō performs a Buddhist rite for the stone. It splits in two, and the fox spirit appears and acts out its own hunt in a fast, vigorous dance. At the end it promises, now that it has received the Buddhist law, never to do harm again. The priest is modelled on Gennō Shinshō, a Zen monk of the fourteenth century. Legend says he broke the stone with his staff, or with a great shout, and that its fragments flew all over Japan. The legend also holds that the heavy two-faced hammer called a *gennō* in Japanese takes its name from him. ### The Sesshō-seki at Nasu The stone lies in a small valley at the foot of Mount Chausu, just upstream from Nasu-Yumoto Onsen. A wooden boardwalk loops through ground where sulphurous gas still rises and little grows. The poet Matsuo Bashō came here in 1689 on the journey he described in *Oku no Hosomichi* (*The Narrow Road to the Deep North*). He wrote that the stone's poison had not yet died, and that dead bees and butterflies lay so thick on the ground that the sand beneath could not be seen. The site is designated a national Place of Scenic Beauty. Its valley also holds rows of Jizō statues and the Sai no Kawara, the riverbed of lost children's souls. ### What happened in 2022 In early March 2022, visitors found the Sesshō-seki split cleanly in two, with its sacred straw rope fallen away. A photograph posted on social media on 5 March spread around the world under headlines about a demon fox set free. The Nasu Town Tourist Information Center told the *Yomiuri Shimbun* that rain and freezing temperatures had probably seeped into cracks that had been visible in the rock for years, until it finally broke. The town answered with a ceremony. On 26 March 2022 the Nasu Town Tourism Association held a memorial service and prayer for peace at the stone, with Shinto rites performed by Nasu Onsen Shrine. Its announcement described the revived nine-tailed fox as an auspicious sacred beast, and expressed the hope that it would help bring an end to the pandemic. ### Regional traditions Because the stone was said to have shattered, pieces of it turn up in legend far from Nasu. Heibonsha's encyclopedia mentions stones said to be fragments of the Sesshō-seki on Mount Murazumi in Aichi and at Kaseiji temple in Maniwa, Okayama. People avoid touching them for fear of illness or death. An Edo-period essay in the Nichibunken database describes a fenced-off stone in central Kyoto, also said to be a piece of it, that killed any bird that landed on it. Folk reports collected in the twentieth century add further twists. In Yamanashi, people said that pain in the soles of the feet came from stepping on a fragment of the stone. In Wakayama, stepping on a fragment was said to cause blisters. In Kanagawa, the stone's breaking was said to have released thousands of invisible *kuda-gitsune*, the tiny pipe-foxes blamed for possessing people. Not everyone saw nine tails as evil, though. The Edo scholar Ōta Nanpo pointed out that in Chinese tradition the nine-tailed fox was an auspicious beast, and Japanese dictionaries likewise note that it was once a creature of good omen. ### In art, theatre and pop culture Tamamo-no-Mae has never left the stage. The Noh *Sesshōseki* is still performed by all five schools. Her story fed the *Tamamo-no-Mae* plays of the puppet and kabuki theatres, and in 1819 an Edo kabuki dance about her formed one of nine quick-change pieces performed by the actor Nakamura Shikan. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries the figure of a beautiful woman who is secretly a nine-tailed fox has become a familiar character type in manga, anime and games, and Tamamo-no-Mae is often seen as its most important Japanese source. ### Frequently asked questions ### What happened to the Sesshō-seki? The Sesshō-seki at Nasu-Yumoto in Tochigi was found split in two in early March 2022. Local tourism officials said water and freezing had probably widened old cracks until the rock broke. The town held a memorial and prayer ceremony at the stone on 26 March 2022. ### Was Tamamo-no-Mae a real person? No historical record confirms her. Emperor Toba was real, and the legend is set at his court in the twelfth century. Tamamo-no-Mae herself is a figure of literature and folklore, first written down in Muromachi-period tales and the Noh play *Sesshōseki*. ### Who defeated Tamamo-no-Mae? In the usual telling, the court diviner Abe no Yasunori (or Yasunari) exposed her, and warriors led by Miura-no-suke and Kazusa-no-suke hunted her down on the plain of Nasu. Her spirit lived on in the Killing Stone until the monk Gennō pacified it with Buddhist rites. ### Why does Tamamo-no-Mae have nine tails? Nine tails mark her as an extraordinarily old and powerful fox. Japanese dictionaries note that the nine-tailed fox was originally a creature of good omen in Chinese tradition, and only later came to stand for an ancient, evil fox spirit. Tamamo-no-Mae is that later, malevolent kind. ### Can you visit the Sesshō-seki? Yes. The stone is a short walk from Nasu-Yumoto Onsen along a wooden boardwalk, beside a Jizō-lined valley where volcanic gas still vents. It is also a stop on walking routes that follow Bashō's footsteps through Nasu. ### Sources - [the-noh.com Plays Database: *Sesshōseki* (The Killing Stone)](https://www.the-noh.com/en/plays/data/program_045.html) - [Kotobank: 玉藻前 (Heibonsha World Encyclopedia, Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, Nihon Jinmei Daijiten)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%8E%89%E8%97%BB%E5%89%8D) - [Kotobank: 殺生石 (Daijisen, Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, Heibonsha, Nipponica)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%AE%BA%E7%94%9F%E7%9F%B3) - [Kotobank: 九尾の狐](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%B9%9D%E5%B0%BE%E3%81%AE%E7%8B%90) - [Japan Tourism Agency multilingual text: The Sesshō-seki ("Killing Stone") Area](https://www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db/common/001549346.docx) - [Japan National Tourism Organization: The Yugyo Willow Tree and Sesshoseki Trail](https://www.japan.travel/national-parks/parks/nikko/see-and-do/the-yugyo-willow-tree-and-sesshoseki-trail) - [Nasu Town Tourism Association press release on the 26 March 2022 ceremony (Kyodo News PR Wire)](https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/release/202203238956) - [Smithsonian Magazine: "Ancient Japanese Stone Said to Contain Demon Cracks Open" (March 2022)](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-japanese-stone-said-to-contain-demon-cracks-open-180979729/) - [Nichibunken Kaii/Yōkai Densho Database: Sesshō-seki records](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/ksearch.cgi?Name=%E3%82%BB%E3%83%83%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A7%E3%82%A6%E3%82%BB%E3%82%AD&Pref=&Area=%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BD) - [Nichibunken record 6140022: the Kyoto fragment](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=6140022) - [Nichibunken record 0450019: Yamanashi, fragments and sore feet](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0450019) - [Nichibunken record 2360668: Wakayama, the nine-thousand-year fox](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2360668) - [Nichibunken record C1450075-000: Kanagawa, kuda-gitsune from the broken stone](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C1450075-000) - [Nichibunken record 5850031: Ōta Nanpo on the auspicious nine-tailed fox](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=5850031) - [Wikipedia: Tamamo-no-Mae (pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamamo-no-Mae) --- ## Shuten-doji (酒呑童子): Oni King of Ōeyama URL: https://japan.je/yokai/shuten-doji.html ### Who is Shuten-dōji? Shuten-dōji is the most famous oni in Japanese legend: the chief of a band of demons who lived in a mountain fortress, raided the capital of Kyoto and carried off its young women and its treasure. His name is usually read as "the sake-drinking boy". The first character means sake, the second means to drink, and *dōji* is a word for a child or page boy. In the oldest version the name is explained simply by his love of drink. The story ends when the warrior Minamoto no Raikō and his companions, disguised as mountain ascetics, get him drunk on a god-given sake and cut off his head. The tale was being told by the fourteenth century and has been retold ever since, in picture scrolls, short prose tales, Noh, puppet theatre and kabuki. ### The oldest version: the Ōeyama ekotoba The earliest surviving telling is a picture scroll called *Ōeyama ekotoba* ("Illustrated Tale of Mount Ōe"), now in the Itsuō Art Museum in Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture, and designated an Important Cultural Property. Heibonsha's encyclopedia dates it to the second half of the fourteenth century. Until 1887 it belonged to the family of the chief priests of Katori Shrine in present-day Chiba Prefecture, and so it is also known as the *Katori-bon*. A 2022 public lecture series in Chiba presented the historian Suzuki Tetsuo's theory that the Chiba warrior clan may have commissioned it. That is a proposal, not settled fact. Scholars therefore think the basic story already existed before the scroll was made. The literary scholar Tokue Gensei, comparing it with the later *otogi-zōshi* text, notes that the later version still keeps some archaic touches, such as the protection of three shrine gods, the demon's cannibal feast and a courtyard strewn with bones. Overall, though, the uncanny atmosphere of the scroll has faded considerably. ### The otogi-zōshi story The version most Japanese readers know comes from the *otogi-zōshi*, the short illustrated tales of the Muromachi period. *Shuten-dōji* was one of the twenty-three tales that the publisher Shibukawa printed in the Edo period as the *Otogi Bunko*. Encyclopedia summaries of that text give the plot in this order. A demon of Mount Ōe in Tanba has taken the only daughter of the courtier Ikeda Chūnagon, and the grieving father appeals to the emperor. Raikō receives the imperial command. With five companions, the courtier-warrior Fujiwara no Hōshō and the four retainers Watanabe no Tsuna, Sakata no Kintoki, Usui Sadamitsu and Urabe no Suetake, he prays at the shrines of Hachiman, Sumiyoshi and Kumano and sets out disguised as *yamabushi*, wandering mountain priests. In a hut in the mountains, three old men, the three gods in disguise, give them a magic sake that is medicine to humans and poison to demons, together with a star-studded helmet, and guide them on. A captive young woman washing clothes in a stream shows them the way to the demon's stronghold. Shuten-dōji receives them as fellow travellers and, over a night of drinking, tells them his history. He came from Echigo, settled on Mount Hiei until the monk Saichō (Dengyō Daishi) drove him out, and was later threatened again by the monk Kūkai (Kōbō Daishi). The only man he still fears, he says, is Raikō. Raikō keeps up the disguise through a grisly banquet and offers his own sake in return. The demons drink until they collapse. Raikō strikes, with the three gods helping, and the severed head flies up to attack him but cannot get through the helmet. The heroes then free the captive women and return to the capital. ### Raikō and the Four Guardians Minamoto no Raikō is a historical figure. Under the more formal reading of his name, Minamoto no Yorimitsu (948–1021), he was a Heian-period warrior-noble, eldest son of Minamoto no Mitsunaka. He served as governor of several provinces and grew rich in the service of the Fujiwara regents. He was known for his archery, and the names of the retainers linked with him already appear in the *Konjaku Monogatarishū* and other tale collections, but the *Nihon Daihyakka Zensho* encyclopedia remarks that his actual military record is unremarkable. The demon-slaying hero is largely the creation of later storytellers. His four retainers became known as the *Raikō shitennō*, Raikō's "Four Heavenly Kings", a name taken from the four Buddhist guardian kings. Each has a legend of his own. Sakata no Kintoki is the grown-up Kintarō of the children's tale, and Watanabe no Tsuna is remembered for cutting off the arm of an oni at the Rashōmon gate of Kyoto. ### Mount Ōe or Mount Ibuki? Two families of the story survive. In one the demon lives on Mount Ōe, and in the other on Mount Ibuki in Ōmi, present-day Shiga Prefecture. According to the *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten*, the Ibuki tradition gives Shuten-dōji an earlier life on Ibuki and draws on the local legend of Ibuki Yasaburō recorded in the *Sangoku Denki*. A related tale, *Ibuki-dōji*, tells his childhood. The finest early example of the Ibuki tradition is the *Shuten-dōji emaki* in the Suntory Museum of Art, an Important Cultural Property painted by Kanō Motonobu in the Muromachi period. The museum describes it as the oldest surviving scroll of the Ibuki line and displayed it in 2025 after a full restoration. Columbia University's JAANUS art dictionary adds that the Kanō school favoured the Ibuki version in later paintings. Even "Mount Ōe" is uncertain. Today the name belongs to an 833-metre mountain on the border of the old provinces of Tanba and Tango, north-west of Kyoto, where places such as Oni-ga-chaya ("the demons' teahouse") keep the legend alive. Several Japanese encyclopedias note, however, that the original Ōeyama may have been the pass now called Oinosaka, on the western edge of Kyoto. That pass was a boundary between the capital and the outside world, and it was notorious for bandits. Local tradition recorded in Fukuchiyama says the demon's head was buried there. Other regions claim his childhood. Folklore records from Tsubame in Niigata say Shuten-dōji was a boy at the temple Kokujō-ji, so handsome that women were bewitched, until he turned into a demon and fled, eventually reaching Mount Ōe. One version gives his childhood name as Gedōmaru. ### The Noh play Ōeyama The Noh play *Ōeyama* is a fifth-category "demon play" still performed by all five schools. Its author is unknown. It is sometimes attributed to Miyamasu, and occasionally to Zeami. Raikō (the *waki*) and his men climb the mountain disguised as mountain priests. Shuten-dōji (the *shite*), who does not harm people who have taken holy orders, welcomes them in the form of a boy. He tells them frankly how he was driven from Mount Hiei, then drinks and dances with them and retires to sleep. When the warriors burst into his chamber he has taken on his demon form. He rages at the betrayal of his hospitality before he is finally beheaded. The *Nihon Daihyakka Zensho* singles out the play's gentle, almost childlike portrait of the demon in its first half. In the comic interlude a woman carried off from the capital appears, along with a servant of the disguised party. The play influenced later kabuki and puppet-theatre versions. ### The sword Dōjigiri The sword credited with taking the demon's head is a *tachi* signed by the smith Yasutsuna. It has long been called *Dōjigiri*, "the dōji-cutter". Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to the Heian period and records a blade length of 80.0 centimetres. It is held by the Tokyo National Museum, and it was designated an Important Cultural Property in 1933 and a National Treasure in 1951. The *Kyōhō Meibutsuchō*, an eighteenth-century register of famous swords, is said to record it as a possession of Toyotomi Hideyoshi that later passed from Tokugawa Hidetada to the Matsudaira lords of Echizen. It is counted among the *Tenka Goken*, the "five finest swords under heaven". Its link to Raikō is legend. The sword itself is real. ### Frequently asked questions ### What does Shuten-dōji mean? The name is usually read as "sake-drinking boy". The oldest scroll explains it by the demon's love of sake, and in the Noh play he says his followers named him for his constant drinking. *Dōji* means a child or page boy, and in the Noh play and the *otogi-zōshi* he first appears in a youthful form. ### How was Shuten-dōji killed? Minamoto no Raikō and five companions, disguised as mountain priests, joined him at a feast and gave him sake that the gods had made poisonous to demons. When he fell into a drunken sleep they cut off his head. In the *otogi-zōshi* the head flies up at Raikō, but a helmet the gods had given him protects him. ### Where did Shuten-dōji live? Most versions place him on Mount Ōe, north-west of Kyoto. One tradition, preserved in the Suntory Museum of Art's scroll, sets the story on Mount Ibuki in Shiga Prefecture. Some scholars think the original "Ōeyama" was Oinosaka, a pass on the western edge of Kyoto. ### Is the Dōjigiri sword real? Yes. The *tachi* by Yasutsuna known as *Dōjigiri* is a National Treasure held by the Tokyo National Museum. Its use against Shuten-dōji is legend, not history. ### Who are Raikō's Four Heavenly Kings? They are Watanabe no Tsuna, Sakata no Kintoki, Usui Sadamitsu and Urabe no Suetake, the retainers of Minamoto no Raikō. In the Shuten-dōji story they are joined by Fujiwara no Hōshō. ### Sources - [Shuten-dōji entries in the *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten*, Heibonsha *Sekai Daihyakka Jiten* and *Nihon Daihyakka Zensho* (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%85%92%E5%91%91%E7%AB%A5%E5%AD%90) - [Ōeyama entries, including the Noh play and the mountain (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%A4%A7%E6%B1%9F%E5%B1%B1) - [Minamoto no Yorimitsu entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%BA%90%E9%A0%BC%E5%85%89) - [Shuten dōji, JAANUS dictionary of Japanese art, Columbia University](https://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/jaanus/record/shutendoji) - [Chiba City public lecture on the Itsuō *Ōeyama ekotoba* and the Chiba clan (2022)](https://www.city.chiba.jp/chiba-shi/kanren/koza/koza17.html) - [Suntory Museum of Art exhibition *Shuten-dōji Begins* (2025), via Tokyo Art Beat](https://www.tokyoartbeat.com/events/-/Shutendoji-Begins-Tales-of-the-Demon-Slayer-Throughout-the-Ages/6767325-C/2025-04-29) - [Tachi signed Yasutsuna (*Dōjigiri Yasutsuna*), Cultural Heritage Online, Agency for Cultural Affairs](https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/125697) - [Dōjigiri Yasutsuna (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%AB%A5%E5%AD%90%E5%88%87%E5%AE%89%E7%B6%B1) - [Nichibunken Kaii/Yōkai Densho Database: all *shuten-dōji* records](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/ksearch.cgi?Name=%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A5%E3%83%86%E3%83%B3%E3%83%89%E3%82%A6%E3%82%B8&Pref=&Area=%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BD) - [Nichibunken record 1350268: Gedōmaru and Kokujō-ji, Tsubame, Niigata](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1350268) - [Nichibunken record 0700148: the head buried at Oinosaka, Fukuchiyama (1969)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0700148) - [Nichibunken record 2380005: Oni-ga-chaya and legend sites, Ōe, Kyoto (1973)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2380005) - [Nichibunken record 2450276: Watanabe and the Rashōmon oni's arm (2000)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2450276) - [Wikipedia: Shuten-dōji (pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuten-d%C5%8Dji) --- ## Umibozu (海坊主): Sea Monk Yokai of Japanese Folklore URL: https://japan.je/yokai/umibozu.html ### What is an umibōzu? An umibōzu, or "sea monk", is a monster of the open sea. The name joins *umi*, sea, with *bōzu*, a Buddhist monk, and by extension anyone with a shaved, round head. Japanese dictionaries define it as a large, round-headed apparition that appears on the sea, known from the lore of sailors and fishermen. Other names include *umi-nyūdō* and *umi-hōshi*, which also mean "sea priest", and *umi-kozō*, "sea boy". There is no single umibōzu. Reports from Japan's coasts describe a black shape rising beside a boat, a hairless head on a turtle's body, a giant that grows as you look up at it, a hairy wrestler, a ghost ship and a woman. What these versions share is the setting. The umibōzu meets people who are alone on the water, usually at night, and it is a danger to the boat itself. ### Edo-period records The umibōzu was already a subject for scholars' notebooks in the Edo period. Heibonsha's encyclopedia names the essay collections *Saikai Zokudan* and *Kasshi Yawa* among the works that record many examples. The *Saikai Zokudan* of 1758 describes a creature of the open ocean with the body of a soft-shelled turtle and a human head without hair, the largest five or six *shaku* long (roughly 1.5 to 1.8 metres). Fishermen who saw one caught nothing. If someone caught it and tried to kill it, it seemed to weep and beg for its life, and the writer adds that the Chinese called it the "monk fish". Other writers saw something much larger. The *Kii Zōdanshū*, as summarised in the *Nihon Daihyakka Zensho*, tells of a black, shaven head bobbing in the waves a few metres from a boat, as big as five or six human heads together, with shining eyes, a long bird-like beak and a mouth about sixty centimetres wide. In the essay collection *En'kyo Zatsuwa*, the scholar Hio Keizan quotes an earlier account of something seen off the border of Awa and Tosa in Shikoku. It was about ten *jō* high, perhaps thirty metres, narrow at the top and wide at the base like a great Buddha statue, and it slowly faded away. The boatmen said this was an umibōzu, which appears on clear, calm days but is rarely seen. Yanagihara Motomitsu recorded in his *Kansō Jigo* that near Kaizuka, on the coast of Izumi south of Osaka, an umibōzu sometimes came close to the shore. It was shaped like a person but huge, black as lacquer from head to foot, and showed half its body above the water. Families kept their children away from the rocks until it went back out to sea about three days later. ### The bottomless ladle The most famous umibōzu story is a request. A voice from the dark asks the crew to lend it a ladle, or a bailer. If they hand one over, the creature uses it to scoop seawater into the boat until the boat sinks. The answer, recorded again and again along the coasts, is to knock the bottom out of the ladle first. Folklore surveys indexed in the Nichibunken database (the International Research Center for Japanese Studies) trace this rule from one end of the country to the other. A 1959 report from the Oki Islands says no one should go to sea on the sixteenth day of the Bon festival, because the umibōzu will ask for a ladle. A 1932 report from the Gotō Islands near Nagasaki gives the same warning about ghost ships and umibōzu. A 1956 entry in the Miyagi prefectural history, in the north-east, lists a bottomless ladle among the things a fishing boat should carry. Further reports come from Hamada in Shimane, Kumano in Mie, Ehime in Shikoku and Kunisaki in Ōita. Heibonsha adds a second remedy: stroking the side of the boat with the stick used to smoke shipworms out of the hull. It also notes that umibōzu were said to appear most often on New Year's Eve and during Bon, the festival when the dead return. A 1991 report in the Shizuoka prefectural history makes that link explicit. Fishermen who met a ladle-begging umibōzu on the evening of the thirteenth day of Bon, the day the ancestors come home, took it as a sign of the ancestors' anger. ### Many faces Beyond the ladle, local stories go off in every direction. In Imabari, Ehime, the umibōzu was hairy and challenged people to sumo wrestling. A strong man who fought one saw it vanish at cockcrow, but he died three days later. Other Ehime reports say it can appear as a fireball or as a woman, and that a phantom umibōzu boat can be recognised because its mast has no pulley. Racing it is hopeless. In some places the umibōzu was even welcome: a report from the waters off Futagami island off Matsuyama describes a copper-coloured creature with round eyes and a short tail, and says that anyone who saw one would live long. Several stories turn on a riddle. A 1913 report from Mihonoseki in Shimane tells of a boatman caught in a storm when an umibōzu climbed onto the bow and asked him what he feared most in the world. He answered that making a living was the most frightening thing of all. The creature vanished and the storm died away. The folklorist Miyamoto Tsuneichi recorded almost the same exchange on Suō-Ōshima in Yamaguchi in 1930, where the visitor was a one-eyed man who rose from the sea in the last month of the year. On land, too, the umibōzu could appear. A 2005 report from Mihama in Aichi describes a man walking by the shore who told an acquaintance that a three-metre umibōzu haunted the area. "This big?" the acquaintance asked, and grew into one. ### What was it? Japanese scholars have offered several explanations, and they do not exclude one another. The folklorist Kitami Toshio, in Heibonsha's encyclopedia, suggests that some sightings were misperceptions of sea lions, dolphins, big waves or towering summer clouds, and that some were real glimpses of shipwreck victims, or stories about them. He argues that the deeper root is a fishermen's belief about *muenbotoke*, the dead who drowned at sea and have no one to mourn them. Many local reports agree. In Iwachi on the Izu Peninsula and in Takuma in Kagawa, the umibōzu is simply the spirit of the drowned. Inokuchi Shōji, in the *Nihon Daihyakka Zensho*, thinks the turtle-bodied version is a misidentified turtle, and he proposes that the umibōzu was once a sea god. In his view, as belief in it faded, only the fear remained. A story recorded in Ehime in 1976 points the same way. When a fisherman's boat stopped dead in the water, his father told him to pour sacred sake into the sea as an offering to the sea god, and the boat moved again. The umibōzu, he was told, seizes boats when the sea god is angry. The bottomless-ladle remedy is shared with the *funayūrei*, the ship ghosts of the drowned, and the two figures often blur in the records. The umibōzu is less a single creature than a name fishing communities gave to whatever loomed out of the dark water. ### Frequently asked questions ### What does umibōzu mean? It means "sea monk". *Bōzu* is a Buddhist monk, and by extension anyone with a shaved, round head, which describes the creature's usual bald, black, dome-shaped head. Other names include *umi-nyūdō* and *umi-hōshi*. ### What do you do if you meet an umibōzu? The best-known rule is that if it asks for a ladle, you give it one with the bottom knocked out, so it cannot fill your boat with water. Other local remedies include throwing the most precious thing on board into the sea, scattering miso, or stroking the boat with a particular stick. ### Is the umibōzu a ghost? Sometimes. Many coastal communities said it was the spirit of people drowned at sea. Others treated it as a sea creature or a degraded sea god, and in a few places seeing one was even lucky. ### Is the umibōzu real? There is no evidence of a real creature. Japanese folklorists suggest that sightings may have come from sea lions, dolphins, turtles, waves or clouds seen in poor light, combined with fishermen's fears about the dead at sea. ### What is the difference between umibōzu and funayūrei? *Funayūrei* are ship ghosts, the dead who try to drag the living down with them. Umibōzu are usually described as a single giant figure. Both ask for ladles in many local stories, and the records often use the two names for the same experience. ### Sources - [Umibōzu entries in the *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten*, Heibonsha *Sekai Daihyakka Jiten* (Kitami Toshio), *Nihon Daihyakka Zensho* (Inokuchi Shōji) and Britannica Japan (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%B5%B7%E5%9D%8A%E4%B8%BB) - [Nichibunken Kaii/Yōkai Densho Database: all *umibōzu* records](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/ksearch.cgi?Name=%E3%82%A6%E3%83%9F%E3%83%9C%E3%82%A6%E3%82%BA&Pref=&Area=%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BD) - [Nichibunken record 3200030: *Saikai Zokudan*, the turtle-bodied umibōzu](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=3200030) - [Nichibunken record 3360009: *En'kyo Zatsuwa*, the giant off Awa and Tosa](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=3360009) - [Nichibunken record 3550019: *Kansō Jigo*, the black umibōzu of Kaizuka](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=3550019) - [Nichibunken record 1320008: the ladle at Bon, Oki Islands (1959)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1320008) - [Nichibunken record 1230178: ghost ships and ladles, Gotō Islands (1932)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1230178) - [Nichibunken record C0410205-000: the bottomless ladle, Miyagi prefectural history (1956)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C0410205-000) - [Nichibunken record C0222232-000: the ancestors' anger at Bon, Shizuoka prefectural history (1991)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C0222232-000) - [Nichibunken record 0200167: the sumo-wrestling umibōzu, Imabari (1985)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0200167) - [Nichibunken record 0200169: fireballs, women and the ladle, Ehime (1985)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0200169) - [Nichibunken record 0200170: the umibōzu ship, Ainan, Ehime (1985)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0200170) - [Nichibunken record 0080200: long life for those who see it, Matsuyama (1968)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0080200) - [Nichibunken record 0640030: "what do you fear most?", Mihonoseki (1913)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0640030) - [Nichibunken record 1230086: Miyamoto Tsuneichi, Suō-Ōshima (1930)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1230086) - [Nichibunken record 2130269: "this big?", Mihama, Aichi (2005)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2130269) - [Nichibunken record 1400057: the drowned, Iwachi, Izu (1961)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1400057) - [Nichibunken record 2363180: the spirits of the drowned, Takuma, Kagawa (1973)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2363180) - [Nichibunken record 2181027: throw the most precious thing overboard, Sumoto (1939)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2181027) - [Nichibunken record 0780067: scattering miso, Niigata (1937)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0780067) - [Nichibunken record 0200060: sake for the angry sea god, Ehime (1976)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0200060) - [Wikipedia: Umibōzu (pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umib%C5%8Dzu) --- ## Seven Lucky Gods (七福神): Shichifukujin of Japan URL: https://japan.je/yokai/seven-lucky-gods.html ### Who are the Seven Lucky Gods? The *Shichifukujin* (七福神), the "seven gods of good fortune," are a group of deities believed to bring luck, wealth and long life. The usual seven are Ebisu, Daikokuten, Bishamonten, Benzaiten, Fukurokuju, Jurōjin and Hotei. They are best known crowded together aboard a treasure ship heaped with riches. They are gods, not yokai, but they show better than almost anything else how Japanese popular religion combines traditions. Only one of the seven is a native Japanese god. Three came from India by way of Buddhism, and three from China. ### The seven, one by one ### Ebisu: the native god Ebisu is the only one of the seven with Japanese roots. He is shown as a smiling, stout man in old court hunting clothes and a soft pointed cap, holding a fishing rod and a large sea bream. Dictionaries note that his name is related to the word *ebisu*, "outsider" or "foreigner." The Nipponica encyclopedia traces him to coastal folk belief in "drifting gods," things that wash ashore from the sea. In the language of fishing communities, *ebisu* could mean a whale, a shark, a stone picked up at the start of the season, or even a drowned body carried in by the tide, all treated as gifts of the sea. The Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto* notes that Ebisu was first a feared visitor from outside. He became a guardian of fishers, and through the cult of Nishinomiya Shrine near Kobe, a patron of commerce. He was identified with the kami Kotoshironushi, and in other traditions with Hiruko, the "leech child" of the creation myth. Merchant households held an *Ebisu-kō* celebration for him in the tenth lunar month. ### Daikokuten: the god of the kitchen and the harvest Daikokuten began as Mahākāla, a fierce Indian deity whom Buddhism adopted as a guardian of the kitchen. In Japan his name, written 大黒, "great black," is pronounced *daikoku*. That is also the Sino-Japanese reading of 大国, "great land," the characters in the name of Ōkuninushi, the great kami of the land. The *Encyclopedia of Shinto* explains that this coincidence of sound linked the two, and Daikoku became a gentle, round-faced god of farming and plenty. He wears a soft cloth cap and stands on two bales of rice, with a large sack and a mallet of good fortune. ### Bishamonten: the warrior Bishamonten is the Indian Vaiśravaṇa, chief of the four heavenly kings who guard the Buddhist world. He is the only armoured figure in the group, holding a spear in one hand and a small pagoda in the other. ### Benzaiten: the goddess of music Benzaiten, often called Benten, was originally Sarasvatī, an Indian river goddess. In Japan she became the patron of music, eloquence and wisdom, and she is shown in court dress playing a *biwa* lute. She is the only woman among the usual seven, and the Japan Art and Architecture Net Users System (JAANUS) notes that she joined the group somewhat later than the others. ### Fukurokuju and Jurōjin: the old men of long life These two Chinese figures are closely alike. The *Encyclopedia of Shinto* explains that both personify the Southern Pole Star, which in Daoist belief governed the length of a person's life. Fukurokuju is recognised by his extremely tall, domed head and is often shown with a crane. Jurōjin carries a staff with a scroll and is often accompanied by a deer. Because they overlapped, they were sometimes counted as a single god. When that happened, another deity was brought in to keep the number at seven, usually Kichijōten, the Buddhist goddess of beauty and fortune, or the *shōjō*, a monkey-like creature of Chinese legend that could speak and loved sake. ### Hotei: the laughing monk Hotei is based on a real person, a Chan (Zen) monk named Qici who lived in China during the Later Liang dynasty (907–923). Art shows him as a stout, pot-bellied figure carrying a huge cloth bag. The *Encyclopedia of Shinto* says that he joined the gods of fortune because of his round, cheerful appearance. ### How the group came together Nobody knows exactly why these seven were put together, and JAANUS states plainly that the reason is uncertain. Two influences are usually cited. One is the Chinese theme of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, a favourite subject for painters. The other is a phrase from a Buddhist scripture, the *Ninnō-kyō* (Sutra of Benevolent Kings), about seven calamities vanishing and seven blessings arising. The most common answer to "when" is the Muromachi period (1336–1573). The *Encyclopedia of Shinto* says the cult is thought to have begun then, and the Nipponica encyclopedia states that the group had already formed by the early Muromachi period. It cites a procession of people dressed as the seven gods in Kyoto in 1420. It also records that in the Bunmei era (1469–1487), thieves disguised as the gods of fortune were welcomed into houses. *Kyōgen* comedies of the period featuring Ebisu and Daikoku show that the cult had already spread. Another *Encyclopedia of Shinto* entry gives a slightly wider range, saying the group came to be recognised sometime between the Muromachi and early Edo periods. It credits the growth of commerce, the work of travelling entertainers, and demand for hanging scrolls to decorate the *tokonoma* alcove. The line-up was not fixed at first, and it settled only gradually. In the Edo period (1603–1868) the gods were endlessly reproduced in painting, sculpture, prints and folk performance, and the familiar seven became the standard picture. ### The treasure ship and the first dream The best-known image of the seven is the *takarabune*, the treasure ship, sailing in loaded with rice bales, gold, silver and magic treasures. It expresses the old belief, found in the Ebisu cult as well, that wealth arrives from across the sea. The ship belongs to a New Year custom. Japanese dictionaries describe placing a picture of the *takarabune* under your pillow on the night of 2 January to bring a lucky *hatsuyume*, the first dream of the year. The custom is older than the gods' presence on the ship. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* says the practice already existed in the Muromachi period, when it was meant to ward off bad dreams. At court, ship pictures were given out with the character for *baku*, the dream-eating beast, written on the sail. The oldest surviving pictures show a ship carrying only ears of rice. Pictures of the seven gods aboard a ship loaded with treasure became popular in the mid-Edo period. If a bad dream came anyway, the picture was floated away down a river the next morning. In Edo and Meiji times, sellers walked the streets at New Year calling out "*O-takara, o-takara!*" ("treasure, treasure!"). Many prints carry a short poem that reads the same forwards and backwards. ### Shichifukujin pilgrimages From the Edo period onwards, a popular way to honour the seven has been to visit them all. A *Shichifukujin-meguri* or *Shichifukujin-mairi* is a walking circuit of seven temples and shrines, each housing one of the gods. It is done mainly in the first days of the New Year. The *Encyclopedia of Shinto* notes that the Tokyo area is particularly known for these New Year pilgrimages. Today many towns have their own circuit, named after the district, and many walkers collect a temple seal, *goshuin*, at each stop. The Yanaka circuit in Tokyo, a route of seven Buddhist temples running from Tabata to Ueno, is often said to be the oldest in the city. Kyoto's *Miyako Shichifukujin*, a circuit stretching from Manpukuji in Uji to Sekizan Zen'in in the north of the city, is said to be the oldest in Japan. Because both claims come from local tradition and promotion, it is fairer to say simply that the custom grew up in the Edo period. ### Frequently asked questions ### What are the names of the Seven Lucky Gods? The usual seven are Ebisu, Daikokuten, Bishamonten, Benzaiten, Fukurokuju, Jurōjin and Hotei. In some older sets Kichijōten or the *shōjō* replaces one of them, because Fukurokuju and Jurōjin were sometimes treated as the same god. ### Which of the Seven Lucky Gods is Japanese? Only Ebisu is native to Japan. Daikokuten, Bishamonten and Benzaiten came from India through Buddhism, and Fukurokuju, Jurōjin and Hotei came from Chinese Daoist and Buddhist tradition. ### When did the Seven Lucky Gods originate? The group is generally dated to the Muromachi period. A procession of people dressed as the seven is recorded in Kyoto in 1420. The membership took a long time to settle, and the familiar set became standard in the Edo period. ### Why do Japanese people put a treasure ship under their pillow? A picture of the *takarabune* placed under the pillow on the night of 2 January is said to bring a lucky first dream of the year. The custom began as a charm against bad dreams and only later came to show the seven gods aboard. ### What is a Shichifukujin pilgrimage? It is a walking circuit, usually made in early January, of seven temples and shrines, each dedicated to one of the gods. Many Japanese cities and districts have their own route. ### Sources - [Shichifukujin, Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9974) - [Fukujin shinkō (Ebisu, Daikoku and the seven gods), Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=8687) - [Shichifukujin, JAANUS (Japanese Architecture and Art Net Users System)](https://aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/s/shichifukujin.htm) - [Shichifukujin entries (Kotobank: Nipponica, Heibonsha, Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, Ōbunsha)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%B8%83%E7%A6%8F%E7%A5%9E-74197) - [Ebisu entries (Kotobank: Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, Daijisen)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%81%B5%E6%AF%94%E9%A0%88-446037) - [Takarabune entries (Kotobank: Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, Nipponica, Sekai Daihyakka)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%AE%9D%E8%88%B9-92818) - [Shichifukujin Meguri: the Yanaka pilgrimage (Tokyo Cheapo)](https://tokyocheapo.com/entertainment/sightseeing/shichifukujin-meguri-7-lucky-gods-pilgrimage/) - [Kyoto's seven gods of fortune and the Miyako Shichifukujin (Keihan Railway, Japanese)](https://www.keihan.co.jp/navi/kyoto_tsu/tsu201101.html) - [Shichifukujin Meguri in Tokyo (Japan Experience)](https://japan-experience.com/all-about-japan/tokyo/temples-shrines/shichifukujin-meguri-the-7-lucky-gods-pilgrimage-in-tokyo) - [Seven Lucky Gods (Wikipedia, used as a pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Lucky_Gods) --- ## Raiju (雷獣): Thunder Beast of Japanese Folklore URL: https://japan.je/yokai/raiju.html ### What is a raijū? *Raijū* (雷獣) means "thunder beast." It is a small, fierce animal that people in Edo-period Japan believed came down to earth with a bolt of lightning. Japanese dictionaries describe it as an imaginary creature that drops from the sky during a thunderstorm, tears trees apart and injures people and livestock, and sometimes cries out with a voice like thunder. Where lightning had split a tree or scored its bark, people said the raijū's claws had done it. The raijū is often confused with [Raijin](https://japan.je/yokai/raijin.html), the thunder god. They are different. Raijin is a kami, drawn as a drum-beating, oni-like figure. The raijū is an animal, closer to a marten or a cat than to a god. Old writers were not sure how the two were related. A 1921 survey of thunder beliefs, summarised in the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) yokai database, found three answers in circulation: the beast helped the thunder god, it simply loved thunder, or it was terrified of it. ### What did it look like? No two descriptions agree, and that is part of what makes the raijū interesting. The *Sekai Daihyakka* encyclopedia sums up the old accounts as a four-legged animal with a long tail and sharp claws, compared variously to a dog, a cat or an otter. The individual reports are more specific and contradict one another: - An Edo-period essay set near Karasuyama in Shimotsuke (today's Tochigi Prefecture) describes a creature shaped like a rat but larger than a weasel. - A record of Mount Tateshina in Shinano (Nagano) describes it as a puppy-like animal with badger-like fur, dark rings around its eyes, a thin nose and a short tail, which lived in a rock cave, dug itself into the ground for winter, and was gentle until the rain came, when it turned savage. - A folk report from Wakayama divides thunder into "water thunder" and "fire thunder," and says both are cat-like beasts with sharp claws. When fire thunder falls, a fire follows. - An essay in the collection *Okinagusa* tells of two dead animals washed down from a mountain in Shinano after a storm. They were grey, with long heads, half-black muzzles, fox-like tails and claws like an eagle's. The *Sekai Daihyakka* suggests that the real animal behind many of these stories was probably a marten (*ten*), and that the idea of a thunder beast likely came to Japan from China. One reasonable guess runs like this. A frightened animal sheltering in a hollow tree is found dead or stunned after the tree is struck, and it looks as if it fell with the lightning. The encyclopedia notes that the raijū was thought to hide in hollow trees, stone walls and the corners of buildings, exactly where a small wild animal would shelter. ### Edo naturalists and captured "specimens" The raijū belongs above all to the Edo period (1603–1868), when educated men filled essays and notebooks with strange reports and tried to sort fact from rumour. The earliest dictionary example of the word comes from a 1795 work, *Oranda tensetsu* ("Dutch theory of the heavens"). It mentions "what is commonly called a raijū," a beast that rides the energy of thunder, and notes that wherever lightning strikes, the marks of its claws are always found. Many essayists claimed that someone had actually caught one. Nichibunken's database records several cases from these writings: - In the domain of Iwatsuki, near modern Saitama, a raijū is said to have fallen and run around a field until people caught it. It refused food and died. The writer later saw it stuffed and preserved: like a puppy overall, with claws as sharp as a bear's. - The essayist Ban Kōkei repeated a report of a raijū that fell into a salt kettle at Hatsukaichi in Aki Province (Hiroshima) in 1801 and died there. He reproduced a drawing of it, though he admitted he could not tell whether the story was true. In the same passage he dismissed another captured "raijū" as probably just a kind of tanuki. - Another writer said that raijū lived on Mount Haku in Kaga and Mount Asama in Shinano. They looked like foxes and were sometimes caught and shown to the public in Kyoto and Osaka, in iron-mesh cages. They would neither eat nor drink, and when a storm was coming their fur stood on end so violently that the cage had to be covered with a straw mat. - A 1922 article on Awa (Tokushima) records that in the Bunka era (1804–1818), lightning struck a ship at sea, and an otter-like animal found on board afterwards was put on show as a raijū. These records support the idea that raijū were exhibited, but they describe live animals in cages and a stuffed specimen. We have not found a reliable source for the claim, common online, that Edo showmen toured "raijū mummies," so we leave that out. ### Raijū in village belief Outside the essays, the raijū was a practical worry for farmers and a way of explaining what lightning did. In Kuji District, Ibaraki, people believed that heavy thunder while the rice seedlings were growing meant a raijū had come down to ruin the seedbeds. Villagers would march into the hills beating split bamboo to drive it off. They also stood bamboo poles in the seedbeds so the beast could climb back up to the sky. A record from Fukushima tells of a temple priest who, in the Kyōhō era (1716–1736), helped a stranded raijū home by planting a pole in the ground for it to climb. Other reports explain lightning damage directly. In Shimane people said that when lightning struck, a raijū clawed its way down the tree, and some claimed to have watched it run up a trunk. In Akita, the column of fire from a lightning strike was described as a raijū racing up a tree. Some places had charms against it. One Edo writer recorded that the raijū feared camels, so lightning would not strike where camels lived, or where a picture of a camel was pasted up. ### The navel story Many English-language websites say that the raijū likes to curl up and sleep in a human navel, and that people therefore sleep face-down during storms. We have not found this belief in any Japanese folklore record or dictionary we consulted, and it is not in the Nichibunken database entries for the raijū. The well-known Japanese saying is about a different figure: children are told that *Kaminari-sama*, the thunder god, will take their navels if they leave their bellies uncovered. That saying is discussed on our [Raijin](https://japan.je/yokai/raijin.html) page. Treat the navel-sleeping raijū as a modern retelling unless an older source turns up. ### In modern culture Today the raijū is best known from games, anime and manga, where it is often drawn as a large wolf, tiger or dog wreathed in lightning. These designs borrow the name and the electric theme. The animal of the Edo reports was something smaller and stranger: a cat-, rat- or marten-sized creature, caught in a field, kept in a cage or found dead after a storm. ### Frequently asked questions ### What is the difference between Raiju and Raijin? Raijin is the thunder god, a kami drawn with drums. The raijū is a small animal said to fall to earth with lightning. Old sources disagreed on whether the beast served the thunder god, loved thunder or feared it. ### What does a raiju look like? Edo-period accounts disagree. It was compared to a dog, cat, otter, weasel, fox or rat, and most reports gave it sharp claws and a long tail. Scholars suggest a real animal such as the marten lies behind many sightings. ### Does the raiju sleep in people's belly buttons? This idea is common on English-language websites, but we could not find it in Japanese folklore records. The traditional Japanese warning is that the thunder god, Kaminari-sama, takes the navels of children who leave their bellies uncovered. ### Were raiju real animals? People did catch and display animals they called raijū. Edo writers describe caged ones shown in Kyoto and Osaka and a stuffed specimen. These were most likely ordinary wild animals, perhaps martens or tanuki, found near lightning strikes. ### How old is the raiju legend? The raijū belongs mainly to the Edo period. Dictionaries cite the word from a work of 1795, and many reports in Edo essays date from the 1700s and early 1800s. Folklorists were still collecting village beliefs about it in the twentieth century. ### Sources - [Raijū entries (Kotobank: Daijisen, Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, Sekai Daihyakka)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%9B%B7%E7%8D%A3-655529) - [Nichibunken yokai database: all "raijū" records](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/ksearch.cgi?Name=%E3%83%A9%E3%82%A4%E3%82%B8%E3%83%A5%E3%82%A6&Pref=&Area=%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BD) - [Nichibunken: raijū as helper, lover or fearer of thunder (1921)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0690229) - [Nichibunken: raijū near Karasuyama, Shimotsuke (*北窻瑣談*)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=3680020) - [Nichibunken: raijū on Mount Tateshina, Shinano](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1232104) - [Nichibunken: water thunder and fire thunder, Wakayama](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0640233_003) - [Nichibunken: two beasts washed down in Shinano (*Okinagusa*)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=4110048) - [Nichibunken: stuffed raijū from Iwatsuki (*Toryūkō zuihitsu*)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=6240002) - [Nichibunken: Ban Kōkei's *Kanden jihitsu*, likely a tanuki](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=4740014_001) - [Nichibunken: Ban Kōkei's *Kanden jihitsu*, the 1801 drawing from Aki](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=4740014_002) - [Nichibunken: caged raijū shown in Kyoto and Osaka (*Nenjū koji*)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=6670054) - [Nichibunken: otter-like beast shown as a raijū, Awa](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0690131) - [Nichibunken: driving the raijū from the seedbeds, Ibaraki](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0640178) - [Nichibunken: a priest helps a raijū back to the sky, Fukushima](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C0730450-000) - [Nichibunken: claw marks on struck trees, Shimane](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0700092) - [Nichibunken: raijū running up a tree, Akita](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1230522) - [Nichibunken: the raijū fears camels (*Hōreki genraishū*)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=6500013) - [Raijū (Wikipedia, used as a pointer for the navel claim)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raij%C5%AB) --- ## Kodama (木霊): Japanese Tree Spirits URL: https://japan.je/yokai/kodama.html ### What is a kodama? *Kodama* (木霊, also written 木魂 or 木魅) is the spirit that lives in a tree. The same word also means "echo," the voice that seems to answer from a mountain or a valley. Japanese dictionaries give both senses, and they are closely linked. People once believed that when a shout came back from a forested hillside, it was the spirit of the trees answering. Kodama are among the oldest supernatural beings named in Japanese writing. They have no single shape and no fixed story. They are less a creature than an idea: that an old tree is a living presence, that cutting it down is dangerous, and that the forest can talk back. ### Kodama in early Japan The word appears very early. The tenth-century dictionary *Wamyōshō* glosses the characters 樹神, "tree god," with the native reading *kotama*. The *Engishiki*, a body of court regulations completed in 927, lists a ritual for the kodama and the mountain god to be held when trees were felled to build the ships that carried Japanese envoys to Tang China. Even in an official state project, cutting great trees meant asking permission of the spirits that lived in them. By the Heian period the kodama had become something eerie. In the "Tenarai" chapter of *The Tale of Genji*, written in the early eleventh century, a mysterious stranger raises the suspicion that something like a fox or a kodama has taken a human form to deceive people. Centuries later, Yoshida Kenkō's *Tsurezuregusa*, from the fourteenth century, remarks in its 235th section that in a house where nobody lives, kodama and other strange shapes will appear. In these texts the kodama is not a friendly forest sprite. It is one of the vague, unsettling things that move into empty places. ### The echo The second meaning of kodama, "echo," is attested almost as early. A poem in the *Kamo-jo shū*, a private poetry collection from the late tenth century, already uses *kotama* for a sound that comes back. In 1603–04 the Jesuit *Vocabulario da Lingoa de Iapam*, a Japanese–Portuguese dictionary, defines *cotama* simply as *yamabiko*, the mountain echo. The *Sekai Daihyakka* encyclopedia explains that echoes were originally thought to be made by the spirits living in mountain trees. The Nipponica encyclopedia adds that an echo was understood as a mountain spirit answering a human voice, and that mountain gods, *tengu*, wild "mountain men" and the trickster *amanojaku* were all said to mimic people. The Edo scholar Kitamura Intei went further and wrote in his essay collection *Kiyū shōran* that the kodama was simply a [tengu](https://japan.je/yokai/tengu.html). A 1929 article in the folklore journal *Tabi to densetsu* even suggested that Hitokotonushi, a god in the *Kojiki* who mirrors exactly what the emperor does, might be a deified echo, since the mountain opposite you does the same. Kabuki even turned the echo into stage music: two small drums played in alternation, called *kodama*, signal that a scene is set deep in the mountains. ### Respect for old trees The most practical side of kodama belief concerns tree-felling. Dictionaries and folklore records describe the same basic rule in many places: very old trees are inhabited, and cutting one carelessly invites a curse. Regional customs show how people dealt with this. On Hachijō-jima and Aogashima, islands south of Tokyo, large leafy trees were said to hold *kidama-sama* or *kodama-sama*. Cutting such a tree was thought to bring a curse, so woodcutters left one standing. On Aogashima, the spirit was ceremonially shaken out of the timber at a house's roof-raising. In Ikeda, Tokushima Prefecture, a record collected for Nichibunken's yokai database describes a rite called *kodama-nuki*, "drawing out the kodama." Before cutting a tree over a hundred years old, people cut one of its small branches and laid it across to another tree, so the spirit could move out first. In Okinawa the comparable tree spirit is the *kijimun*, said to live in old banyan trees. Nipponica describes it as child-like, and says it brings good fishing to anyone who makes friends with it. ### The kodama mouse Hunters in the mountains of northern Japan had a darker kodama of their own. Among the *matagi*, the traditional bear hunters of Akita and the surrounding region, the *kodama-nezumi*, or "kodama mouse," was a bad omen. Records in the Nichibunken database say that hearing its body burst with a bang like a gunshot meant poor hunting, an angry mountain god, or even an avalanche, and hunters would abandon the hunt and come down from the mountain. One legend explains that the mice were once a band of hunters of the "Kodama group." They turned away a woman who came to their hut on a snowy night. She was the mountain god in disguise, and she turned them into mice. A 1956 Miyagi prefectural history suggests that the real animal was the Japanese dormouse, *yamane*, which hibernates curled into a ball. ### Sekien's kodama The Edo artist Toriyama Sekien included the kodama, written 木魅, in his illustrated yokai catalogue *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō* of 1776. His picture shows no monster at all. An old man with a rake and an old woman with a broom stand among gnarled pines. The inscription says that a tree a hundred years old has a god in it, which shows itself in visible form. The elderly couple sweeping beneath pine trees recall Jō and Uba, the spirits of the paired pines in Zeami's Noh play *Takasago*. In Sekien's hands the kodama is a quiet, dignified presence, a sign of a tree's great age. ### Kodama in modern culture Most people outside Japan know the kodama from Studio Ghibli's *Princess Mononoke*, released in July 1997. Its kodama are small, pale, round-headed figures that fill the trees of an ancient forest and rattle their heads. That look belongs to the film, not to older art, but the idea behind it, that a healthy old forest is full of spirits and that cutting it down has a cost, is very close to the old belief. ### Frequently asked questions ### What does kodama mean in Japanese? *Kodama* means both "tree spirit" and "echo." The two senses are linked by an old belief that echoes from forested mountains were the voices of the spirits living in the trees. ### Are kodama good or evil? Neither, exactly. In Heian literature the kodama is an eerie thing that might deceive people or haunt an empty house. In folk belief it is a spirit that must be respected, and it can bring misfortune to anyone who cuts down its tree carelessly. ### What happens if you cut down a tree with a kodama? Folklore says it brings a curse or bad luck. Some communities performed rites before felling old trees, such as passing a branch to a neighbouring tree so the spirit could move out first. ### Are the kodama in Princess Mononoke from real folklore? The name and the idea come from folklore. The rattling white figures are Studio Ghibli's design. Earlier pictures, such as Toriyama Sekien's of 1776, showed the kodama quite differently, as an elderly couple beneath pine trees. ### How old is the kodama legend? Very old. The *Wamyōshō* dictionary of the tenth century records the word, the *Engishiki* of 927 prescribes a ritual for kodama when trees were felled, and *The Tale of Genji* mentions them in the early eleventh century. ### Sources - [Kodama entries (Kotobank: Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, Sekai Daihyakka, Nipponica, Britannica)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%9C%A8%E9%9C%8A-65111) - [Nichibunken yokai database: *kodama-nuki*, Ikeda, Tokushima](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C0411007-000) - [Nichibunken: the kodama mouse and the matagi (Miyagi prefectural history)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C0410968-000) - [Nichibunken: the Kodama hunters turned into mice](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C0410076-000) - [Nichibunken: the kodama mouse as an ill omen, Akita (1937)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2020001) - [Nichibunken: Hitokotonushi as a deified echo (1929)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1231784) - [Nichibunken: *Kiyū shōran* equates kodama with tengu](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=5860085) - [Toriyama Sekien, *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō*, Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2021666551/) - [Toriyama Sekien's kodama (Wikimedia Commons image)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SekienKodama.jpg) - [National Diet Library Image Bank: Toriyama Sekien's yokai books](https://www.ndl.go.jp/imagebank/column/sekienyokai) - [Takasago Shrine and the pine spirits Jō and Uba (Japan Tourism Agency multilingual database)](https://www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db/R5-00194.html) - [*Princess Mononoke*, Studio Ghibli (official, Japanese)](https://www.ghibli.jp/works/mononoke/) - [Kodama (Wikipedia, used as a pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodama_%28spirit%29) --- ## Nure-onna (濡女): Wet Woman Sea Yokai URL: https://japan.je/yokai/nure-onna.html ### What is Nure-onna? *Nure-onna* (濡女 or ぬれ女) means "wet woman." In Edo-period art she has a woman's head, with long black hair hanging soaked and loose, on the body of a huge snake. Japanese dictionaries describe her as a monster said to appear in the sea or in rivers, usually drawn as a serpent with a woman's face. She is also known by the name *Nure-yomejo*, "wet bride." Two quite different things go by her name. One is the snake-woman of the picture scrolls, a striking image with very little story attached. The other is a cluster of village legends, mostly from western Japan, about a wet-haired woman met at night by the water, who often works hand in hand with the ox-headed monster [Ushi-oni](https://japan.je/yokai/ushi-oni.html). The two traditions overlap but do not match perfectly, and it helps to keep them apart. ### The snake-woman of the picture scrolls Nure-onna was a picture before she was a story. She is one of the creatures in the *bakemono-zukushi* scrolls, painted catalogues of monsters that were popular from the seventeenth century on. Each figure carries a name label, with little or no explanation. Brigham Young University's Harold B. Lee Library holds one such scroll, *Bakemono no e*, which a 1952 dealer's catalogue dated to around 1660. The library considers it perhaps the oldest surviving example of the type. Among its thirty-five figures is one labelled ぬれ女. The best-known dated version of the format is Sawaki Sūshi's *Hyakkai zukan* of 1737, now in the Fukuoka City Museum, and reference lists of its thirty figures include both *nure-onna* and *ushi-oni*. Toriyama Sekien then drew her for his printed yokai catalogue, *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō*, in 1776. His Nure-onna rises out of churning water in slanting rain, beside a fence of stakes, with branches trailing above her. Her coiled body is spotted like a snake's, and her black hair streams back from a pale, gaunt face. Sekien gave her a name and nothing more, with no caption to explain who she was or what she did. That silence is typical. Many yokai in these scrolls and books were known only as names and images, and later writers filled in the gaps. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten*, Japan's largest historical dictionary, cites the name from Kitamura Intei's essay collection *Kiyū shōran* (1830). It suggests, cautiously, that she may belong with other monsters of the shore, such as the *iso-hime* (磯姫) and *umi-nyōbō* (海女房). ### Village legends: the baby and the ox-demon The fullest stories come from the coast of Iwami, in what is now western Shimane Prefecture. A 1933 article on Ushi-oni legends there, summarised in Nichibunken's yokai database, records two versions. In one, from Ōda, a man walking home from fishing at night meets a nure-onna. She hands him a baby to hold and vanishes. When he throws the baby down and runs, an ushi-oni comes after him. He escapes only by reaching a farmhouse. In the other, from Gōtsu, a Shinto priest out night-fishing is given a baby by a nure-onna in the same way. When he tries to throw it away, it has turned as heavy as stone and will not leave his hands. The ushi-oni then chases him. As he runs, a shining object flies out of the darkness and strikes the monster on the head, and it gives up the chase. The shining object turns out to be a sword that flew to him from his own house. A burden that grows impossibly heavy also turns up in another nure-onna report, from Ehime, described below. In the Iwami tales the baby makes the nure-onna a decoy, holding the victim in place while the real killer comes out of the sea. ### Nure-onna across Japan Other regional reports show how loosely the name was used. - In Aso, Kumamoto Prefecture, a 1952 report says *nure-onna* appeared in many places by the water: a wet-haired, middle-aged woman with a snake's body who possessed people and sucked their blood. - In Ōtsuki, Kōchi Prefecture, a 1965 student survey recorded that a *nure-onna* stood where water seeped from the mouth of a mountain path, her hair dripping. She shook her hair at passers-by, and anyone the water touched was in danger of their life. - In Ainan, Ehime Prefecture, a 1985 report describes a "wet woman" in a white robe with tangled hair at a dangerous, always-wet ravine. She asks travellers to hold something for her. If they agree, the object grows so heavy that they faint. You must never speak to her. In none of these is she the giant serpent of the scrolls. The Aso version comes closest, combining the snake body with blood-drinking. Elsewhere she is simply a woman soaked to the skin, and her wetness marks her as something that has come out of the water, or out of death. ### A modern ghost The name has carried on into twentieth-century ghost stories. The Shizuoka prefectural history, published in 1991, records a *nure-onna* tale set on National Route 150: a driver at night sees a soaking-wet woman standing by the road and gives her a lift. When he looks again she has vanished, and the seat where she sat is wet. The story has the shape of the familiar "vanishing hitchhiker" tale, and it shows how an old name can be borrowed for a new legend. ### The long-tailed hair-washer Many English-language accounts say that Nure-onna washes her hair by the water, that her tail is hundreds of metres long, and that anyone she spots cannot escape. According to English Wikipedia's summary of the Japanese reference books, these details come mainly from a single story set in 1819, on a river on the border of Echigo and Aizu (today's Niigata and Fukushima). In it, a boat crew comes upon a woman washing her hair, and the tail is implied to be at least three *chō*, roughly 300 metres, long. The story is traced to a 1929 collection of strange tales by the folklorist Fujisawa Morihiko, which, the article notes, gives no earlier source. We have not been able to check it against an Edo-period text, so it is best read as a late and lightly attested version, not the core of the legend. The same caution applies to any single, fixed "biography" of Nure-onna. The older evidence is a handful of pictures and a scattering of local tales, and they do not all describe the same creature. ### Frequently asked questions ### What does Nure-onna mean? *Nure-onna* means "wet woman." She is named for her soaking hair, which is the one feature shared by nearly every picture and legend of her. ### Is Nure-onna a snake? In Edo-period art she has a woman's head on a snake's body, and one 1952 report from Aso in Kumamoto describes her the same way. In many village legends, though, she appears simply as a woman who is soaking wet. ### What is the connection between Nure-onna and Ushi-oni? In legends from the Iwami coast of Shimane, Nure-onna hands a passer-by a baby that grows impossibly heavy, and Ushi-oni, an ox-headed monster, then comes out of the sea to chase the victim. The two also appear side by side in early picture scrolls. ### Is Nure-onna dangerous? Very. In different regions she drinks blood, endangers anyone touched by water from her hair, or traps people with a baby or bundle that becomes too heavy to put down. ### Where does Nure-onna appear? By water: rivers, the sea shore and wet mountain ravines. Folklore records come mostly from western Japan, including Shimane, Kumamoto, Kōchi and Ehime. A modern roadside version comes from Shizuoka, and a much-repeated story places her on a river between Niigata and Fukushima. ### Sources - [Nure-onna entries (Kotobank: Daijisen Plus, Nihon Kokugo Daijiten)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%BF%A1%E5%A5%B3-1698551) - [Nure-onna, BYU Library *Bakemono no e* scroll](https://bakemono.lib.byu.edu/yokai/nureonna/) - [About *Bakemono no e* and the c. 1660 dating, BYU Library](https://bakemono.lib.byu.edu/) - [Toriyama Sekien, *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō*, Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2021666551/) - [Toriyama Sekien's Nure-onna (Wikimedia Commons image)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SekienNureonna.jpg) - [Nichibunken yokai database: Nure-onna and Ushi-oni, Ōda, Shimane (1933)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0640515) - [Nichibunken: Nure-onna, Ushi-oni and the flying sword, Gōtsu, Shimane (1933)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0640516) - [Nichibunken: blood-drinking Nure-onna of Aso, Kumamoto (1952)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2200037) - [Nichibunken: Nure-onna of Ōtsuki, Kōchi (1965)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2360955) - [Nichibunken: the "wet woman" of Ainan, Ehime (1985)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0200240) - [Nichibunken: the wet hitchhiker of Route 150, Shizuoka (1991)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C0222224-000) - [*Hyakkai zukan* (Japanese Wikipedia, used as a pointer for the figure list)](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%99%BE%E6%80%AA%E5%9B%B3%E5%B7%BB) - [Nure-onna (Wikipedia, used as a pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nure-onna) --- ## Fujin (風神): Japanese God of Wind URL: https://japan.je/yokai/fujin.html ### What is Fūjin? *Fūjin* (風神) means "wind god," and in Japan the name calls up one picture above all: a wild, grimacing figure who runs across the clouds holding a great bag of wind over his head. Japanese dictionaries describe him in almost the same words. He is a naked figure carrying a wind bag, *kazebukuro* (風袋), who races through the sky. In temples he is set beside the twenty-eight attendants of the thousand-armed Kannon, and nearly always he is paired with *Raijin*, the thunder god. Like Raijin, Fūjin is a god and not a yokai in the strict sense. He is included in yokai collections because his demon-like body looks like an *oni*, and because the wind he carries could ruin a harvest or sink a fleet. You can read about his partner on our [Raijin](https://japan.je/yokai/raijin.html) page. ### A god who came along the Silk Road The bag-carrying Fūjin is an imported image, not a native Japanese one. The Shogakukan encyclopedia *Nipponica* traces the image of a wind god running with his wind bag held up in both hands back to Central Asia. That figure appears on copper coins of the Kushan king Kanishka, and his gold coins show the Greek wind god Anemos in the same posture. In Cave 249 at Dunhuang in western China, a wall painting shows a wind god of this type next to a thunder god ringed with drums. That is the same pairing Japan later made famous. Columbia University's JAANUS dictionary of Japanese art terms adds that the two gods have no basis in early Buddhist scripture. Their figures draw on Indian deities and on the Chinese wind and thunder gods *Fengshen* and *Leigong*. In esoteric Buddhism the wind god also appears as *Fūten*, one of the Twelve Devas, and as the guardian of the northwest. Japan's earliest picture of the pair is in the eighth-century illustrated *Sutra of Cause and Effect* (*Kako genzai ingakyō*). There they are among the demons who try to frighten the Buddha. Sanjūsangendō, the temple that owns the most famous statues, says both gods go back to the ancient Indian *Rig Veda*. There the wind god is *Vāyu*, who drives a chariot across the sky, chases off evil gods and grants wealth and success. ### Fūjin and the native wind kami Japan had wind gods long before Buddhist art arrived, but it did not make statues of them. The Heibonsha *World Encyclopedia* notes that shrines across the country honoured the male and female wind kami *Shinatsuhiko* and *Shinatobe*, but no images of them were made. The Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto* explains that in an alternate account in the *Nihon shoki*, Shinatsuhiko was born from Izanagi's breath as he blew away the mist covering the newly made land. His name has been read as "man of long breath" or "man of the place where wind arises." The great centre of the wind cult was Tatsuta Shrine in Nara, which holds a *Fūjinsai*, a wind-god festival. The tenth-century *Engishiki* records its rites and preserves the full text of its prayer. At Ise, the detached shrine Kazahinomi-no-miya honours the wind kami. According to legend, the "divine wind," or *kamikaze*, that wrecked the Mongol invasion fleets in the thirteenth century blew from there. A folk version recorded in the *Nara Prefectural History* gives Tatsuta the credit instead. In this version, when the Mongols came, a great bag rose from behind Tatsuta Shrine and flew to the Genkai Sea, where it raised a storm that sank the enemy ships. The bag was the Tatsuta deity himself, the god of wind. ### Wind festivals and the 210th day For farmers, the wind god was mostly a threat to be calmed. The *Encyclopedia of Shinto* describes wind festivals (*kaze matsuri*), all-night vigils for the wind and lion dances. Most of these were held around the "210th day," counted from the start of spring in the old calendar, which was believed to mark the start of the typhoon season. Typhoons around that date really did cause great crop damage. In some places, people put up sickles or scythe-like objects on poles as charms against the wind. There was also a medical side. *Kaze* means "wind," but a word pronounced the same way means "a cold." Many villages held rites to send away the wind god, *kaze no kami okuri*, which were also meant to drive out the spirits that spread colds and influenza. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* records that in the Edo period, when colds were going around, beggars in masks went door to door beating drums and offering to "drive out the wind god" in return for money. People also made dolls representing the wind god so that it could be ceremonially sent away. The wind could even carry a blade. An Edo-period essay, the *Fūken gūki*, notes that people in Shimōsa and Kai pasted calendars on their windows and paper screens to keep out a wind that cut people. There, it said, the wind god carried a sword. This is the same fear behind the sudden, unexplained wounds blamed on the [Kamaitachi](https://japan.je/yokai/kamaitachi.html). ### Sanjūsangendō: the statues that fixed the image The best-known sculptures of Fūjin and Raijin stand at either end of the front row of statues in Sanjūsangendō in Kyoto, in front of its 1,001 standing images of Kannon. The temple lists both as Kamakura-period National Treasures. Fūjin is 123 cm tall and Raijin 105 cm. According to the temple, Tankei, the sculptor who directed the work when the hall was rebuilt, was closely involved in making them. The temple says that although the gods began in ancient India, these images were made entirely Japanese, and they decided how later generations would picture the pair. Japan's tourism agency describes Fūjin here kneeling on a cloud with the wind bag over his shoulders. ### Sōtatsu's screens and their copies The most famous painting of Fūjin is Tawaraya Sōtatsu's *Wind God and Thunder God Screens*. It is a pair of two-fold screens in ink and colour on gold-foiled paper from the seventeenth century, and it is a National Treasure owned by Kenninji temple in Kyoto. The Kyoto National Museum says that although the screens carry no signature or seal, there is no doubt that Sōtatsu painted them. The gold foil makes the gods seem to float in an endless space. The Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art points out that the Sanjūsangendō statues stood near where Sōtatsu worked and were probably known to him. Later painters honoured his screens by copying them. Ogata Kōrin made a version that is now in the Tokyo National Museum, and Sakai Hōitsu made one after that. JAANUS describes the usual colouring of the pair. Fūjin is green, with two horns, a grimacing mouth and claw-like hands and feet, and he sometimes holds a spear with a red pennant. Raijin is typically red. ### Fūjin at the Thunder Gate Tokyo's best-known pair stands in the Kaminarimon, the great outer gate of Sensōji in Asakusa. Its formal name is *Fūraijinmon*, the Gate of the Wind and Thunder Gods. Sensōji says the two gods guard the temple against storm and flood damage and are also prayed to for good weather and good harvests. The statues lost their bodies in a fire in 1865, when only the heads were saved. The bodies were recarved in 1874, and the statues were repaired and repainted in 1960. ### Frequently asked questions ### Who is Fūjin in Japanese mythology? Fūjin is the Japanese god of wind, shown as a demon-like figure carrying a large bag of wind. His image comes from Buddhist art rather than the old chronicles, which name other wind kami such as Shinatsuhiko and Shinatobe. ### Are Fūjin and Raijin brothers? No classical Japanese text makes them brothers. They are a pair in art and in temples, at Sanjūsangendō, in Sōtatsu's screens and at Sensōji's Kaminarimon. The idea that they are brothers or twins seems to be a modern embellishment. ### What is in Fūjin's bag? The wind. The bag, called *kazebukuro*, holds the winds he lets loose over the world. The same image of a wind god holding his bag up over his head appears much earlier in Central Asia, on Kushan coins and in the Dunhuang cave paintings. ### Why is Fūjin green? Painters fixed his colours over time. In standard depictions such as those described by the JAANUS art dictionary, Fūjin is green and Raijin is red. No early text explains why. It is a convention of the pictures, strengthened by Sōtatsu's screens and their many copies. ### Where can I see Fūjin in Japan? The Kamakura-period statue at Sanjūsangendō in Kyoto, Sōtatsu's screens (owned by Kenninji and kept at the Kyoto National Museum) and the statues in Sensōji's Kaminarimon in Tokyo are the most famous. Tatsuta Shrine in Nara is the historic centre of wind-god worship. ### Sources - [Kotobank: 風神 (Daijisen; Nihon Kokugo Daijiten; Nipponica; Heibonsha World Encyclopedia; MyPedia)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%A2%A8%E7%A5%9E-615852) - [Kotobank: 風神雷神 (Heibonsha World Encyclopedia; Nipponica; Britannica Japan)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%A2%A8%E7%A5%9E%E9%9B%B7%E7%A5%9E-1200301) - [Fūjin Raijin, JAANUS (Japanese Architecture and Art Net Users System), Columbia University](https://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/jaanus/node/4517) - [Kazenokami, Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9936) - [Shinatsuhiko, Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9156) - [Fūjin and Raijin statues, Sanjūsangendō (official site, Japanese)](https://www.sanjusangendo.jp/statue/fujinraijin/) - [The Wind God and Thunder God, and the Twenty-Eight Attendants (Japan Tourism Agency multilingual commentary)](https://www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db/en/R1-01700.html) - [Wind God and Thunder God Screens, Kyoto National Museum](https://www.kyohaku.go.jp/eng/collection/meihin/kinsei/item10/) - [The Gods of Wind and Thunder, Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art](https://www.freersackler.si.edu/exhibition/the-gods-of-wind-and-thunder/) - [Kaminarimon (Fūraijinmon), Sensōji (official site, Japanese)](https://www.senso-ji.jp/guide/guide01.html) - [Nichibunken Kaii/Yōkai Densho Database, record 5390020: *Fūken gūki*, the wind god's sword](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=5390020) - [Nichibunken Kaii/Yōkai Densho Database, record C2910091-000: the Tatsuta wind bag and the Mongol fleet](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C2910091-000) - [Wikipedia: Fūjin (pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C5%ABjin) --- ## Zashiki-warashi (座敷童子): Child Spirit of Good Fortune URL: https://japan.je/yokai/zashiki-warashi.html ### What is a zashiki-warashi? A zashiki-warashi is a child spirit that lives in the formal rooms of an old house. The name joins *zashiki*, the formal tatami room of a traditional house, with *warashi*, a word for a child. It belongs to the Tōhoku region of northern Japan, and above all to Iwate Prefecture. It is one of the rare yokai that people actually hope to meet, because a house with a zashiki-warashi is said to prosper, and a house it abandons is said to fall into ruin. Japanese reference works describe it in a few consistent strokes. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* dictionary gives it a red face and a bobbed haircut and places it in the inner rooms of old families' houses. The folklorist Komatsu Kazuhiko, writing in Heibonsha's *Sekai Daihyakka Jiten*, lists its usual features: a small child with bobbed hair, a red face or red hair, a home in the back room, and a habit of playing tricks on guests who sleep there. In his view, though, the feature that matters most is that the spirit controls whether a household rises or falls. ### In Tōno Monogatari The zashiki-warashi reached a national readership through *Tōno Monogatari* (*The Legends of Tōno*), published by Yanagita Kunio in June 1910. In his preface, Yanagita explains that every story in the book came from Sasaki Kizen (pen name Kyōseki), a young man from Tōno who visited him at night from February 1909 and told him the tales of his home district. The dictionary entry cited above still uses this book as the earliest example of the word in print. Three short sections deal with the spirit. Section 17 says that many old houses in Tōno are home to a god called the zashiki-warashi, usually a child of about twelve or thirteen, who sometimes lets itself be seen. A daughter of one family, home from girls' high school for the holidays, met it in a corridor and recognised it clearly as a boy. In the Sasaki family's own house, Kizen's mother was sewing alone when she heard paper rustling in the next room, which belonged to the master of the house, who was away in Tokyo at the time. She opened the door and found the room empty. Later she heard someone sniffling in there, and concluded it was the zashiki-warashi, which the house had long been said to have. The section ends by stating that a house where this god lives enjoys wealth and freedom. Section 18 adds that the spirit can also be a girl. The old Yamaguchi Magozaemon household was said to have two girl spirits. One day a villager coming home from town met two unfamiliar, pretty girls by a bridge, looking troubled. He asked where they had come from, and they named Magozaemon's house. He asked where they were going, and they named a wealthy farming family in another village. The man took it as a sign that Magozaemon's line was finished. Section 19 tells what followed. Soon afterwards, more than twenty people in that house died in a single day from poisonous mushrooms. Only a seven-year-old girl survived, because she had been out playing and forgot to come home for lunch. Relatives then carried off the family's goods, and one of the founding families of the village disappeared. Yanagita's own note on section 17 points readers to his *Ishigami Mondō*, which also discusses the spirit. ### Appearance, names and habits Away from Tōno, local surveys collected in Nichibunken's database of strange phenomena and yokai lore show how much the figure varies. A 1956 entry in the Miyagi prefectural history records other names for the spirit: *zashiki-bokko*, *kura-warashi* and *kura-bokko* for those living in storehouses, and further names such as *usutsuki-ko*, *hosode* and *nagate*. It also notes that a very similar red-haired figure called *aka-shaguma* was known in Ehime and Tokushima, far to the south-west. The spirit's tricks are mostly harmless. The best known is *makura-gaeshi*, turning a sleeper's pillow around in the night, and some reports say it presses down on guests in bed. A 1939 report from present-day Ōshū says that ash scattered in a corner of the earthen floor would show small footprints in the morning. A 1952 report from Jōbōji in Ninohe says that when an old woman found such footprints by the hearth, the family believed money would come to the house as long as the marks were left alone. A 1982 survey from the coast of Miyagi gives one of the most detailed portraits. There the spirit, called *zashiki-oboko*, was a bobbed-haired girl in a kimono with a red under-robe showing at the hem. She was tidy and swept the room, turned rice cakes so they did not burn, and joined the children at play in the evening. In games of rock-paper-scissors she only ever played rock. Other records disagree on details. A 1924 collection of reports by Sasaki Kizen includes one from Hanamaki saying that zashiki-warashi may be boys or girls, and that married couples of them live in some houses. A 2001 report from Hachinohe describes a shadow on a paper screen of a child of three or four, which vanished whenever someone opened the screen to look. ### Luck that can leave The Magozaemon story shows the central belief at work. Komatsu explains that the idea runs in both directions. A rich house that declines must have lost its zashiki-warashi, and a poor house that suddenly prospers must have gained one. The spirit is therefore a guardian of old families and also a way of explaining why fortunes changed within a village. Not every community welcomed it. In a 1977 survey of Takko in Aomori Prefecture, the spirit appears as a boy of six or seven who disturbs sleep, and misfortune is said to follow where it appears. A 1980 report from Hachinohe calls it a cat in disguise, whose appearance marks a house in decline. The lucky house spirit of the travel brochures is the best-known version, but it is not the only one. ### Where did the belief come from? There is no single answer, and the scholars are careful. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* describes it as a household god that has come down in the world, or been misunderstood, and so turned into a yokai. Komatsu notes that some traditions say it came from rivers or pools, which suggests links with water spirits and the kappa. He also connects it with Tōhoku's *Okunai-sama* house deity, which also appears as a child, with the lucky-child figures of hearth-god legends, and with the *gohō-dōji*, child spirits said to serve mountain ascetics. Some local traditions were darker. Sasaki Kizen's 1924 reports include one from Miyagi in which zashiki-warashi are the souls of very young children, and another from Aomori that treats the spirit as the lingering attachment of the dead, so that families who saw one held memorial rites for spirits with no one to care for them. Modern writers sometimes link the belief to infant deaths in poor farming communities. That is a reading of a few such reports, not the general tradition. ### In literature and at the inn The poet and children's writer Miyazawa Kenji, himself from Iwate, published *Zashiki-bokko no hanashi* ("Tales of the Zashiki-bokko") in the magazine *Getsuyō* in February 1926. In one of its short episodes, ten children holding hands in a circle find there are suddenly eleven of them. Every face is familiar and none is repeated, yet no one can say who the extra child is. The spirit's modern home is Kindaichi Onsen in Ninohe, Iwate, where the inn Ryokufūsō became famous for guests who said they had glimpsed a zashiki-warashi in its *Enju no ma* room. According to the Ninohe tourism association, the inn burned down in 2009 and reopened on 14 May 2016. ### Frequently asked questions ### Is a zashiki-warashi good or bad? In most of the tradition it is lucky: the house it lives in prospers, and it is ruined when it leaves. Its pranks, such as turning pillows around, are seldom harmful. A few local records, from Aomori in particular, treat its appearance as a bad omen. ### What does a zashiki-warashi look like? Usually it is a small child with bobbed hair and a red face, or sometimes red hair, who lives in the back rooms of an old house. In *Tōno Monogatari* it is often about twelve or thirteen and can be a boy or a girl. Other regional reports describe younger children, and some say it is seldom seen at all and is known only by its sounds. ### Where can you see a zashiki-warashi? The tradition belongs to old houses in Tōhoku, especially Iwate. The best-known place associated with it today is the Ryokufūsō inn at Kindaichi Onsen in Ninohe, which reopened in 2016 after a fire. ### What happens if a zashiki-warashi leaves a house? Tradition says the family's fortunes decline. In *Tōno Monogatari*, two girl spirits are seen leaving the Yamaguchi Magozaemon house shortly before almost the whole household dies of mushroom poisoning. ### Is a zashiki-warashi a ghost? Not in the usual sense. *Tōno Monogatari* calls it a god (*kami*), and most sources treat it as a household spirit. A few local traditions do link it with the souls of dead children, but that is a minority view. ### Sources - [Yanagita Kunio, *Tōno Monogatari* (1910), full Japanese text, sections 17–19 (Aozora Bunko)](https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/001566/files/52504_49667.html) - [Zashiki-warashi entries in the *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* and Heibonsha *Sekai Daihyakka Jiten* (Komatsu Kazuhiko) (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%BA%A7%E6%95%B7%E7%AB%A5%E5%AD%90) - [Nichibunken Kaii/Yōkai Densho Database: all *zashiki-warashi* records](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/ksearch.cgi?Name=%E3%82%B6%E3%82%B7%E3%82%AD%E3%83%AF%E3%83%A9%E3%82%B7&Pref=&Area=%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BD) - [Nichibunken record C0411050-000: Miyagi prefectural history, alternative names (1956)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C0411050-000) - [Nichibunken record 1230870: footprints in ash, Ōshū (1939)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1230870) - [Nichibunken record 2180289: footprints by the hearth, Jōbōji (1952)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2180289) - [Nichibunken record 1461277: *zashiki-oboko*, Motoyoshi, Miyagi (1982)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1461277) - [Nichibunken record 0690191: Sasaki Kizen, boys, girls and couples, Hanamaki (1924)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0690191) - [Nichibunken record 0690193: Sasaki Kizen, souls of young children, Miyagi (1924)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0690193) - [Nichibunken record 0690192: Sasaki Kizen, lingering attachment of the dead, Aomori (1924)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0690192) - [Nichibunken record 1460317: misfortune where it appears, Takko, Aomori (1977)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1460317) - [Nichibunken record 1070242: a cat in disguise, Hachinohe (1980)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1070242) - [Nichibunken record C0220114-000: shadow on a screen, Hachinohe (2001)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C0220114-000) - [Miyazawa Kenji, *Zashiki-bokko no hanashi* (1926) (Aozora Bunko)](https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000081/card2656.html) - [Kindaichi Onsen and Ryokufūsō (Ninohe Tourism Association)](https://www.ninohe-kanko.com/english/access/kindaichi) - [Wikipedia: Zashiki-warashi (pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zashiki-warashi) --- ## Futakuchi-onna (二口女): Two-Mouthed Woman Yokai URL: https://japan.je/yokai/futakuchi-onna.html ### What is a futakuchi-onna? *Futakuchi-onna* (二口女) means "two-mouthed woman." She looks like an ordinary woman, but hidden under the hair at the back of her head is a second mouth. Japanese dictionaries define her in just those terms: a female yokai with a second mouth on the back of the head, who uses her hair to carry food to it. They name the Edo-period collection of strange tales *Ehon hyaku monogatari* as one of the places she is described. The name actually covers two different traditions that are often mixed up. One is a single moral tale from a nineteenth-century picture book, about a cruel stepmother and a wound that will not heal. The other is a much older and very widespread folktale about a man who wanted a wife who never ate. Seeing how the two were tied together explains why the futakuchi-onna has become one of the best-known yokai today. ### The stepmother in the Ehon hyaku monogatari The *Ehon hyaku monogatari* ("Picture Book of a Hundred Stories") was published in 1841. Its text is by an author who wrote as Tōsanjin, and its pictures are by the artist Takehara Shunsen. The book is also known by the title *Tōsanjin yawa*. In 2026 the novelist Kyōgoku Natsuhiko published a modern Japanese translation with a transcription of the original, and his publisher picked out the futakuchi-onna as one of the book's best-known yokai. Her story there is short and harsh. A woman marries a man who already has a child from his first marriage. She favours her own child and gives the stepchild so little food that it starves to death. Some time later, an axe strikes her on the back of the head. In most summaries it is her husband's, swung by accident as he splits firewood. The wound does not heal. It takes the shape of a mouth that hurts until food is put into it, and that eventually begins to speak. Princeton Public Library's notes for an exhibition of yokai paintings by Minako Ota describe it as a mouth that demands food and whispers about her crime. They also stress that the story is a lesson in karmic retribution: the deformity is punishment for her cruelty. Modern summaries of the book place the story in Shimōsa province, part of present-day Chiba. ### The picture and the text do not quite agree The futakuchi-onna most people know comes from Takehara Shunsen's illustration, not from the text. In the picture her hair rises up like a set of snakes and lifts food to the mouth at the back of her head. Princeton's exhibition notes point out that the original text is about a spiritual illness, and the serpent-like hair belongs to the famous illustration. In other words, the book's author describes a sick woman being punished, while the artist drew a monster. This wound that talks and must be fed belongs to a wider Japanese idea, the *jinmensō*, or "human-face sore." The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* defines it as a swelling that takes on the shape of a human face. It quotes the 1666 story collection *Otogibōko*, which describes a sore on the left thigh shaped like a human face, with eyes and a mouth. A popular name for the condition, the dictionary adds, was *manma-kui*, "rice-eater," because putting grains of rice into the wound was said to stop the pain. The stepmother's second mouth is the same kind of punishment: a sin that turns into a hungry wound. ### The wife who doesn't eat The older story is the folktale *Kuwazu nyōbō*, "the wife who doesn't eat." It is one of Japan's best-known folktales, and its outline is recorded in standard Japanese encyclopedias. A stingy man says he wants a wife who eats nothing. A woman arrives who seems to fit his wish. She works hard and never touches food in front of him. But the household rice keeps vanishing. One day the man pretends to go out and spies on her. He sees her cook a huge pot of rice and shovel it into a great mouth on the top of her head. Once she knows she has been seen, the wife shows what she really is. In the most common version she shuts the man in a bathtub or a cooper's tub and carries him off into the mountains to eat him. He escapes by grabbing a branch, and hides in a thicket of iris and mugwort that the monster cannot enter. Many tellings end by saying this happened on the fifth day of the fifth month. That is why iris and mugwort are hung from the eaves on that day, the old boys' festival, to keep evil away. The wife's true form changes from region to region. The Heibonsha *World Encyclopedia* lists a *yamauba* (mountain witch), an *oni*, a snake or a spider. It notes that the spider becomes much more common the further west the story is told. Folk records collected by Nichibunken give many examples. In Iwate, the bride with no mouth turns out to have one in her head and chases her husband as an oni. In Kanagawa, a spider takes the form of a girl to become the bride. In Aomori, the husband watches her eat "like a spider" from a mouth in her head, and then hides in a marsh full of mugwort and iris. In Kōchi, the monster says she will come back as a spider on New Year's Eve, so the man waits by the fire and throws the spider into the flames when it drops from the hearth hook. The *Nipponica* encyclopedia suggests two reasons for this ending. It explains the taboo against spiders seen at night, which in many places should be killed. It also suggests that the man is so often a cooper because travelling coopers were among the people who told the story. The same encyclopedia notes that stories of a wife who supposedly eats nothing, but eats in secret while her husband is away, are found across Europe and among Spanish-speaking communities in the West Indies. Sometimes even the detail that the wife is really a demon is the same. ### One name, two monsters? Today, the name *futakuchi-onna* is often given to both figures: the punished stepmother of 1841, and the monster bride of the folktale with her mouth hidden in her hair. Some Japanese yokai reference works treat them as different beings. The stepmother is a human being suffering from a disease brought on by her own sin. The folktale bride is a yamauba, spider or other monster in disguise. The image of hungry hair and a hidden mouth has joined them in popular culture anyway. What the two have in common is a concern with food and fairness. In one, a woman who starves a child is condemned to feed a mouth that is never satisfied. In the other, a man who resents feeding a wife gets a wife who eats more than anyone. Both stories turn on the cost of keeping a household fed. ### Frequently asked questions ### What is the story of Futakuchi-onna? In the 1841 *Ehon hyaku monogatari*, a stepmother lets her stepchild starve. Later an axe wounds the back of her head, and the wound becomes a mouth that demands food and speaks of her guilt. A separate folktale, "the wife who doesn't eat," tells of a bride who secretly eats through a mouth in her head. ### Where is the second mouth of a futakuchi-onna? On the back of the head, hidden under her hair. In the folktale versions the mouth is usually described as being on the top or in the middle of the head. ### Is Futakuchi-onna the same as the "wife who doesn't eat"? They are often merged, but they come from different sources. The stepmother is a person punished with a disease, while the folktale wife is a monster in disguise, such as a yamauba or a spider. Some reference works treat them as separate yokai. ### Why do people hang iris and mugwort on Children's Day? One folk explanation comes from the "wife who doesn't eat." The husband escapes the monster by hiding in iris and mugwort, which she cannot touch, and the story says this happened on the fifth day of the fifth month. So the plants are hung from the eaves on that day to ward off evil. ### Who drew the famous Futakuchi-onna picture? Takehara Shunsen illustrated the *Ehon hyaku monogatari* in 1841. His picture of her hair rising like snakes to feed the mouth at the back of her head is the image most people know. That detail is not in the book's own text. ### Sources - [Kotobank: 二口女 (Daijisen Plus)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%BA%8C%E5%8F%A3%E5%A5%B3-1699193) - [Kotobank: 食わず女房 (Heibonsha World Encyclopedia, entry by Nomura Keiko; Nipponica, entry by Kojima Yoshiyuki; Nihon Jinmei Daijiten)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%A3%9F%E3%82%8F%E3%81%9A%E5%A5%B3%E6%88%BF-1072996) - [Kotobank: 人面瘡 (Nihon Kokugo Daijiten; Daijisen Plus)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%BA%BA%E9%9D%A2%E7%98%A1) - [Futakuchi-onna, *Spirits Among Us* exhibition notes, Princeton Public Library](https://exhibits.princetonlibrary.org/exhibit-items/futakuchi-onna-%E4%BA%8C%E5%8F%A3%E5%A5%B3/) - [KADOKAWA: 絵本百物語, modern translation and transcription by Kyōgoku Natsuhiko (2026)](https://www.kadokawa.co.jp/product/322511000549/) - [Nichibunken Kaii/Yōkai Densho Database: kuwazu nyōbō records](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/ksearch.cgi?Name=%E3%82%AF%E3%83%AF%E3%82%BA%E3%83%8B%E3%83%A7%E3%82%A6%E3%83%9C%E3%82%A6&Pref=&Area=%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BD) - [Nichibunken record 1231019: Iwate, the bride with a mouth in her head](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1231019) - [Nichibunken record C1450092-000: Kanagawa, the spider bride](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C1450092-000) - [Nichibunken record C0220093-000: Aomori, mugwort and iris](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C0220093-000) - [Nichibunken record 2450261: Kōchi, the spider on New Year's Eve](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2450261) - [Nichibunken record 1231001: Tsushima, the greedy carpenter](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1231001) - [Wikipedia (Japanese): 二口女, used as a pointer to the *Ehon hyaku monogatari* text and its editions](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%8C%E5%8F%A3%E5%A5%B3) - [Wikipedia: Futakuchi-onna (pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futakuchi-onna) --- ## Kamaitachi (鎌鼬): Sickle Weasel Yokai URL: https://japan.je/yokai/kamaitachi.html ### What is a kamaitachi? *Kamaitachi* (鎌鼬) is usually translated "sickle weasel." It names an invisible attacker that rides the wind and cuts people. Strangely, the name was used both for the creature and for what it did. Japanese dictionaries define *kamaitachi* first as a phenomenon: the skin suddenly splits open in a wound that looks as if it were made by a sharp sickle. Only after that do they explain that people once blamed an unseen weasel. The Heibonsha *World Encyclopedia* describes the kamaitachi as a demon that rides in on a whirlwind to cut people, or even to drink their blood. Its wounds look like sickle cuts, yet they are said to cause neither pain nor bleeding. The kamaitachi is found all over Japan, but it is most at home in the snow country. Dictionaries count it among the "seven wonders of Echigo," the old province that is now Niigata Prefecture. It is also an old seasonal word in Japanese poetry. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* lists it as a winter word in haikai, with an example from 1695 about a wound on the shin. ### What the wounds were like The records are surprisingly consistent. A 1916 note from Ito District in Wakayama, held in Nichibunken's Kaii/Yōkai Densho Database, says that the kamaitachi lives inside whirlwinds and cuts the legs of anyone it meets. The wound is deep and large, but it hardly hurts. The *Niigata Prefectural History* calls it a cut shaped like a sickle blade, with surprisingly little blood or pain for its depth. A 1955 account from Ina in Nagano describes the kamaitachi as a kind of weasel so fast that it slashes the shins of passers-by and is gone before anyone can see it. People were most often cut when they fell over. Edo-period writers knew the same picture. The physicist Terada Torahiko quotes the 1666 story collection *Otogibōko*, which says the phenomenon was common in the Kantō region. A whirlwind strikes a traveller roughly, and his thigh splits lengthwise as if cut with a razor. There is little pain and no blood. The book adds, in a detail that says a lot about its time, that samurai of proper family were never harmed, while commoners were struck even if they were rich. ### Weasels, gods and swords How a weasel came to be blamed is not clear. The Heibonsha encyclopedia states plainly that it is unknown why whirlwinds and weasels were linked. The folk explanations vary a great deal from place to place: - **Three gods working together.** In the Nyūkawa area of Hida (Gifu Prefecture), the kamaitachi was said to be three gods travelling together. The first knocks a person down, the second cuts with a blade, and the third puts medicine on the wound. That would explain why the cut does not bleed or hurt. In many modern retellings the three gods have become three weasels, and this "weasel trio" is probably the most familiar version today. - **An angry god's sword.** In Shibata in Niigata, some said a god was playing with a drawn sword and a person had wandered into its path. A record from Ibi in Gifu explains the name as *kamae-tachi*, "a sword held at the ready." In Shimōsa and Kai, an Edo essay says, the wind god himself carried a sword (see [Fūjin](https://japan.je/yokai/fujin.html)). - **A smith's lost secret.** A 1916 story from Shinshiro in Aichi says the kamaitachi was once the secret art of a swordsmith, who passed it to his apprentice but died without teaching him how to seal it away. It has been loose ever since. - **Sickles and mantises.** In Shikoku, it was said to be the ghost of a sickle left in a graveyard or out in the open. In Katakai, now part of Ojiya in Niigata, people told of a giant mantis on Kamakiri-zaka, "Mantis Slope," that cut anyone who fell there. Some dialects even call the mantis *kamaitachi*. Certain places were known to be dangerous. People in Niigata said that anyone who fell at Kurosaka, between Mount Yahiko and Mount Kugami, would surely be cut. ### Regional names and cures The wind had different names in different regions. According to the *Niigata Prefectural History*, it was called *kamakaze*, "sickle wind," in Sagami (Kanagawa) and *akuzenshikaze* in Shizuoka. One essay records the name *ichimokuren* in Ise, Mino and Suruga, and *kamakaze* again in Sagami. Terada quotes the *Unpyō zasshi*, which says that in the western provinces there is something called *kazekama*, "wind sickle." In Gunma a deadly gust that attacked horses, the *daiba*, was also sometimes called kamaitachi. Because the cuts were blamed on an evil spirit, the cures were magical. The most widespread was to burn an old calendar to ash and put it on the wound, or to drink it in hot water. In Shibata, a burnt Ise calendar was thought to work best. People there also believed that treating a calendar carelessly could bring the kamaitachi down on you, and in the Shin'etsu region stepping on a calendar was said to do the same. Another Edo writer suggested putting marten fur on the wound. An Edo medical essay reports that on Sado, stitching a kamaitachi wound or putting a plaster on it was thought to kill the patient. The advice was to wash it with a boiled sweet-flag root, or simply leave it alone, since it would heal in a few days. ### Toriyama Sekien's whirlwind weasel The kamaitachi got its lasting image from the artist Toriyama Sekien, whose *Gazu hyakki yagyō* (1776) was the first of his four illustrated catalogues of yokai. His picture, which the National Diet Library has digitized, shows a small furry animal with a long, curved, blade-like claw, spinning at the centre of a great spiral of wind full of torn leaves. He gave it the Chinese name *kyūki* (窮奇), a monster from Chinese myth, written with the reading *kamaitachi* beside it. Later artists and, eventually, games and anime took over this sickle-clawed weasel in a whirlwind. ### Modern explanations People have long tried to explain the cuts scientifically. Japanese dictionaries record the theory that a whirlwind creates a pocket of vacuum, and that skin which touches it splits as the air inside the body rushes out. The Britannica Japan entry lists several competing explanations: dust devils, the vacuum theory, a cold-weather theory, an electrical theory, and sudden changes in air pressure. The vacuum theory has never had much support from physicists. In his 1929 essay *Bakemono no shinka* ("The Evolution of Monsters"), Terada Torahiko recalled a meteorologist's claim that the low pressure inside a whirlwind splits the skin. He found it hard to believe, since a leg is not a rubber ball that bursts. His own view was that fragments of wood, bamboo or grains of sand, driven by the very high winds inside a whirlwind, strike the skin and slice it. He added that a scientific explanation does not make the mystery smaller, because the real investigation only starts there. No single explanation has been proven. Many of the folk accounts mention a fall just before the cut, and the snow-country setting fits the cold-weather theory, but the records cannot settle the question. Meanwhile the old name has survived for wounds that seem to appear from nowhere. ### Frequently asked questions ### What does kamaitachi mean? It means "sickle weasel," from *kama* (sickle) and *itachi* (weasel). The word names both a sudden, sickle-like cut on the skin and the invisible weasel or spirit once blamed for it. ### Are there three kamaitachi? In one well-known tradition from the Hida area of Gifu, the attack is the work of three gods: one knocks you down, one cuts you and one treats the wound. Modern retellings usually make them three weasels. Most older records describe a single attacker or simply the wind. ### Why do kamaitachi wounds not bleed or hurt? That is what the folklore says, and the three-attacker story was one way to explain it: the third one applies medicine. Real accounts in the folk records describe deep cuts with surprisingly little pain or blood. ### What causes kamaitachi in real life? Several explanations have been proposed, including dust devils, a vacuum in a whirlwind, cold, electricity and pressure changes. The physicist Terada Torahiko doubted the vacuum idea and suggested that sand and debris carried by strong winds cut the skin. None has been proven. ### Who drew the first kamaitachi? The best-known early image is Toriyama Sekien's in *Gazu hyakki yagyō* (1776). It shows a sickle-clawed weasel spinning in a whirlwind, under the Chinese name *kyūki* read as kamaitachi. ### Sources - [Kotobank: 鎌鼬 (Daijisen; Nihon Kokugo Daijiten; Heibonsha World Encyclopedia, entry by Iijima Yoshiharu; Britannica Japan; MyPedia)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%8E%8C%E9%BC%AC-46517) - [Terada Torahiko, 化け物の進化 "The Evolution of Monsters" (1929), Aozora Bunko](https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000042/files/2346_13810.html) - [NDL Image Bank: Toriyama Sekien's yokai, including 窮奇 (kamaitachi)](https://www.ndl.go.jp/imagebank/theme/sekienyokai) - [NDL Digital Collections: Toriyama Sekien, 百鬼夜行 (1805 edition), the kamaitachi page](https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2553975/1/15/) - [NDL Image Bank column: Toriyama Sekien's yokai catalogues and their dates](https://www.ndl.go.jp/imagebank/column/sekienyokai) - [Nichibunken Kaii/Yōkai Densho Database: kamaitachi records](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/ksearch.cgi?Name=%E3%82%AB%E3%83%9E%E3%82%A4%E3%82%BF%E3%83%81&Pref=&Area=%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BD) - [Nichibunken record 0640233_001: Wakayama, lives in the whirlwind (1916)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0640233_001) - [Nichibunken record 0640235_001: Aichi, the swordsmith's secret (1916)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0640235_001) - [Nichibunken record 0160017: Nagano, the fast weasel (1955)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0160017) - [Nichibunken record C1510067-000: Niigata, the god's sword and the calendar cure](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C1510067-000) - [Nichibunken record C1510070-000: Sagami, kamakaze](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C1510070-000) - [Nichibunken record C1510071-000: Shizuoka, akuzenshikaze](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C1510071-000) - [Nichibunken record 2170048: Gifu, kamae-tachi](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2170048) - [Nichibunken record 3730002: *Ritsuro zuihitsu*, ichimokuren and kamakaze](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=3730002) - [Nichibunken record 5390002: *Fūken gūki*, marten fur](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=5390002) - [Nichibunken record 5390004: *Fūken gūki*, Echigo and the burnt calendar](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=5390004) - [Nichibunken record 6350017: Sado, do not stitch the wound](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=6350017) - [Nichibunken record C1040004-000: Gunma, the daiba that attacks horses](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C1040004-000) - [Wikipedia: Kamaitachi (pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamaitachi) --- ## Ningyo (人魚): Japanese Mermaid URL: https://japan.je/yokai/ningyo.html ### What is a ningyo? *Ningyo* (人魚) is written with the characters for "person" and "fish." Today it is the ordinary Japanese word for a mermaid, but the older Japanese ningyo was not the beautiful singer of European tales. Medieval Japanese records describe something closer to a fish with a human face, sometimes with a face like a monkey's or a cry like a child's. Seeing or catching one could be a terrible omen. Eating its flesh, people said, could give extraordinary long life. The Heibonsha *World Encyclopedia* makes the point plainly. Before the modern era, Japanese ningyo were closely tied to real sea creatures and seemed much more ordinary than the legendary mermaid. The familiar picture of a woman above the waist and a fish below probably came from the West. It spread in the Edo period through books such as the encyclopedia *Wakan sansai zue*. ### The first records The earliest Japanese account usually cited is in the *Nihon shoki*, the court chronicle finished in 720. In the reign of Empress Suiko, in the year that corresponds to 619, two strange reports reached the court. In W. G. Aston's translation, in the fourth month the province of Ōmi reported "a creature in the shape of a man" in the river Gamō. In the seventh month a fisherman in Settsu cast his net at Horie and caught something "formed like a child, which was neither a fish nor a man. Its name was unknown." The chronicle does not use the word ningyo. Nippon.com notes that the naturalist Minakata Kumagusu later guessed the creatures were giant salamanders. The word itself first appears in the *Wamyō ruijushō*, a dictionary compiled around 937, which defines a ningyo as a fish with a human face. That idea came from China. The *Classic of Mountains and Seas* (*Shan hai jing*) describes a ningyo with four legs and a voice like a baby's. By the time of the *Shōtoku Taishi denryaku* (around 917), writers were already treating the appearance of a ningyo as a sign about the fortunes of the whole country. ### Ningyo in medieval chronicles The most detailed medieval account is in the *Kokon chomonjū* (1254), a collection of tales. Fishermen in Ise province pulled in three large fish whose heads looked human. According to the *Nipponica* encyclopedia, their teeth were small like a fish's and their faces were like a monkey's, and they wept and cried with human voices. The fishermen ate one and found it delicious. The chronicle *Azuma kagami* records that in 1247 a large fish shaped like a human corpse was seen off Tsugaru, in the far north. That was the year of the Hōji conflict, a violent struggle for power in Kamakura. Nippon.com explains that the later *Hōjō godai ki* identified this as a ningyo and linked such sightings with times of upheaval. An Edo-period essay, *Shokoku rijin dan*, tells of a fisherman in Wakasa who killed a creature with a human head, a red, frill-like collar and a fish's body. The sea raged for seventeen days, and an earthquake later destroyed his village. ### Yao Bikuni, the nun who lived 800 years The most famous ningyo story is about the person who ate one. The nun known as *Yao Bikuni* or *Happyaku Bikuni*, "the 800-year nun," is described by Japanese encyclopedias as a legendary woman. She kept the face of a girl of fifteen or sixteen for centuries because she had eaten forbidden flesh, usually a ningyo's, though some versions say a "nine-holed" abalone. The details change from place to place. A version from Wakasa recorded in the Edo essay *Ume no chiri* runs like this. A fisherman caught a fish with a human face and invited people to a feast, but one guest saw it being cooked and warned the others. They wrapped their portions in paper and threw them away on the way home. One man forgot, and his daughter ate the flesh. She married and lived normally. But each time a husband died she grew young again, and in her shame she became a nun and lived for 800 years. In other versions, such as one collected in Sado, a group of men meet on a *Kōshin* night, when people stayed awake together in a religious vigil. Someone takes home the strange meat served there, and a daughter eats it. The *Nipponica* encyclopedia notes that the story, with small differences, is found almost all over Japan. It is attached to cedars and camellias she is said to have planted, to the sites of her houses and to caves. Her strongest home is Obama in Wakasa (Fukui Prefecture). At Kūin-ji temple there, a cave in the grounds is pointed out as the place where she lived. Other regions claim her too. On Sado it is said she was born there and lived to 1,000 years. She gave 200 of them to the provincial lord and crossed to Wakasa to die at 800. A 1935 tale from Asakuchi in Okayama makes her a "thousand-year nun" who wandered the provinces and finally went to Zenkōji temple. A record from Kamitakara in Gifu says she was born in a local family and went on to Wakasa, or perhaps to Mount Kōya. There is also a historical record. The Heibonsha encyclopedia notes that diaries from 1449, the *Yasutomi ki* and the *Gaun nikken roku*, record that a "white nun" (*Shira Bikuni*) said to be 800 years old came to Kyoto from Wakasa. Crowds gathered to see her, although she stayed hidden behind a blind. Scholars have suggested that wandering female preachers spread the story, using the name of the 800-year nun as they travelled. ### Mermaid mummies and Edo shows In the Edo period, ningyo became something you could pay to see. Nippon.com describes "mermaid mummies" shown at *misemono*, the popular curiosity shows. Visitors were told that seeing one, or even its picture, protected them from disease and gave long life. Many were later given to temples and shrines. Most were made by joining the upper body of a monkey to the tail of a fish. Japanese-made examples went abroad as well. The Heibonsha encyclopedia notes that many Japanese mermaids were in circulation in the nineteenth century, and Nippon.com points to one taken back to the Netherlands by a Dutch trader from Nagasaki. The "Fiji mermaid" that P. T. Barnum showed in 1842 was probably made in Japan too. The artist Toriyama Sekien included the creature in his 1781 yokai catalogue *Konjaku hyakki shūi*. His caption, drawing on Chinese geography, describes it as human above the chest and fish below. His drawing shows a shaggy-haired head on a scaly fish body thrashing in the waves. One of these mummies was tested in modern times. In February 2022, a research team based at Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts began examining a roughly 30-centimetre mummy kept at Enjuin, a temple in Asakuchi, Okayama Prefecture. A note in its box claimed that it had been caught off Tosa in the Genbun era (1736–41). After about a year of X-ray CT scans and other analysis, the team gave its final report on February 7, 2023. KSB Setonaikai Broadcasting reported that the upper body was made of cotton and cloth with pufferfish skin and animal hair attached. The lower body was paper and other material covered in fish skin. It was a man-made object, probably from the late 1800s, and the temple continues to keep it. ### Frequently asked questions ### What is the difference between a ningyo and a Western mermaid? Older Japanese ningyo were usually described as fish with human or monkey-like faces, sometimes crying like a child. Their appearance could be a bad omen. The half-woman, half-fish image probably came from the West and spread in the Edo period. ### What happens if you eat ningyo flesh? In Japanese legend, eating it can grant very long life. The best-known story is that of Yao Bikuni, a girl who ate the flesh and lived 800 years as a nun. In some versions she lives to 1,000. ### Where is the Yao Bikuni legend from? It is told in many parts of Japan, but it is most closely tied to Obama in Wakasa, Fukui Prefecture. Kūin-ji temple there has a cave said to have been her home. Sado, Gifu, Okayama and other regions have their own versions. ### When was the first ningyo recorded in Japan? The *Nihon shoki* records that in 619 strange creatures, one "neither a fish nor a man," were found in Ōmi and Settsu. It does not use the word ningyo, which first appears in a dictionary of around 937. ### Are Japanese mermaid mummies real? No. Those that have been studied turned out to be made objects. A Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts team found in 2023 that the Enjuin mummy in Okayama was made of cloth, paper, pufferfish skin, fish skin and animal hair, probably in the late 1800s. ### Sources - [Nihongi, tr. W. G. Aston (1896), Book XXII, Suiko 27th year (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nihongi/Book_XXII) - [Kotobank: 人魚 (Nihon Kokugo Daijiten; Heibonsha World Encyclopedia, entry by Aramata Hiroshi; Nipponica, entry by Nomura Jun'ichi)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%BA%BA%E9%AD%9A) - [Kotobank: 八百比丘尼 (Heibonsha World Encyclopedia, entry by Miyata Noboru; Nipponica; Nihon Jinmei Daijiten)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%85%AB%E7%99%BE%E6%AF%94%E4%B8%98%E5%B0%BC) - [Itakura Kimie, "Ningyo: Japanese Merfolk and Auspicious Mummies," Nippon.com (2022)](https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/g02101/ningyo-japanese-merfolk-and-auspicious-mummies.html) - [KSB Setonaikai Broadcasting: final report on the Enjuin "mermaid mummy" (7 February 2023, Japanese)](https://news.ksb.co.jp/article/14833910) - [KSB Setonaikai Broadcasting: research team begins study of the mummy (2022, Japanese)](https://news.ksb.co.jp/article/14538285) - [Nichibunken record 3400003: *Ume no chiri*, the daughter who ate the fish](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=3400003) - [Nichibunken record 3420017: *Teisei kidan*, the white nun's cave at Obama](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=3420017) - [Nichibunken record 2460012: Okayama, the thousand-year nun (1935)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2460012) - [Nichibunken record 2363767: Gifu, Yao Bikuni's birthplace](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2363767) - [Nichibunken record 3880001: *Shokoku rijin dan*, the ningyo and the earthquake](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=3880001) - [Nichibunken record 3200037: *Seikai zokudan*, the Horie catch of 619](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=3200037) - [NDL Digital Collections: Toriyama Sekien, 百鬼夜行拾遺 (1805 edition), the ningyo page](https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2551539/1/8/) - [NDL Image Bank column: Toriyama Sekien's yokai catalogues and their dates](https://www.ndl.go.jp/imagebank/column/sekienyokai) - [Wikipedia: Ningyo (pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ningyo) --- ## Tsuchigumo (土蜘蛛): Earth Spider of Japanese Legend URL: https://japan.je/yokai/tsuchigumo.html ### What is a tsuchigumo? *Tsuchigumo* (土蜘蛛), "earth spider", is a name with two separate histories. In Japan's oldest chronicles it is not a monster at all. It is an insult that the historians of the Yamato court used for local chiefs and their followers who refused to submit, people said to live in pits and caves. Many centuries later the same word came to mean a gigantic spider, a shape-shifting demon that creeps into the sickroom of the warrior Minamoto no Raikō and is hunted down by him and his men. Dictionaries keep the senses apart. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* gives the word first as another name for a real ground-dwelling spider, and second as a contemptuous name for native peoples who would not bow to the central government. The monster grew slowly out of that second sense. ### Earth spiders in the ancient chronicles The earliest appearance is in the *Kojiki* of 712. In the story of the first emperor, Jinmu, the conqueror reaches the great cave of Osaka, a place in Yamato and not the modern city. There "earth-spiders with tails", eighty fierce warriors, lie in wait for him. He offers them a banquet and gives each guest a server with a hidden sword. When he sings a song, his men cut them all down. Basil Hall Chamberlain, who translated the *Kojiki* in 1882, noted that this passage writes the name partly by sound, as 土雲 ("earth cloud"), not with the character for spider. The *Nihon Shoki* of 720 mentions tsuchigumo several more times. In the Jinmu chapter, three groups of them in Yamato trust to their own strength and refuse to come to court, and they are put to death. Another band, at Takaowari, has short bodies and long arms and legs. The emperor's troops catch them in nets woven from vines, and the chronicle uses this to explain the place-name Katsuragi. In the chapter on Emperor Keikō, the emperor's progress through Kyushu becomes a string of clashes with cave-dwelling tsuchigumo who will not obey him. Among them are two who live in a great cavern called the Rat's Cave. His soldiers destroy them with mallets made of camellia wood. These passages describe a political category, not a kind of creature. William George Aston, who translated the *Nihon Shoki* in 1896, pointed out that its tsuchigumo have ordinary Japanese names and live in long-settled parts of the country such as Yamato and Kyushu. He took their strange bodies to be "nothing more than a product of the popular imagination" working on the name. ### The Fudoki and the "earth-hiders" debate The provincial gazetteers called *Fudoki*, compiled in the eighth century, add local detail. The *Hitachi Fudoki* says that in the local speech the *kuzu* people of that region were called tsuchigumo or *yatsukahagi*, a name the Nipponica encyclopedia explains as "long-legged ones". They dug pits everywhere, lived in them, and hid inside whenever anyone came. The Heibonsha encyclopedia adds that tsuchigumo also appear in the *Fudoki* of Bungo and Hizen, and in surviving fragments of those for Settsu, Echigo, Higo and Hyūga. Their stories range from Mutsu in the north-east to Hyūga in southern Kyushu, and in every one they are the enemy in a story of conquest. Who these people were is still debated. Heibonsha lists three theories: they were farmers who lived in pit dwellings, they were Emishi (the peoples of the north-east), or they were local earth gods. The Nipponica entry suggests that the name was a slur for groups who lived more by hunting than by rice farming. Heibonsha goes further and wonders whether the cave-dwelling habits were invented to fit the name, rather than the name being given because of the habits. The word's origin is just as uncertain. The eighteenth-century scholar Motoori Norinaga thought these people were likened to spiders because of how they lived. Chamberlain preferred to read the word as a corruption of *tsuchi-gomori*, "earth-hiders". Aston thought the choice hardly mattered, since in his view the Japanese words for spider and for hiding came from the same root. ### From rebels to monster: the Tsuchigumo-zōshi By the Middle Ages the word had come loose from history. The Kodansha biographical dictionary sums up the change in one line: in the medieval period the tsuchigumo became a symbol of monsters and shape-shifters, and passed into Noh and kabuki. The key work is a picture scroll, the *Tsuchigumo-zōshi* (土蜘蛛草紙). It is held by the Tokyo National Museum and designated an Important Cultural Property. The Nipponica encyclopedia thinks the story was composed in the Kamakura period, and it dates the surviving scroll to the fourteenth century. Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs also lists it as a fourteenth-century work. An old attribution to the painter Tosa Nagataka is, says Nipponica, unproven and does not fit the date. The scroll is just under ten metres long. In the story, Raikō and his retainer Watanabe no Tsuna enter a ruined house at Kaguraoka, in northern Kyoto, and one apparition after another tries to drive them out. The Agency for Cultural Affairs remarks that the monsters are full of personality and rather comical. A sword-stroke draws blood, and the two men follow the trail to a cave deep in the western hills. There they find an enormous earth spider and kill it. The closing scenes show the spider being beheaded and the house being burned. Each man appears twice in the same scene, a standard picture-scroll device for showing time passing. Raikō is the same hero who beheads the oni [Shuten-dōji](https://japan.je/yokai/shuten-doji.html), and his monster-slaying is largely the work of later storytellers. JAANUS, Columbia University's dictionary of Japanese art, notes that most Edo-period paintings of the spider fight drew not on the scroll but on other sources, such as the *Tale of the Heike* and the Noh play. ### The Noh play Tsuchigumo The Noh play *Tsuchigumo* is a fifth-category demon play performed by all five schools; the Konparu and Hōshō schools write its title 土蜘. Its author is unknown. According to the-noh.com and Nipponica, its source is the "Book of Swords" (*Tsurugi no maki*), a chapter about the heirloom swords of the Minamoto found in some texts of the *Tale of the Heike*. Raikō lies ill with a strange sickness. His attendant Kochō brings medicine, but he grows worse. Late at night an unknown monk appears at his bedside reciting an old poem about a spider, then throws threads to bind him. Raikō seizes his sword Hizamaru and cuts the creature, which vanishes. He renames the blade Kumokiri, "Spider-cutter". In the second half a warrior, Hitorimusha, and his men follow the blood to an old mound, which Nipponica places on Mount Katsuragi. That is the same district as the vine-net story in the chronicle. The spider spirit bursts out and fights back with its webs, but it is finally beheaded. The play's great visual effect is the thread. Nipponica explains that it is thin *ganpi* paper wrapped tightly round a lead core and cut into fine strips. Thrown from the actor's hand, it streams across the stage like a white rainbow. Kawatake Mokuami turned the play into the kabuki dance *Tsuchigumo*, first performed at Tokyo's Shintomi-za in 1881 by Onoe Kikugorō V. Kikugorō made it the first of his family's collection of signature plays, the *Shinko engeki jisshu*. ### Mounds, masks and local legends Many places still claim an earth spider. Reports gathered in the Nichibunken yokai database record a *tsuchigumo-zuka* (spider mound) at Hitokotonushi Shrine in Gose, Nara Prefecture. It is said to mark where Emperor Jinmu caught tsuchigumo in a net of vines, cut them into head, body and legs, and buried them under stones. In Taketa, Ōita Prefecture, seven mounds are said to be the graves of tsuchigumo destroyed by Emperor Keikō. Such stories blend the two tsuchigumo: the rebels of the chronicles are remembered as spiders, buried in pieces like dangerous monsters. The spider also became a popular character. A 1935 report on Kyoto toys lists papier-mâché tsuchigumo masks sold at the April *kyōgen* performances of Mibu-dera temple. ### Frequently asked questions ### What does tsuchigumo mean? It means "earth spider". In the eighth-century chronicles it was an insulting name for local groups who resisted the Yamato court and were said to live in pits and caves. From the Middle Ages on, it came to mean a giant spider monster. ### Were the tsuchigumo real people? The chronicles present them as real chiefs with Japanese personal names, living in places such as Yamato and Kyushu. Scholars read the name as a slur for groups that resisted the court, not the name of a separate race. They still disagree about who these groups were: cave-dwelling farmers, the Emishi, or local gods recast as enemies. ### Who killed the tsuchigumo? In the fourteenth-century *Tsuchigumo-zōshi*, Minamoto no Raikō and Watanabe no Tsuna kill the giant spider in a cave in the western hills of Kyoto. In the Noh play, Raikō wounds it with his sword, which he renames Kumokiri, and the warrior Hitorimusha's men finish it off at its mound. In the ancient chronicles, Emperor Jinmu, Emperor Keikō and their troops put down the human tsuchigumo. ### What is the difference between a tsuchigumo and a jorogumo? They are separate yokai. The tsuchigumo begins as a name for human enemies of the early state and becomes the giant spider of the Raikō legend. The [jorogumo](https://japan.je/yokai/jorogumo.html) is a spider that takes the form of a woman, known mainly from Edo-period tales and local waterfall legends. ### Where can I see the Tsuchigumo-zōshi scroll? The fourteenth-century scroll belongs to the Tokyo National Museum, which also holds a Meiji-period copy. Picture scrolls are not always on display, so check the museum's exhibition schedule before visiting. ### Sources - [土蜘蛛: *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten*, *Daijisen*, Nipponica, Heibonsha *Sekai Daihyakka Jiten*, Kodansha *Nihon Jinmei Daijiten* (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%9C%9F%E8%9C%98%E8%9B%9B) - [土蜘蛛草紙: Nipponica entry with image caption (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%9C%9F%E8%9C%98%E8%9B%9B%E8%8D%89%E7%B4%99) - [*Tsuchigumo-zōshi*, Cultural Heritage Online, Agency for Cultural Affairs](https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/494096) - [*Tsuchigumo-zōshi* Meiji-period copy, Cultural Heritage Online](https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/456201) - [Chamberlain, *Kojiki* (1882), Section 48: the earth-spiders of the cave of Osaka (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_48) - [Aston, *Nihongi* (1896), Book III: Emperor Jinmu and Aston's note on the Tsuchi-gumo (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nihongi/Book_III) - [Aston, *Nihongi*, Book VII: Emperor Keikō in Kyushu (Wikisource)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nihongi/Book_VII) - [Tsuchigumo, JAANUS dictionary of Japanese art, Columbia University](https://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/jaanus/record/tsuchigumo) - [*Tsuchigumo* (Ground Spider): synopsis, the-noh.com](https://www.the-noh.com/en/plays/data/program_002.html) - [*Tsuchigumo*: play details and source, the-noh.com](https://www.the-noh.com/en/plays/data/detail_002.html) - [Nichibunken record C2910094-000: the spider mound at Hitokotonushi Shrine, Gose (1988)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C2910094-000) - [Nichibunken record 0640142: seven mounds of Taketa, Ōita (1915)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0640142) - [Nichibunken record 1232898: tsuchigumo masks at Mibu-dera, Kyoto (1935)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1232898) - [Wikipedia: Tsuchigumo (pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsuchigumo) --- ## Kasa-obake (傘おばけ): Umbrella Yokai URL: https://japan.je/yokai/kasa-obake.html ### What is a kasa-obake? The *kasa-obake* (傘おばけ), "umbrella ghost", also called *karakasa-obake*, is an old oiled-paper umbrella that has come to life. In its familiar form it hops about on a single leg, often wearing a wooden clog, with a face on its paper and a long tongue hanging out. Today it is usually drawn with one big eye. It does not haunt anyone, curse anyone or carry a moral. It simply bounces into view and makes people jump, or laugh. The kasa-obake is one of the most recognisable yokai in Japan, and one of the least explained. Unlike the kappa, the fox or the [Yamauba](https://japan.je/yokai/yamauba.html), it has almost no folklore of its own. There are no regional legends about where it lives, no rules for keeping it away and no famous encounters. It is above all a picture. What history it has is a history of drawings, prints, games and stage effects, and that is the story this page tells. ### A picture with no story The clearest way to see how thin the folklore is, is to search for it. The *Kaii-Yōkai Densho* database of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) indexes supernatural reports from local histories and folklore journals across Japan. Under the names *kasa-obake* and *karakasa-obake*, our searches returned nothing. The nearest records are scattered and unrelated. A report from Yamagata Prefecture says that on a rainy night the ribs of an umbrella glowed in front of a bridge. In Fukushima Prefecture, a doctor had his fish stolen by a giant holding an umbrella. People said the giant was a weasel, since weasels took that shape on rainy days. In Ehime Prefecture, a woman's umbrella grew heavy at a place where someone had died, as though something were pressing on it. None of these is a hopping, one-eyed umbrella. In these stories the umbrella is a prop for some other spirit, not the yokai itself. That fits a wider change described by the yokai scholar Kagawa Masanobu. Once illustrated catalogues of yokai appeared in the eighteenth century, he argues, a yokai came to be identified by its name and its look, like a character in a modern monster collection, rather than by the strange happening it explained. ### Umbrellas in the night parade Umbrella monsters do have a long pedigree in painting. The tradition of the *Hyakki yagyō emaki*, the "Night Parade of a Hundred Demons" picture scrolls, includes one. A copy of the scroll in the Nichibunken collection shows a monster with a torn umbrella on its head, the tear tied up with white cord and a large eye peering through the gap. It walks on tall clogs, leaning on a staff. The same figure appears in Nichibunken's copy of a night-parade picture attributed to the painter Tosa Mitsuoki. This umbrella-headed walker is not yet the modern kasa-obake. It has a body, two legs and a stick, but it shows that painters counted the umbrella among the household things that might turn monstrous. Comic books carried the idea forward. *Sokuseki onryōji*, an illustrated booklet with a preface dated 1798, shows animals and household objects visiting a doctor. One of the patients is a personified umbrella leaning on a stick. ### The one-legged umbrella of the toy prints The kasa-obake as most people now picture it belongs to the cheap prints and games of the late Edo and Meiji periods. Its true home is the *omocha-e*, "toy prints" for children. One kind of these was the *bakemono-zukushi*, a single sheet crowded with dozens of monsters, each with its name. Kagawa notes that such sheets, along with yokai board games (*sugoroku*) and card games (*karuta*), worked as illustrated catalogues of monsters. They were a way to collect and name them, long before Pokémon. The umbrella is a regular member of the cast. On *Shinban bakemono-zukushi*, a sheet of 48 monsters by the print artist Yoshimori, the "umbrella ghost" has eyes and a mouth, sticks out its tongue, has two arms, and stands on one leg in a wooden clog. In a sugoroku board game of object monsters, its arms and its single leg are covered in hair. A shadow-picture toy print of 1881 shows a one-legged umbrella dancing with its tongue out. A Meiji-period monster sheet by Toyosada shows it dancing in a loincloth. On a set of shrine-pilgrimage stickers (*senjafuda*) from 1906, it appears again as a happily dancing silhouette. The umbrella ghost also had a life on the stage. A kabuki print of 1899, showing the swordsman Miyamoto Musashi facing the spirit Osakabe-hime, includes a one-legged umbrella monster dancing with a fan among the foxes, kappa and skeletons in the background. Across all these pictures the details shift. In Kawanabe Kyōsai's *Kyōsai hyakki gadan* (1890), an umbrella monster stares out with two eyes, and many of the toy-print umbrellas have arms. The single hopping leg, the tongue and the clog are the features that recur. ### Is the kasa-obake a tsukumogami? It is usually counted as one. A [tsukumogami](https://japan.je/yokai/tsukumogami.html) is a household object that gains a spirit with age. The Muromachi-period *Tsukumogami* scroll says it happens after a hundred years. Nichibunken's own catalogue files the umbrella sugoroku under both *bakemono* (monsters) and *tsukumogami*, because every monster on the board is a transformed tool or utensil. The connection is mainly a matter of family resemblance, though. No old source we found tells the kasa-obake's own story or explains why an umbrella in particular comes alive. It belongs with the dancing sandals and rice bowls of folk tales and the kettle stands and lutes of the picture scrolls. Like them, it is an everyday object that has started to move, and that is the whole joke. ### From bakemono to mascot Kagawa argues that by the late Edo period city people no longer feared such creatures much. In Edo, *bakemono* had become largely characters of fiction and play, made up for fun even by people who did not believe in them. He adds that the Edo public found its monsters comical but not yet "cute". That softer, friendlier image is modern. The kasa-obake fits this history perfectly. It began as a figure in a parade of monsters, became a stock face on children's prints and games, and is now a friendly mascot of yokai culture. It may be the purest example of a yokai that exists because people enjoyed drawing it. ### Frequently asked questions ### What is a kasa-obake? It is a yokai in the form of an old paper umbrella that has come alive. It is usually drawn hopping on one leg, sometimes in a wooden clog, with a long tongue and, today, often a single large eye. It is also called *karakasa-obake*. ### Is the kasa-obake a tsukumogami? It is generally grouped with the tsukumogami, household objects that come alive in old age. Nichibunken's image database files umbrella monsters alongside other object monsters under that heading. No traditional story explains how an umbrella in particular becomes one. ### Is the kasa-obake dangerous? Not in any source we found. Edo and Meiji pictures show it dancing, hopping and pulling faces. It is a comic figure meant to startle and amuse. ### Are there any folk tales about the kasa-obake? Almost none. A search of the Nichibunken folklore database turned up no reports of a one-legged umbrella monster. The few umbrella stories it holds involve weasels or other spirits using an umbrella. The kasa-obake is known almost entirely from scrolls, prints, games and the stage. ### Why does the kasa-obake have one leg? No early source we found explains it. The night-parade scrolls show an umbrella-headed figure on two legs. By the Meiji period the one-legged, hopping form is standard on toy prints, board games and theatre prints. ### Sources - [Nichibunken Kaii-Yōkai Densho Database (search page)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/YoukaiDB/) - [Nichibunken record 1150047: glowing umbrella ribs on a rainy night, Yamagata (1977)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1150047) - [Nichibunken record 1420126: a weasel as a giant with an umbrella, Fukushima (1970)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1420126) - [Nichibunken record 0200192: an umbrella grows heavy, Ehime (1985)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0200192) - [Nichibunken Yōkai Image Database: torn-umbrella monster, *Hyakki yagyō emaki*](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiGazou/card.cgi?identifier=U426_nichibunken_0054_0005_0002) - [Nichibunken Yōkai Image Database: torn-umbrella monster, *Tosa Mitsuoki hyakki yagyō no zu*](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiGazou/card.cgi?identifier=U426_nichibunken_0095_0025_0000) - [Nichibunken Yōkai Image Database: umbrella in *Sokuseki onryōji* (1798)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiGazou/card.cgi?identifier=U426_nichibunken_0475_0005_0000) - [Nichibunken Yōkai Image Database: Yoshimori, *Shinban bakemono-zukushi*, "Karakasa no obake"](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiGazou/card.cgi?identifier=U426_nichibunken_0073_0018_0000) - [Nichibunken Yōkai Image Database: *Ōshinban bakemono tobimawari sugoroku* (object monsters)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiGazou/card.cgi?identifier=U426_nichibunken_0081) - [Nichibunken Yōkai Image Database: one-legged umbrella, shadow-picture toy print (1881)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiGazou/card.cgi?identifier=U426_nichibunken_0269_0010_0000) - [Nichibunken Yōkai Image Database: Toyosada, *Ōshinban bakemono-zukushi* (Meiji period)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiGazou/card.cgi?identifier=U426_nichibunken_0225_0046_0000) - [Nichibunken Yōkai Image Database: umbrella silhouette on *senjafuda* (1906)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiGazou/card.cgi?identifier=U426_nichibunken_0371_0001_0002) - [Nichibunken Yōkai Image Database: two-eyed umbrella, Kawanabe Kyōsai, *Kyōsai hyakki gadan* (1890)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiGazou/card.cgi?identifier=U426_nichibunken_0093_0002_0007) - [Nichibunken Yōkai Image Database: dancing umbrella in a kabuki print (1899)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiGazou/card.cgi?identifier=U426_nichibunken_0436_0003_0000) - [Kagawa Masanobu, "Yōkai: kyokō o tanoshimu seishin ga unda Japanīzu monsutā", nippon.com](https://www.nippon.com/ja/japan-topics/b02504/) - [Wikipedia: Kasa-obake (pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasa-obake) --- ## Yamauba (山姥): Mountain Witch of Japanese Folklore URL: https://japan.je/yokai/yamauba.html ### Who is the yamauba? The *yamauba* (山姥), also read *yamanba*, is the woman of the mountains: a wild old woman who lives deep in the hills, beyond the edge of village life. She is one of the most widespread figures in Japanese folklore, and one of the hardest to pin down. In some stories she lures travellers into her hut and eats them. In others she helps women in childbirth, brings wealth to a household, or raises the strongest boy in Japan. Sometimes she does both in the same region. The folklorist Komatsu Kazuhiko, writing in Heibonsha's encyclopedia, puts this double nature at the centre. People feared the yamauba as a man-eater, but they also believed she could bring good fortune. He lists other names for her, including *yamaonna* ("mountain woman"), *yamahime* ("mountain princess"), *yamajorō* and *yamahaha* ("mountain mother"). He also notes that some places imagine her as young rather than old. ### How she looks The picture varies from place to place, but Komatsu gives a common core. She is tall, with long hair, skin so white it is almost transparent, piercing eyes and a mouth split to the ears. She is said to have a taste for human children, and anyone who meets her in the mountains may fall ill or meet some other misfortune. Medieval writers could be even more vivid. Heibonsha quotes the Muromachi-period tale *Hanayo no hime*. There the yamauba has a face like a flat tray and deep-sunk eyes that bulge out. Her fangs grow up beside her nose, her nose is like a bird's beak, and her red, shaggy hair has fourteen or fifteen horn-like lumps in it. The same entry records a Kyoto sideshow of 1609 near Tōfuku-ji temple that claimed to exhibit a live yamauba. She turned out to be a human woman, but the crowds of every class who came to see her suggest that many people thought such a creature real. ### The yamauba of the folktales In folktales (*mukashibanashi*) the yamauba is most often a villain. In *Ushikata yamauba* ("The Ox-driver and the Yamauba"), a man leading an ox or packhorse over a mountain pass meets her. She eats his load of fish or salt, then eats the animal. He flees and hides in a lonely house, which turns out to be hers, and in the end he tricks her and burns her to death in her own bath-kettle. The Nipponica encyclopedia notes that ox- and packhorse-drivers were really travelling peddlers and probably spread the story themselves. It also compares the ending to tales such as "Hansel and Gretel". In *Kuwazu nyōbō* ("The Wife Who Doesn't Eat"), a stingy man marries a woman who eats nothing. Then he spies on her and sees her pouring rice into a second mouth on top of her head. She carries him off to the mountains in a tub, but he escapes and hides in a patch of iris and mugwort. That, the tale explains, is why these plants are hung from the eaves at the festival on the fifth day of the fifth month. Heibonsha notes that the wife is a yamauba or an oni in many tellings, but a spider more and more often as one moves west. In one tale recorded in Gifu Prefecture, the yamauba-wife threatens to come back that night as a spider and bind her husband with thread. The best-known chase is *Sanmai no ofuda* ("The Three Charms"). A young temple novice is pursued by a monstrous old woman and throws down, one by one, the three paper charms he carries. One becomes a mountain and one a river, and the woman crosses both. The third becomes a fire that finally stops her. Nipponica's summary calls the pursuer an *onibaba* (ogress), but its entry on the yamauba lists this tale among hers. It also notes that this "magical flight" pattern is found around the world, and that the *Kojiki* myth of Izanagi's escape from the underworld is a classic example. Yet other tales show her kind side. In *Ubakawa* ("The Old-Woman Skin") and *Nukafuku Komefuku*, she helps the hero of the story with magical gifts and changes their fortune. ### Kintarō's mother The yamauba's gentlest role is as a mother. Nipponica records traditions of a yamauba who bears six or twelve children on a mountain rock and nurses them. It also mentions one who helps at the mountain birth of Emperor Ōjin, and the yamauba who raises the boy Kintarō in the mountains of Hakone. Kintarō grew up to be Sakata no Kintoki, one of the four retainers of Minamoto no Raikō who appear in the legend of [Shuten-dōji](https://japan.je/yokai/shuten-doji.html) and fight the [tsuchigumo](https://japan.je/yokai/tsuchigumo.html). The stage made the yamauba his mother. According to Heibonsha, the first work to do so was Chikamatsu Monzaemon's puppet play *Komochi Yamanba* (1712). In it the courtesan Yaegiri becomes a yamauba and raises Kaidōmaru, the future Kintoki, in the hills, and Raikō himself comes to stay at her hut. A Heibonsha entry on Kintoki adds that the warrior tale *Zentaiheiki* has the yamauba conceive him after dreaming of a red dragon amid thunder. A whole family of kabuki dances, the *yamanba-mono*, grew from this. The version most often staged today, the "new Yamanba", dates from 1848. Printmakers loved the pair. The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds several prints by Kitagawa Utamaro, all dated about 1795, that show the yamauba playing with Kintarō or blackening her teeth beside him. ### The Noh play Yamanba The yamauba is also the subject of one of the great Noh plays, *Yamanba*. The-noh.com gives its author as Zeami "according to one tradition", and Japanese encyclopedias differ between "traditionally attributed to Zeami" and "author unknown". The play is certainly old. Zeami's recorded talks, the *Sarugaku dangi* of 1430, already name it. A courtesan from the capital has become famous for a song-and-dance about the yamauba's wanderings through the mountains, and she is nicknamed "Hyakuma Yamanba" for it. On a pilgrimage to the temple Zenkō-ji, she and her party reach Mount Agero, on the border of Echigo and Etchū. There night falls suddenly in the middle of the day. A woman offers them shelter and reveals that she is the real yamauba. She darkened the sky herself, she says, so that she could hear the song sung about her. Late that night she appears in her true, fearsome form. She describes her life among peaks and gorges, preaches that good and evil are ultimately one, and dances her endless circuit of the mountains before she disappears. Heibonsha's entry observes that in the play's own words the yamauba, usually thought a terrible ogress, is in fact a mountain woman who helps people unseen. The role is played in a special mask named after her, the *yamanba* mask. ### Local beliefs Folklore reports collected in the Nichibunken database show how differently communities lived with her. A record from Ehime Prefecture tells of a yamauba who came every year to help pound the New Year rice cakes, which brought prosperity. The villagers disliked her shabby clothes and changed the pounding day to avoid her. After that, disasters and epidemics struck. To appease her they built a shrine, Uba Daimyōjin, and gave up rice cakes for the first three days of the year. In Kagawa Prefecture, people were not to cross the mountains on the twentieth day of the twelfth month, because the yamauba was doing her washing. Nipponica records a similar washing day on the island of Iki, when people avoided using water. In Kagawa people were also told never to smile at a yamauba if they met one, but to walk past as if they had not seen her. In Ibaraki, a yamauba living in a cave was said to lend out trays and bowls until someone broke one and did not replace it. Heibonsha adds that in parts of Nagano she was expected to appear at the year-end market. Komatsu traces the figure to several roots at once: villagers' awe of people who lived and worked in the mountains, women who served the mountain god or wandered as shrine maidens, and the many local traditions in which the mountain god is herself a woman. ### The modern yamanba The name lives on. In the 1990s, a street style among teenage girls in Tokyo's Shibuya took the name *yamanba-gyaru*. Noriko T. Reider's *Mountain Witches: Yamauba* (2021), the first book-length study of the figure in English, discusses them in its chapter on the yamauba in modern culture. Her other relatives on this site include [Yuki-onna](https://japan.je/yokai/yuki-onna.html), the woman of the snow. ### Frequently asked questions ### Is the yamauba good or evil? She is both. Folktales such as *Ushikata yamauba* and *Sanmai no ofuda* make her a man-eater. Other stories show her helping at births, raising Kintarō, giving magical gifts or bringing wealth to a household that treats her well. Folklorists see this double nature as her defining trait. ### What is the difference between yamauba and yamanba? They are two readings of the same characters, 山姥, "mountain old woman". *Yamanba* is commonly used for the Noh play and the kabuki dances, and both readings are used for the folklore figure. ### Is the yamauba Kintarō's mother? In popular tradition, yes. Chikamatsu's puppet play *Komochi Yamanba* (1712) made her the mother of Kaidōmaru, the future Sakata no Kintoki. Folk tradition also tells of a yamauba raising the boy in the mountains of Hakone. ### Who wrote the Noh play Yamanba? It is traditionally attributed to Zeami, but the attribution is not certain, and some reference works list the author as unknown. The play existed by 1430, when Zeami's recorded talks mention it. ### What does a yamauba look like? In most regional accounts she is tall, with long hair, very pale skin, glaring eyes and a mouth split to her ears. Some places imagine her as a young woman instead of an old one. ### Sources - [山姥 (*yamauba* and *yamanba*): *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten*, Heibonsha (Komatsu Kazuhiko, Yokomichi Mario), Nipponica, Britannica Japan and related entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%B1%B1%E5%A7%A5) - [牛方山姥 (Nipponica) (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%89%9B%E6%96%B9%E5%B1%B1%E5%A7%A5) - [食わず女房 (Heibonsha, Nipponica, Kodansha) (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%A3%9F%E3%82%8F%E3%81%9A%E5%A5%B3%E6%88%BF) - [三枚のお札 (Nipponica) (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%B8%89%E6%9E%9A%E3%81%AE%E3%81%8A%E6%9C%AD) - [*Yamamba* (Mountain Crone): synopsis, the-noh.com](https://www.the-noh.com/en/plays/data/program_046.html) - [*Yamamba*: play details and attribution, the-noh.com](https://www.the-noh.com/en/plays/data/detail_046.html) - [Kitagawa Utamaro, *Yamauba and Kintarō*, ca. 1795, Metropolitan Museum of Art](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/45100) - [Kitagawa Utamaro, *Yamauba Playing with Kintarō*, ca. 1795, Metropolitan Museum of Art](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/54859) - [Kitagawa Utamaro, *Yamauba Blackening her Teeth, with Kintarō*, ca. 1795, Metropolitan Museum of Art](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/40244) - [Nichibunken record C3820135-000: the yamauba's New Year rice cakes, Ehime (1984)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C3820135-000) - [Nichibunken record 0470249: the yamauba's washing day, Kagawa (2001)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0470249) - [Nichibunken record 0870054: never smile at a yamauba, Kagawa (1983)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0870054) - [Nichibunken record 0640009: the bowl-lending yamauba, Ibaraki (1913)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0640009) - [Nichibunken record 2363105: the yamauba-wife who becomes a spider, Gifu (1972)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2363105) - [Review of Noriko T. Reider, *Mountain Witches: Yamauba* (2021), Supernatural Studies](https://www.supernaturalstudies.com/reviews/book-review-by-k-j-wetmore-jr-of-n-t-reider-mountain-witches) - [Wikipedia: Yama-uba (pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yama-uba) --- ## Namazu (鯰): Earthquake Catfish of Japanese Folklore URL: https://japan.je/yokai/namazu.html ### What is the namazu? The *namazu* (鯰) is the giant catfish that lies in the mud beneath Japan and makes the earth shake when it thrashes. A god keeps it in check. In the best-known version this is the deity of Kashima Shrine in Ibaraki Prefecture, who pins the fish down with a rock called the *kaname-ishi*, the "pivot" or "keystone" stone. When the god's grip loosens, the catfish moves and an earthquake follows. The idea was strong enough to enter the language. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* records *namazu* as a word for an earthquake itself. Its earliest example is a comic verse of 1702 that sums up the belief in a phrase: the whole of Japan rides on the catfish's back. The namazu is best known today, though, from the hundreds of cheap prints called *namazu-e* ("catfish pictures") that flooded Edo after the great earthquake of 1855. ### Before the catfish: dragons and earthquake gods The catfish is a fairly late arrival. In a guide published by the Hyōgo Prefectural Museum of Nature and Human Activities, Katō Shigehiro points out that Japan's oldest myths include stories of thunder, storms and wildfire but none about earthquakes. The first earthquake in the *Nihon Shoki* is a bare entry for the year 416. Under the year 599 the chronicle records a quake that destroyed buildings, after which worship was ordered for the gods of earthquakes. The Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto* adds that no specific god is named. Before the catfish took over, Katō writes, many people believed that a dragon under the ground caused earthquakes, and Buddhist teaching also blamed dragons. A book published just after the 1855 quake, *Jishin kō*, reproduces an "earthquake creature" coiled like a dragon around the islands of Japan, with a poem about Kashima's keystone beside it. Its source was said to be a calendar of 1198, but that calendar has since been shown to be a later fake. A letter of Toyotomi Hideyoshi about building his castle at Fushimi tells his official to take care against the *namazu*, using the fish as a figure for earthquakes. But the shift from dragon to catfish is usually placed in the middle of the Edo period. Katō notes that a 1679 linked verse in which Matsuo Bashō took part is counted as the first text in which the earthquake dragon turns into a catfish. ### Kashima and the keystone The *kaname-ishi* stands in the woods of Kashima Jingū, some distance from the main shrine buildings. The Nipponica encyclopedia describes it as a round stone about 25 centimetres across and 15 centimetres high, with a slight hollow in its top. Its roots are said to run deep underground. A well-known legend says that the Mito lord Tokugawa Mitsukuni once had his men dig around it for seven days and nights without reaching the bottom. The stone's original meaning was probably different. Nipponica cites a shrine record saying that the Kashima deity sat on this stone when he came down to earth, and notes that it was once called the "seat stone". In other words it began as an *iwakura*, a rock where a god descends, and only later became the lid on the earthquake fish. The Kokugakuin encyclopedia makes a similar point about the god. Kashima's deity, Takemikazuchi, appears in the *Kojiki* and *Nihon Shoki* as the god who wins the land of Izumo for the heavenly gods, with no link to earthquakes. That role grew later out of legends about the keystone. Heibonsha's encyclopedia gives the popular explanation in its fullest form. The stone is a nail that holds the catfish by its head and tail, and if it works loose, the fish stirs. The keystone was firmly in popular culture by the seventeenth century. A *kana-zōshi* book titled *Kaname-ishi* (1663) contains a charm-poem that was still being reproduced two centuries later. Roughly translated: "Though it may shake, the keystone will never come out, as long as the god of Kashima endures." Nipponica adds that other shrines around Japan have stones of their own said to hold down earthquakes. ### The catfish prints of 1855 The Ansei Edo earthquake struck the shogun's capital on the night of the second day of the tenth month of Ansei 2, 11 November 1855. It was a shallow quake directly beneath the city. Katō gives its magnitude as 6.9 and the deaths as more than four thousand. The historian Gregory Smits, quoted by Penn State University, estimates it at about 7.0 and puts the deaths at no fewer than seven thousand. Prints and broadsheets went on sale almost at once. Smits writes that hastily printed, anonymous sheets were selling two days after the quake. Among them were the namazu-e, colour woodblock prints built around the earthquake catfish. Katō notes that a catfish had already appeared on broadsheets after the Zenkōji earthquake of 1847, but it was the Ansei prints that fixed the image of the earthquake catfish in the popular mind. They were published without the censors' approval and without names. The Nipponica entry suggests that leading artists of the day, and writers such as Kanagaki Robun, were probably involved. Counts of the designs vary: about 200 according to Nipponica and the National Museum of Japanese History, more than 400 according to Smits. The authorities soon moved against them. Nipponica says the shogunate seized the printers' woodblocks in the twelfth month, about two and a half months after the quake. Smits says it acted within a month. ### What the prints show The prints treat the disaster with startling humour. Some are protective charms that show the Kashima god pinning the fish under his stone, sometimes helped by the thunder god [Raijin](https://japan.je/yokai/raijin.html). In others, people who lost everything beat the catfish or turn it into grilled eel-style *kabayaki*. Remorseful catfish apologise for the damage they caused. One print in the National Diet Library offers a clever excuse for the god's absence. The quake fell in *Kannazuki*, the "month without gods", when the gods were believed to leave their shrines and gather at Izumo. So the god Ebisu, left on duty, pins the catfish with a gourd so that it can be taken to Izumo. Many prints are about money. After the quake, builders and other craftsmen were suddenly in demand, and the prints show them doing well while the rich lose their hoards. Some even show the catfish as a bringer of good fortune. Heibonsha's encyclopedia, drawing on the Dutch scholar Cornelius Ouwehand, explains that the earthquake catfish in these prints is both destroyer and saviour. The quake was imagined as *yonaoshi*, "world renewal", that set an unbalanced society right. Smits reads the prints as a coded way of commenting on politics. They showed the shogunate as helpless before the forces of nature, a dozen years before it fell. ### The catfish after 1855 Katō notes that in the Meiji era the catfish stopped being drawn as an earthquake. It returned as a cartoon of the new bureaucrats, whose drooping moustaches looked like whiskers. After the great quakes of 1891 and 1923, catfish cartoons appeared again. He also records the cries people once gave when the ground shook, *yonaori* ("the world is mended") and *manzairaku* ("ten thousand years of joy"). Local folklore kept its own versions of the story. A 1931 report from Iwate says the Kashima god once held the great catfish down with a golden sword. When that sword rotted, earthquakes became frequent, until he replaced it with one of stone. The belief that catfish sense earthquakes in advance also survived. Smits notes that government-funded studies of catfish in aquariums continued as late as 1993. Large collections of the 1855 prints can be seen online through the University of Tokyo Library's Ishimoto Collection, assembled by the seismologist Ishimoto Mishio, and in 2021 the National Museum of Japanese History exhibited a private collection of them for the first time. ### Frequently asked questions ### Why is the catfish linked to earthquakes in Japan? Folk belief held that a giant catfish lived beneath the ground and that its thrashing caused earthquakes. The idea seems to have replaced an older belief in an earthquake dragon during the Edo period. It became the dominant image after the 1855 Ansei Edo earthquake, when hundreds of catfish prints went on sale. ### What is the kaname-ishi? It is a small, round, partly buried stone at Kashima Jingū in Ibaraki Prefecture. It is said to reach deep into the earth and to hold down the earthquake catfish. Scholars think it was originally a seat for the shrine's god to descend upon, and only later became the catfish's keystone. ### What are namazu-e? They are colour woodblock prints of the earthquake catfish, published anonymously in Edo after the earthquake of November 1855. They range from protective charms to satire about the rich losing money and tradesmen growing prosperous. Estimates of the number of designs range from about 200 to more than 400. ### Who holds down the namazu? Usually the god of Kashima Shrine, Takemikazuchi, using the *kaname-ishi*. In some 1855 prints, Ebisu stands in for him, because the quake struck in the month when the gods were away at Izumo. ### Can catfish predict earthquakes? The belief is old. Accounts of the 1855 quake already included reports of catfish behaving oddly beforehand. Japan funded aquarium studies of catfish as late as 1993, but they did not produce a reliable way to forecast earthquakes. ### Sources - [鯰絵: Nipponica, Heibonsha *Sekai Daihyakka Jiten* and other entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%AF%B0%E7%B5%B5) - [要石: *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten*, Nipponica, Britannica Japan and Heibonsha entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%A6%81%E7%9F%B3) - [鯰: *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* and *Daijisen* entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%AF%B0) - [Katō Shigehiro, "Namazu-e ni miru Nihonjin no jishinkan no hensen", Hyōgo Prefectural Museum of Nature and Human Activities (PDF)](https://www.hitohaku.jp/material/kids-toolbox/namazue.pdf) - ["Researcher examines the history and impacts of earthquakes in Japan" (Gregory Smits), Penn State University](https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/researcher-examines-history-and-impacts-earthquakes-japan) - [Nainokami (earthquake kami), Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9641) - [Takemikazuchi, Kokugakuin University *Encyclopedia of Shinto*](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9145) - [*Namazu-e no imajinēshon* (2021), National Museum of Japanese History, via the National Art Center Art Commons](https://www.nact.jp/artcommons/user/detail/68758) - [University of Tokyo: digital release of the Ishimoto Collection of disaster broadsheets and namazu-e](https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/ja/articles/z1901_00001.html) - [Takahashi Yukio, "Kaname-ishi to Kashima Jingū", NICT (PDF)](https://www2.nict.go.jp/sts/stmg/K3-Book/Manuscript/6.1.6%20episode%20key%20stone%20v1.pdf) - [Nichibunken record 1232127: Kashima-sama's golden and stone swords, Iwate (1931)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1232127) - [Wikipedia: Namazu (pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namazu) --- ## Inugami (犬神): Dog Spirit of Japanese Folklore URL: https://japan.je/yokai/inugami.html ### What is the inugami? The *inugami* (犬神), "dog god", is a dog spirit that was believed to possess people and make them ill. It belongs to a group of beliefs that folklorists call *tsukimono*, "possessing things", alongside possession by the fox, the [kitsune](https://japan.je/yokai/kitsune.html). The Nipponica encyclopedia describes it as found widely across the Chūgoku region, Shikoku and Kyushu. In local speech its name becomes *inugame*, *ingame* or *irigami*. Despite the name, the inugami was not imagined as an ordinary dog. Nipponica says it was often described as tiny, about the size of a mouse, and visible to some people but not to others. Reports in Nichibunken's yokai database describe it as a mouse with a vertically split mouth (Iwami, 1922) or a mouse with white and black spots (Hagi, 1922). Several sources say a family held seventy-five of them. What mattered most was not the creature itself but who was thought to control it. In nearly every account the inugami did not act alone. It was kept by a particular household and sent out, deliberately or not, against people that household envied or resented. That belief had real consequences for real families, and they are the most important part of the story. ### Possession and its cure According to Nipponica, a person possessed by an inugami might fall into fits, or act like a dog. Pains moved around the body, and all kinds of illness of body and mind followed. Women were said to be possessed more often than men. Britannica Japan adds barking and running about like a dog. A 1914 report from Kuma in Kumamoto says the victim's body swelled as if insects were crawling under the skin. Doctors could do nothing, the belief went. The inugami had to be driven out by a prayer specialist, a mountain ascetic or a shrine priest. Local cures varied. A 1922 report from Kagawa describes rubbing the sick person's body with three rice balls, then throwing them at the wall of the household believed responsible. The Kumamoto report suggests burying roasted beans in the ground and setting a stone Jizō on top, with a vow that the inugami must not come out until the beans sprout. Since roasted beans never sprout, the inugami could never come out. ### Inugami lines: how the stigma worked The Heibonsha encyclopedia, in an entry by the folklorist Komatsu Kazuhiko, describes the core belief. Certain households were said to worship a dog spirit as a god. They were called *inugami-suji* (inugami line), *inugami-mochi* (inugami holders) or *inugami-tō*. Their members were thought able to send the spirit against anyone they disliked, causing illness or death. Once a family took up an inugami it could never be rid of it, and the spirit was believed to spread through marriage. So, Komatsu writes, people avoided marrying into such families. Nipponica adds detail. The power was thought to belong to the whole family and pass to its descendants. One story said that a bride from such a family carried the inugami to her new home in her chest of drawers. Treated well, worshipped as a household god, the inugami was believed to make the family rich. Neglected, it would bring ruin. Because the families were feared, Nipponica says, neighbours avoided dealing with them in all kinds of ways, and above all refused to intermarry. The records in Nichibunken's database show how long this lasted, and who it hurt. The essayist Kitamura Intei noted in *Kiyū shōran* (1830) that descendants of inugami families in Shikoku still faced discrimination when they married. A 1954 article reports that the house rules of the Tanegashima clan in southern Kyushu included an article forbidding marriage with inugami-holding families. A 1936 study from Tokushima, where the belief was tied to women, found that women of inugami lines were held down both socially and psychologically, and often met discrimination over marriage. Field reports from the 1930s to the 1970s describe the same pattern still at work in Kōchi, Ōita and Yamaguchi, with such families shunned when marriages were arranged. A 1964 study from Tsukumi in Ōita is especially clear. It found that inugami lines faced discrimination at weddings and at funerals. The funeral custom was dying out, but the marriage barrier remained strong. Almost nobody there still believed that an inugami could actually possess anyone. What kept the discrimination alive was that relatives would break off ties with anyone who married into such a family. ### Why some families were labelled The families labelled in this way had done nothing to earn it. Scholars have looked for the social reasons behind the label. Heibonsha's entry on *tsukimono* outlines two older theories. One links possessing-spirit lines to wandering religious specialists who settled in villages, since the people who drove out spirits often used similar spirits themselves. The other ties the label to the spread of a cash economy from the middle of the Edo period. Older village powers, this theory says, used the stigma to push down families that were newly growing rich. The entry adds that newer research has found inugami lines already existing at the start of the Edo period, which fits neither theory well, and that the question needs more study. The belief was officially opposed at times. Nipponica states that the domains of Awa under the Hosokawa and Tosa under the Chōsokabe, between the medieval and early modern periods, were troubled enough by inugami beliefs to execute people involved, apparently without effect. Doubt was also voiced early. The physician Nakayama Sanryū (1614–1684), in his essay collection *Daigo zuihitsu*, passed on a Shikoku doctor's view. People fell ill because they lived in constant fear of the inugami and blamed every sickness on it. ### How an inugami was made The best-known story about the inugami is a cruel one. Komatsu, in the Heibonsha encyclopedia, gives it as the most widely known tradition. A dog is buried up to its neck in the ground and left to starve. When its hunger is at its height, its head is cut off. The head is then worshipped as a ritual object, and its spirit can be made to do the owner's will. Komatsu says this story is found often in Edo-period essays, and is still told in the regions concerned. The earliest version this article could trace is shorter. Among the Edo-period essays summarised in Nichibunken's database is *Enpekiken ki* by the physician and Confucian scholar Kurokawa Dōyū (died 1691). It explains the inugami as the lingering resentment of a dog that someone's ancestor buried alive, chanting a spell over it. The essay says the dog's spirit then possesses people and makes them ill, that worshipping the dog cures them at once, and that such things still happened in the countryside of western Japan. The full version, with the head left above ground, the food out of reach and the beheading, appears in Nichibunken's records from twentieth-century fieldwork onward. A 1922 report from Kagawa specifies a white dog and a bowl of rice set in front of it, with a vow that it will be fed and worshipped if it obeys, before its head is struck off with one blow. On Iki in 1936 a shrine priest described leaving the dog for a week, after which the severed head leapt at the food. Similar accounts were collected in Kōchi (1955) and Hiroshima (1959). Other origin stories were told alongside it. In Ehime in 1913, people said that Kōbō Daishi once gave a household a sealed charm against wild boars. When they broke the seal, a picture of a dog jumped out and became the inugami. In Tokushima the inugami was said to come from the dismembered body of the [nue](https://japan.je/yokai/nue.html): the dog-like part fell in Awa and became the inugami, while the monkey part became the *sarugami* of Sanuki. Nipponica also notes a theory that the belief came from China, where dog-spirit sorcery is recorded in Gan Bao's *Soushen ji*. The comparison is an old one. The Edo-period essayist Sakakibara Kōshū, in *Sakaki kōdan'en*, already likened Shikoku's inugami to Chinese dog sorcery. ### The inugami in pictures and fiction The inugami appears in the painted monster scrolls of the eighteenth century. Sawaki Sūshi's *Hyakkai zukan* (1737), in the Fukuoka City Museum, includes the inugami. The museum's 2026 exhibition showed a section of it with the inugami beside the *nukekubi*. Toriyama Sekien included it in *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō* (1776). In the National Diet Library's 1805 printing, the inugami is a dog-headed figure in court robes, sitting before a screen painted with waves and holding a ritual paper wand (*gohei*). It wears a tall black cap. Beside it, a small figure labelled *shirachigo* (白児) kneels and writes in a book. As usual, Sekien gives no explanation. The name became widely known in modern Japan through Yokomizo Seishi's mystery novel *Inugamike no ichizoku* (*The Inugami Clan*, 1950–51), filmed in 1976 and again in 2006. In the novel, Inugami is a family's name, and the plot is a murder case over an inheritance. ### Frequently asked questions ### What is an inugami? It is a dog spirit from the folk belief of western Japan, said to possess people and cause illness or madness. It was believed to be kept by certain families and sent against people they resented or envied. ### Where was inugami belief found? Mainly in Shikoku, and also in eastern Kyushu, the western Chūgoku region and islands further south such as Tanegashima. Reports in Nichibunken's database come from Tokushima, Kōchi, Ehime, Kagawa, Shimane, Yamaguchi, Ōita, Kumamoto and Kagoshima. ### What does inugami-mochi mean? It means "inugami holder", a household believed to keep an inugami. The label was thought to pass to descendants and to spread through marriage. Such families were widely avoided, especially as marriage partners, and the stigma lasted into the twentieth century. ### Is the buried-dog ritual historical? It is a tradition, not a documented practice. A late-seventeenth-century essay already explains the inugami as a dog buried alive with a spell. The fuller version, with the dog starved and beheaded, is described in Edo essays according to Heibonsha, and in many twentieth-century field reports. ### Is The Inugami Clan about the inugami spirit? Not directly. Yokomizo Seishi's novel (1950–51) is a detective story about a wealthy family whose surname is Inugami. It made the word familiar across Japan. ### Sources - [犬神: *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten*, Nipponica, Heibonsha (Komatsu Kazuhiko), Britannica Japan and other entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%8A%AC%E7%A5%9E-31878) - [憑物: Heibonsha entry on possession beliefs and *tsukimono-suji* (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%86%91%E7%89%A9-99143) - [黒川道祐: dates of Kurokawa Dōyū (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%BB%92%E5%B7%9D%E9%81%93%E7%A5%90-57831) - [中山三柳: dates of Nakayama Sanryū (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%B8%AD%E5%B1%B1%E4%B8%89%E6%9F%B3-1097917) - [嬉遊笑覧: dating of *Kiyū shōran* (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%AC%89%E9%81%8A%E7%AC%91%E8%A6%A7-52079) - [犬神家の一族: *The Inugami Clan*, novel and films (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%8A%AC%E7%A5%9E%E5%AE%B6%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%80%E6%97%8F-688002) - [Nichibunken yokai database: *Enpekiken ki*, the dog buried alive with a spell](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=4490008) - [Nichibunken: *Daigo zuihitsu*, a Shikoku doctor's view of the inugami](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=6330006) - [Nichibunken: *Kiyū shōran*, marriage discrimination in Shikoku](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=5860106) - [Nichibunken: Tanegashima clan rule against marriage with inugami families (1954)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0850091) - [Nichibunken: women of inugami lines in Tokushima (1936)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0550135) - [Nichibunken: "Inugami lines and social structure", Tsukumi, Ōita (1964)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2290039) - [Nichibunken: inugami lines avoided in marriage, Yamaguchi (1959)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1100072) - [Nichibunken: the white dog and the rice bowl, and the rice-ball cure, Kagawa (1922)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2400123) - [Nichibunken: the shrine priest's account, Iki (1936)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2180667) - [Nichibunken: the buried dog, Kōchi (1955)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0700069) - [Nichibunken: the buried dog, Hiroshima (1959)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1100069) - [Nichibunken: Kōbō Daishi's charm, Ehime (1913)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0640006) - [Nichibunken: the nue and the inugami of Awa, Tokushima (1914)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0640053) - [Nichibunken: swelling and the roasted-bean charm, Kumamoto (1914)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=0640060) - [Nichibunken: the mouse-like inugami with a split mouth, Iwami (1922)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2400101) - [Nichibunken: the spotted mouse of Hagi (1922)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2400139) - [Nichibunken: *Sakaki kōdan'en* compares the inugami to Chinese dog sorcery](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=4030003) - [Toriyama Sekien, *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō*, 1805 printing, inugami and shirachigo page (National Diet Library Digital Collections)](https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2553975/1/12) - [Fukuoka City Museum exhibition release: Sawaki Sūshi, *Hyakkai zukan* (1737), "Inugami / Nukekubi" section (PR Times)](https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000426.000027592.html) - [Inugami (Wikipedia, pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inugami) --- ## Amabie (アマビエ): Plague-Prophecy Yokai URL: https://japan.je/yokai/amabie.html ### What is Amabie? *Amabie* (アマビエ) is a creature from the sea that foretold an epidemic and told people to copy its picture. It has long hair, a beak-like mouth, a scaly body and three fin-like legs. Until 2020 hardly anyone outside the circle of yokai specialists had heard of it. Then, in the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, it became one of the best-known yokai in Japan. Amabie is unusual because nearly everything about it comes from one printed sheet. Only that sheet uses the name "Amabie". Researchers have since shown that it belongs to a larger family of "prophetic beasts" (*yogenjū*). These creatures appeared in nineteenth-century prints and rumours, predicted harvests and plagues, and promised protection to anyone who kept their picture. ### The broadsheet of 1846 The sheet belongs to Kyoto University Library. Its digital archive lists it as *Higo no kuni kaichū no kai (Amabie no zu)*, "A Strange Thing in the Sea of Higo Province (Picture of Amabie)". It is filed in the library's newspaper collection, and the archive gives its sides as about 23 to 29 centimetres. It is a single woodblock sheet of the kind often called *kawaraban*. A long-haired figure rises from the waves on the left, and the text is on the right. The text is short. Here is a rough translation, following the transcription given by the historian Yumoto Kōichi: "In the sea of Higo Province, something shining appeared every night. When an official of the place went to look, a thing like the one in the picture appeared. 'I live in the sea and am called Amabie. From this year, for six years, there will be good harvests in every province. But disease will spread. Quickly copy my picture and show it to people.' With that it went back into the sea. The above is a copy sent from the official to Edo. Mid-fourth month, Kōka 3." Kōka 3 is 1846. Higo is the old name of Kumamoto Prefecture. The sheet does not say which disease it means. Satō Kenji of the University of Tokyo notes that it was first discussed in print by Ono Hideo, in his book *Kawaraban monogatari* (1960). Yumoto says the sheet was shown in exhibitions about yokai from then on. He displayed it himself in 1993, at the museum where he worked. It was known to specialists long before 2020, but it was not popular. ### Amabie or Amabiko? Because the sheet stood alone, nobody could say what kind of creature Amabie was. Yumoto writes that some books even printed the name wrongly as *amaebi*, a kind of shrimp. His breakthrough came from Meiji-era newspapers. The *Yūbin Hōchi Shinbun* of 10 July 1882 reported a widow in Tokyo going from house to house handing out a "cholera charm". It showed a three-legged, monkey-like creature and a text that closely matches the Amabie sheet. A shining thing appears in the sea off Higo and calls out to people in a monkey's voice. It says it lives in the sea and is called *amahiko*. It foretells six years of good harvests but much disease in every province, with six in ten people dying, and says that those who copy its picture will escape illness. The paper added that the same picture had been sold in the streets of Edo during the cholera of 1858. Yumoto went on to find more newspaper reports and Edo-period drawings and prints. All of them spell the name as some form of *amabiko* (尼彦, 天日子, 海彦). None says "Amabie". He concludes that the creature was really called Amabiko. Someone copying the report mistook the katakana コ (*ko*) for the similar エ (*e*), and the error survived because that sheet was the only one known. He suggests that *amabiko*, "heaven's echo", was coined on the model of *yamabiko*, the mountain echo (see the [kodama](https://japan.je/yokai/kodama.html)). He admits he has found no document written that way. The researcher Nagano Eishun had also studied the beast, in a 2005 paper titled "Yogenjū Amabiko kō" ("A study of the prophetic beast Amabiko"). Satō Kenji traces the family further back. In his view Amabie is a variant of the *jinja-hime*, a fish with a woman's face whose craze was recorded in 1819 in Katō Eibian's essay collection *Wagoromo*. That in turn goes back to a mermaid scare in Etchū Province in 1805. The *jinja-hime*'s sword-shaped, three-pointed tail, he argues, became Amabie's three legs. Its title *hime* ("princess") was answered by the male *hiko* in Amahiko. On these links to mermaid lore, see the [ningyo](https://japan.je/yokai/ningyo.html). ### Other prophetic beasts The best-known prophetic beast is the *kudan* (件), a calf with a human face. Yumoto describes a broadsheet reporting a kudan that appeared on Mount Kurahashi in the twelfth month of 1836. The sheet called it a lucky beast that announced a great harvest. A kudan born in Izumo in 1867 is said to have predicted good harvests and an epidemic before dying three days later. In 1897 the newspaper *Chūgoku* reported a rumour that a kudan had been born, and that a terrible plague would follow unless people passed under seven shrine gateways without crossing a river. Folklore reports collected by Nichibunken repeat the pattern. A 1937 note from Hiroshima says a kudan is born to a cow, foretells famine, drought or war, is always right, and dies within days. A 1943 report mentions wartime rumours of kudan making predictions about the war. Another relative is the *yogen no tori*, the "prophecy bird". The Nichibunken scholar Jiang Shan cites a cholera diary of 1858, now in the Yamanashi Prefectural Museum. It records that the bird appeared on Mount Hakusan in Kaga in the twelfth month of 1857. It foretold that nine in ten people would die, but those who revered its picture morning and evening would be spared. Jiang points out that Amabie and the prophecy bird combine the two roles found in these beasts: they warn of disease and they protect against it. ### The 2020 revival Amabie's return began on social media. Satō Kenji traces it to late February 2020, when news coverage was dominated by the infections aboard a cruise ship. A shop that sells hanging scrolls of yokai explained Amabie's power against plague on Twitter and invited everyone to draw it. The news site J-CAST, writing on 8 March 2020, reported that posts mentioning "Amabie" had numbered fewer than ten a day until about 27 February. In March they shot up to nearly 20,000 on 8 March, under the hashtag #アマビエ. The free illustration site Irasutoya added an Amabie on 5 March. Satō adds that a Kyoto University librarian posted the image of the original sheet on 6 March. This gave the craze what he calls historical reality. On 9 April 2020 the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare published an awareness icon based on Amabie. The ministry's page describes it as an icon for young people featuring "the yokai Amabie, said to protect people from epidemics". It carries the slogan "*Shiranai uchi ni, hirome-chau kara*" ("Because you could spread it without knowing"). It asked people to keep avoiding unnecessary outings and the "three Cs" of closed spaces, crowds and close contact. The ministry invited households, schools and workplaces to use the logo freely and also offered an Amabie colouring page. Satō argues that this official adoption gave the craze legitimacy and set off a flood of products. He lists papier-mâché dolls, hand towels, sweets, fans, wind chimes, noodles, T-shirts, sake, and statues in bronze, stone and wood. The original sheet was honoured too. In 2021, "Amabie, the yokai who drives away plague" won the free category of the 52nd Seiun Award, a Japanese science-fiction prize. Kyoto University Library accepted the award on Amabie's behalf and put the certificate on display. ### Frequently asked questions ### Where does Amabie come from? From a single woodblock sheet dated to the fourth month of 1846, now in Kyoto University Library. It reports that the creature rose from the sea off Higo Province, modern Kumamoto Prefecture. It foretold six years of good harvests followed by disease, and told people to copy its picture and show it to others. ### Is Amabie the same as Amabiko? Probably. The historian Yumoto Kōichi found many records of a near-identical sea creature from Higo called *amabiko*. He argues that "Amabie" is a copying error for "Amabiko". The Amabie sheet is the only source that uses the name Amabie. ### What does Amabie look like? The 1846 picture shows a creature with long hair falling to its feet, a beak, diamond-shaped eyes and a scaly body. It stands on three fin-like legs or tail fins. ### Why did the Ministry of Health use Amabie? In April 2020 the ministry made an Amabie icon to encourage young people to avoid spreading COVID-19, since they might carry it without knowing. It chose Amabie because the creature had already become a popular charm against disease on social media. ### What other prophetic beasts are there? The best known is the *kudan*, a human-faced calf said to foretell harvests, epidemics or wars before dying. Others include the *amabiko*, the *jinja-hime* fish of 1819 and the "prophecy bird" of 1857–58. ### Sources - [Kyoto University Rare Materials Digital Archive: *Higo no kuni kaichū no kai (Amabie no zu)*](https://rmda.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/item/rb00000122) - [Kyoto University Library: Amabie wins the 52nd Seiun Award (8 October 2021)](https://www.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/bulletin/1391780?print=1) - [Kodansha, from Yumoto Kōichi, *Nihon genjū zusetsu*: "Amabie? Amabiko?" (2023)](https://gendai.media/articles/-/107290) - [Kodansha, from Yumoto Kōichi, *Nihon genjū zusetsu*: the prophetic beast kudan (2023)](https://gendai.media/articles/-/107261) - [Satō Kenji, "Shakai fuan to wa kotonaru Amabie būmu no riyū", University of Tokyo (24 November 2020)](https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/ja/features/z1304_00096.html) - [Jiang Shan, "Amabie kara Yogen no Tori made", *Nichibunken* no. 65 (2020) (PDF)](https://nichibun.repo.nii.ac.jp/record/7571/files/nich_065_28.pdf) - [J-CAST News: Amabie illustrations popular on social media (8 March 2020)](https://www.j-cast.com/2020/03/08381639.html?p=all) - [Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare: COVID-19 page with the Amabie awareness icon](https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/0000164708_00001_old.html) - [Data Max: Ministry of Health publishes Amabie icon (22 April 2020)](https://data-max.co.jp/article/35384) - [Nichibunken record 2180005: kudan, Hiroshima (1937)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2180005) - [Nichibunken record 1231266_004: wartime kudan rumours (1943)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1231266_004) - [Wikipedia: Amabie (pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amabie) --- ## Daidarabotchi (ダイダラボッチ): Giant of Japanese Legend URL: https://japan.je/yokai/daidarabotchi.html ### What is the Daidarabotchi? The *Daidarabotchi* (ダイダラボッチ, also written 大太法師) is a giant of Japanese place-name legend. It is so large that its footprints became ponds and the earth it dropped became hills. It does not hunt people or haunt houses. Its stories exist to explain the shape of the land: why a hollow fills with water, why a round hill stands alone in a plain, why a valley has no wisteria. The name comes in many forms. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* lists *daidabotchi*, *daidabō*, *daidahōshi* and *daidaibotchi*. Heibonsha's *Sekai Daihyakka* adds *Dadabō* and *Deirabō*. The Nipponica encyclopedia gives *Daitarabotchi*, *Daitarabō*, *Dirabotcha*, *Dirabō*, *Dendenbome* and *Tadabō*. Heibonsha says the stories are spread mainly across the Kantō and Chūbu regions of eastern Japan. In southern Kyushu a similar giant is called *Ōhito Yagorō*. ### A giant in the Hitachi Fudoki Japan's oldest written giant of this kind is not called Daidarabotchi at all. He is simply "a person" in the *Hitachi no Kuni Fudoki*, the gazetteer of Hitachi Province (modern Ibaraki). The gazetteers were ordered by the court in 713. Britannica's Japanese encyclopedia says the Hitachi text was probably finished around 723. The Yamakawa dictionary of Japanese history argues that it was sent in soon after the 713 order. In its entry for Naka District, the gazetteer describes a hill called Ōkushi. A page published by the Kantō Regional Agricultural Administration Office quotes the passage in a Japanese reading. Roughly translated: "Twelve *ri* west of the Hiratsu post station there is a hill called Ōkushi. In ancient times there was a person whose body was extremely tall. While staying on top of the hill, his hand could reach the clams on the seashore. The shells of what he ate piled up and became a hill. People of that time took the sense of 'great decay' (*ōkuchi*), and it is now called the hill of Ōkushi." The story fits a real place. The Ōgushi shell mound in Mito, a national historic site, is an Early Jōmon midden of clams, oysters and other shells. Nipponica and the Kōdansha guide to national historic sites both identify it with the gazetteer's hill. They call it the oldest record of a Jōmon shell mound in any written source. By the eighth century the coast lay far away, which may be why heaps of shells inland were explained as the leftovers of a giant's meal. Mito City has made the giant the centrepiece of the Ōgushi Shell Mound Park. The city's page describes a statue called "Daidarabō" standing 15.25 metres tall. The modern name has been attached to the old gazetteer's nameless giant. Other early texts have giants too. Heibonsha quotes the *Harima no Kuni Fudoki*, the gazetteer of Harima Province. It tells of a giant whose many footprints turned into marshes. Britannica's entry on giant tales notes another giant in the same text who had to walk bent over, because there was too little room between heaven and earth. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* also names Dōjō Hōshi, a monk of great strength in the ninth-century Buddhist tale collection *Nihon Ryōiki*, as the ancestor of the later Daidabotchi. Heibonsha adds that a twelfth-century diary, the *Taiki*, records a well Dōjō Hōshi scratched out with his nails and his footprints at Ishiyama-dera. It sees this as an echo of Daidarabotchi stories. ### Footprints, hills and broken ropes Most Daidarabotchi tales follow a few patterns. Britannica describes giant footprints across Kantō, Chūbu and other regions. It also describes a common story in which the giant carries a mountain tied up with wisteria vines. The vine snaps and the dropped earth becomes a hill. The folklore records collected in the Kaii-Yōkai Densho Database of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) are full of local versions. - In Murayama, in western Tokyo, a 1927 article in the journal *Minzoku* reported a round hill called Maruyama. It was said to be the giant's load, which fell when his wisteria carrying-rope broke as he got up from a rest. The same report mentions a well said to be his footprint. - In Gotemba, Shizuoka, a 1975 survey recorded that the giant tied a mountain with wisteria vines, meaning to put it on top of Mount Fuji. The vine broke at Ashigara and the mountain became Yagura-dake. That is why no wisteria grows there. - The *Kanagawa Prefectural History* (1977) tells of Daidarabotchi carrying Mount Fuji east into Sagami. He could not lift it again after a rest, the rope broke, and the footprint he left became the pond of Kanuma. - In Ōta, Gunma, the giant is called *Dettarabotchi*. He sat on Mount Akagi and washed his feet in the Tone River. His footprints became two ponds, and a hill called Maruyama is the ash from his pipe. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* sums up the same set of motifs. The giant built Mount Fuji in a single night, sat on Mount Haruna to wash his feet in the Tone, and left footprints that became ponds. Nipponica adds one from Sagami, in today's Kanagawa. According to the essay collection *Matsunoya hikki*, the great marsh of Sagamino was the hollow left when Daidarabotchi braced himself to lift Fuji. There was no wisteria nearby because he had stripped it all for rope. ### Mount Fuji and Lake Biwa The best-known Daidarabotchi story is not a folk report but an Edo-period book. Heibonsha and Nipponica both cite the *Kidan isshō*. In it a giant called Daidahōshi dug up all the earth of Yoshitsumi District in Ōmi and loaded it into a carrying basket. He walked three and a half paces east and tipped the basket out. The hole became Lake Biwa and the pile of earth became Mount Fuji. This is a legend, not geology. It is a good example of how the giant works in Japanese storytelling, though. Two of the country's most famous landmarks become a single afternoon's labour. The word was also used as an insult and a joke. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten*'s earliest example comes from the preface of a comic *sharebon* book of 1780, which pits Fuji against a "Daida-bōshi" in a contest of height. By 1841 the essayist of *Yōshabako* explained *daidabotchi* as a jibe at a big man, the opposite of *Issun-bōshi*, the one-inch boy of the fairy tale. ### Daita, Tokyo, and Yanagita Kunio The giant's best-known footprint may be in Tokyo. Heibonsha's *Mypedia* says that the place name Daita, in Setagaya Ward, is said to come from the legend. Nipponica gives more detail. Until fairly recently a long hollow of about two *tan* (some 2,000 square metres) lay near the Daita Yakushi temple. It was called the giant's footprint, and local people said he had built Daitabashi bridge. Britannica says there were two footprint sites in Daita, left as the giant strode across. The folklorist Yanagita Kunio made the Daidarabotchi a serious subject. His essay *Daidarabō no ashiato* ("The Footprints of Daidarabō") appeared in the April 1927 issue of the magazine *Chūō Kōron*, pages 141 to 158, according to the National Diet Library's contents listing. It was later reprinted in volume 5 of his collected works. Nipponica says that Yanagita argued *tara* in the name was a term of respect for a person of high rank. Heibonsha records a rival idea, that the name comes from *tatara*, the foot bellows of a smelting furnace. It concludes that neither explanation has been settled. ### Fallen gods or tall tales? Both major encyclopedias read the giant in the same way. Heibonsha's Hanabe Hideo suggests that the giant was once a creator figure, believed to have shaped the land. As that belief faded, it shrank into a strong man, a big lout or an [oni](https://japan.je/yokai/oni.html). Nipponica's entry on giant legends makes the same argument. In early Japan gods were imagined as huge, which is why they could make heaven and earth. It points to the creation of the islands by [Izanagi and Izanami](https://japan.je/kojiki/izanagi-and-izanami.html) and the land-pulling myth of Izumo as giant stories of the same kind. As reverence weakened, the giant turned comic. The comedy is real. Nipponica describes the Japanese giant as a figure with a touch of the ridiculous, and many stories turn on a failure: a broken rope, a dropped load, a mountain he cannot lift again. In the related tale of *hitomokko-yama*, a [tengu](https://japan.je/yokai/tengu.html) or giant works through the night, the cock crows before the job is done, and the unfinished pile becomes a hill. Heibonsha adds that the giant's deeds were also pinned on other strongmen, including *yamabushi* mountain ascetics and the warrior monk Benkei. ### Frequently asked questions ### What does Daidarabotchi mean? No one is sure. *Bōshi* or *botchi* comes from *hōshi*, "monk" or "fellow", as in the tiny hero Issun-bōshi. Yanagita Kunio read *tara* as a term of respect for a high-ranking person. Others link the name to *tatara*, the smelting bellows. Heibonsha says the question is still open. ### Is the Daidarabotchi in the Hitachi Fudoki? A giant is, but not by that name. The eighth-century gazetteer describes an unnamed, extremely tall person who ate clams from the shore while sitting on a hill. His piled shells became the hill of Ōkushi, identified today with the Ōgushi shell mound in Mito. The name Daidarabotchi was attached to this giant later. ### Did the Daidarabotchi make Mount Fuji? In legend, yes. The Edo-period book *Kidan isshō* says a giant dug out the earth of Ōmi to make Lake Biwa and dumped it to make Mount Fuji. Other local tales say he built Fuji in one night or carried it on his back. ### Is the Daidarabotchi dangerous? Not in the traditional stories. It reshapes the landscape but rarely harms people. Encyclopedias describe it as a fallen creator figure that later became a slightly comic strongman. ### Where can I see traces of the Daidarabotchi? Hollows, ponds and small hills across eastern Japan are named as its footprints or its spilled loads. The best known are in Daita in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward and at the Ōgushi Shell Mound Park in Mito, which has a 15.25-metre statue of the giant. ### Sources - [Daidabōshi / Daidarabotchi (Kotobank: Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, Britannica, Digital Daijisen, Nihon Jinmei Daijiten)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%A4%A7%E5%A4%AA%E6%B3%95%E5%B8%AB-91604) - [Daidarabotchi (Kotobank: Heibonsha Sekai Daihyakka, Mypedia)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%A0%E3%81%84%E3%81%A0%E3%82%89%E3%81%BC%E3%81%A4%E3%81%A1-3226464) - [Giant legends (Kotobank: Nipponica, including the Kidan isshō, Matsunoya hikki and Daita accounts)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%B7%A8%E4%BA%BA%E4%BC%9D%E8%AA%AC-479714) - [Giants (Kotobank: Heibonsha Sekai Daihyakka, Mypedia)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%B7%A8%E4%BA%BA-53382) - [Giant tales (Kotobank: Britannica)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%B7%A8%E4%BA%BA%E8%AA%AC%E8%A9%B1-53384) - [Hitachi no Kuni Fudoki: date and compilation (Kotobank: Britannica, Yamakawa, Nipponica)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%B8%B8%E9%99%B8%E5%9B%BD%E9%A2%A8%E5%9C%9F%E8%A8%98-120004) - [The Ōkushi passage of the Hitachi Fudoki and the Ōgushi shell mound (Kantō Regional Agricultural Administration Office)](https://www.maff.go.jp/kanto/nouson/sekkei/kokuei/nakagawa/rekishi/001plus.html) - [Ōgushi shell mound (Kotobank: Nipponica, national historic sites guide, Nihon Rekishi Chimei Taikei)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%A4%A7%E4%B8%B2%E8%B2%9D%E5%A1%9A-39112) - [Ōgushi Shell Mound Park and the Daidarabō statue (Mito City)](https://www.city.mito.lg.jp/site/education/4803.html) - [Dōjō Hōshi (Kotobank: Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, Heibonsha)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%81%93%E5%A0%B4%E6%B3%95%E5%B8%AB-1189011) - [Ōhito Yagorō (Kotobank: Heibonsha, Nipponica)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%A4%A7%E4%BA%BA%E5%BC%A5%E4%BA%94%E9%83%8E-1061385) - [Contents of *Chūō Kōron*, April 1927, listing Yanagita Kunio's "Daidarabō no ashiato" (National Diet Library Search)](https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/api/sru?operation=searchRetrieve&query=anywhere%3D%22%E3%83%80%E3%82%A4%E3%83%80%E3%83%A9%E5%9D%8A%E3%81%AE%E8%B6%B3%E8%B7%A1%22%20AND%20title%3D%22%E4%B8%AD%E5%A4%AE%E5%85%AC%E8%AB%96%22&recordSchema=dcndl&maximumRecords=5) - [Nichibunken yokai database: all Daidarabotchi records](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/ksearch.cgi?Name=%E3%83%80%E3%82%A4%E3%83%80%E3%83%A9%E3%83%9C%E3%83%83%E3%83%81&Pref=&Area=%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BD) - [Nichibunken: the dropped hill at Murayama, Tokyo (*Minzoku*, 1927)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=2240096) - [Nichibunken: Yagura-dake and the broken wisteria vine, Gotemba (1975)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=1422040) - [Nichibunken: carrying Mount Fuji and the pond of Kanuma, Kanagawa (1977)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C1450117-000) - [Nichibunken: Dettarabotchi at Akagi and the Tone River, Gunma (1982)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/youkai_card.cgi?ID=C1040166-000) - [Daidarabotchi (Wikipedia, used as a pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daidarabotchi) --- ## Nurarihyon (滑瓢): Slippery Old Man Yokai URL: https://japan.je/yokai/nurarihyon.html ### What is the nurarihyon? The *nurarihyon* (ぬらりひょん, sometimes written 滑瓢) is a yokai drawn as a bald old man with a huge, bulging head, usually in good clothes. Today he is famous as the "supreme commander" of the yokai, the boss who leads the night parade of monsters in manga and anime. That role is modern. For most of his history the nurarihyon was a picture with a name attached and very little story. The name itself is a description. The *Digital Daijisen* dictionary defines *nurarihyon* as a slimy, slippery monster that is impossible to pin down. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* lists *nurarihyon* as another form of *nurari-kurari*, an everyday word for something soft and slick that slips through your fingers. The same word is used for a person who is vague and evasive. One of the dictionary's early examples, from the book *Sugiyōji* of 1680, compares the passing years to a gourd thrown into water, drifting along *nurari-kurari*. The characters 滑瓢 used for the yokai mean "slippery" and "gourd". So from the start, the nurarihyon was something you cannot get hold of. ### Pictures without a story The nurarihyon first appears in Edo-period picture scrolls and books that line up yokai one by one, each with a name label. - **Sawaki Sūshi, *Hyakkai zukan* (1737).** This handscroll of a hundred monsters includes a nurarihyon. A reproduction on Wikimedia Commons, scanned from a modern published edition, gives the date and the artist. - **Toriyama Sekien, *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō* (1776).** Sekien's first illustrated yokai catalogue includes the nurarihyon. The National Diet Library dates the book to An'ei 5 (1776). It was followed by sequels in 1779, 1781 and 1784, but the nurarihyon belongs to the first book, not the 1779 sequel. - **An undated scroll at Brigham Young University.** The *Bakemono no e* ("Pictures of Monsters") in BYU's Harold B. Lee Library has an entry for the nurarihyon. The library notes that the scroll has no signature, seal or colophon. Its suggested date of about 1660 comes only from a 1952 dealer's catalogue, so it should be treated with caution. Later artists kept drawing him. The Nichibunken yokai image database describes a nurarihyon on a yokai board game, *Shinpan yōkai tobimawari sugoroku*. He has a large head with a broad, bald forehead, an old man's face and a beard on his chin, and he is stepping down from a palanquin. The same database lists a *nūrihyon* by the Meiji painter Kawanabe Kyōsai in his book *Kyōsai gadan*. The trouble is what these pictures leave out. They give the figure's name and shape, but no tale of what he does. The folklorist Michael Dylan Foster, quoted by *National Geographic*, puts it plainly: the nurarihyon's origins are murky. Foster argues that this "folkloric indeterminacy" is exactly why the figure has been so easy to reinvent. ### A slippery word in Edo fiction The word turns up in Edo popular fiction as well as in pictures. The translator Zack Davisson, also quoted by *National Geographic*, points to a story in *Kōshoku haidokusen*. Heibonsha's encyclopedia describes this as an *ukiyo-zōshi* collection of fifteen comic tales of the pleasure quarters, published in 1703. In the tale, a married man is infatuated with a courtesan, and a nurarihyon appears as a faceless, catfish-like creature, the spirit of deception. Davisson suggests that tales like this helped give the figure its later reputation for slyness. The catfish turns up beside the word elsewhere too. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten*'s earliest example of *nurari-kurari*, from a book of 1698, uses it right after a catfish image in a passage about a visitor to the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter. Slimy and hard to hold, the catfish (see the [namazu](https://japan.je/yokai/namazu.html)) was an obvious picture of evasiveness. ### How he became the supreme commander The idea that the nurarihyon rules the yokai can be traced to the twentieth century. In 1929 the folklorist Fujisawa Morihiko published the first volume of the Japan series of his *Yōkai gadan zenshū* ("Complete Illustrated Talks on Yokai"). The National Diet Library records it as published by Chūō Bijutsusha. Foster explains that Fujisawa put a label on a picture of the nurarihyon calling him the *oyadama* of the yokai. The word can be translated as "leader", "boss" or "chief". No Edo source we have found gives him that rank. Fujisawa's caption, not any older tale, is the earliest known source for the idea. It may simply be his reading of the old pictures of a dignified, well-dressed elder. The label stuck because of Mizuki Shigeru and his *GeGeGe no Kitarō*. Davisson says that Mizuki's version of the character played a crucial part in creating the nurarihyon of modern pop culture. The Tōei Animation series show how the role grew. - In the third TV series (1985–1988), the fourth episode, "Yōkai Nurarihyon", makes him a criminal businessman. He brings down buildings so that his own construction company can profit, helped by his henchman Shu no Bon. - In the fourth series (1996–1998), episode 96 is titled "Yōkai-ō Nurarihyon", "Nurarihyon, King of the Yokai". In it he finds a sealed mirror and appears before Kitarō as king of the yokai. - In the sixth series, Tōei's character page describes him as a well-dressed old yokai in Japanese clothes, highly cunning, with influence even in human politics. From there the boss figure spread. *National Geographic* lists later appearances, including the manga *Nurarihyon no Mago*, whose title means "Nurarihyon's Grandson". ### The uninvited guest The best-known description today is gentler. Foster describes the usual folk image as harmless: a visitor who slips into a house and helps himself to tea while the family is busy or away. It fits the slippery name and the pictures of a polite old man well. However, we have not found an Edo-period text that tells this story, and it should be read as part of the figure's modern description rather than a documented old belief. ### The sea nurarihyon of Okayama There is also a quite different nurarihyon, with nothing to do with old men. Foster, again quoted by *National Geographic*, notes theories linking the name to a sea creature of the Seto Inland Sea off Okayama Prefecture. It is a round thing about the size of a human head, related to the [umibōzu](https://japan.je/yokai/umibozu.html) or sea monk. When fishermen try to catch it, it sinks out of reach and then bobs up again to tease them. Here the name means exactly what it says: something slippery that cannot be held. It may well be closer to the word's everyday sense than the yokai boss is. ### Frequently asked questions ### Is the nurarihyon really the leader of the yokai? Not in any Edo-period source we have found. The leader idea comes from a 1929 caption by Fujisawa Morihiko calling him the "boss" of the yokai. It was then made famous by Mizuki Shigeru's *GeGeGe no Kitarō*, where he becomes the main villain and, in one 1990s episode, the "King of the Yokai". ### What does nurarihyon mean? It comes from *nurari*, "slippery", and is listed in the *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* as a form of *nurari-kurari*, meaning slick, hard to catch or evasive. The kanji spelling 滑瓢 means "slippery gourd". ### What does the nurarihyon do? The Edo pictures do not say. In modern descriptions he walks into other people's homes uninvited and makes himself comfortable, drinking their tea. In Okayama the name belonged to a head-sized ball in the sea that dodged anyone trying to grab it. ### Where does the nurarihyon first appear? In Edo-period yokai pictures. These include Sawaki Sūshi's *Hyakkai zukan* (1737) and Toriyama Sekien's *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō* (1776). An undated scroll at Brigham Young University may be older, but its date is uncertain. ### Is the nurarihyon dangerous? In folklore he is more rude than harmful. The villainous, scheming nurarihyon belongs to twentieth-century manga and anime. ### Sources - [Nurarihyon (Kotobank: Digital Daijisen)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%BB%91%E7%93%A2-594329) - [*Nurari-kurari*, with *nurarihyon* as a variant and examples of 1680 and 1698 (Kotobank: Nihon Kokugo Daijiten)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%81%AC%E3%82%89%E3%82%8A%E3%81%8F%E3%82%89%E3%82%8A-594328) - [Sawaki Sūshi's nurarihyon from the *Hyakkai zukan*, 1737 (Wikimedia Commons)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Suushi_Nurarihyon.jpg) - [Toriyama Sekien's nurarihyon from the *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō*, 1776 (Wikimedia Commons)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SekienNurarihyon.jpg) - [National Diet Library Image Bank: dates of Toriyama Sekien's yokai books](https://www.ndl.go.jp/imagebank/column/sekienyokai) - [*Bakemono no e* scroll and its dating (Brigham Young University Library)](https://bakemono.lib.byu.edu/) - [Nurarihyon in the *Bakemono no e* scroll (Brigham Young University Library)](https://bakemono.lib.byu.edu/?p=190) - [Nichibunken yokai image database: nurarihyon on a yokai sugoroku board game](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiGazou/card.cgi?identifier=U426_nichibunken_0082_0020_0000) - [Nichibunken yokai image database: Kawanabe Kyōsai's *nūrihyon*](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiGazou/card.cgi?identifier=U426_nichibunken_0442_0030_0006) - [*Kōshoku haidokusen*, 1703 (Kotobank: Heibonsha)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%A5%BD%E8%89%B2%E6%95%97%E6%AF%92%E6%95%A3-1164784) - [Fujisawa Morihiko, *Yōkai gadan zenshū*, Japan volumes, 1929–30 (National Diet Library Search)](https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/api/sru?operation=searchRetrieve&query=title%3D%22%E5%A6%96%E6%80%AA%E7%94%BB%E8%AB%87%E5%85%A8%E9%9B%86%22&recordSchema=dcndl&maximumRecords=10) - [How the nurarihyon became a yokai boss, with Michael Dylan Foster and Zack Davisson (National Geographic)](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/nurarihyon-yokai-japanese-folklore-demon-slayer) - [*GeGeGe no Kitarō* (3rd series, 1985–88), episode 4, "Yōkai Nurarihyon" (Tōei Animation)](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/tv/kitaro_3rd/episode/4/) - [*GeGeGe no Kitarō* (4th series, 1996–98), episode 96, "Yōkai-ō Nurarihyon" (Tōei Animation)](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/tv/kitaro_4th/episode/96/) - [Nurarihyon character page, *GeGeGe no Kitarō* 6th series (Tōei Animation)](https://www.toei-anim.co.jp/kitaro/character/nurari.php) - [Nurarihyon (Wikipedia, used as a pointer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurarihyon) --- ## Akaname (垢嘗): Grime-Licking Bathhouse Yokai URL: https://japan.je/yokai/akaname.html ### What is the akaname? The *akaname* (垢嘗) is a small, grotesque figure said to lick the grime from bathtubs and bathhouses. Its name means "grime-licker." *Aka* is the dirt and dead skin that comes off the body when you wash, and *name* means "lick." A short entry in the *Digital Daijisen Plus* dictionary sums up the modern picture: a yokai that licks the grime and dust left in a bath. The akaname is one of the most thinly documented yokai on this site. It has no regional folk tales behind it. A search of Nichibunken's database of folk-belief records, which collects field reports of strange beings from all over Japan, returns no cases under either *akaname* or its older name *akaneburi*. What exists is one picture, one short discussion in a seventeenth-century book of ghost talk, and a handful of later mentions in popular prints and dictionaries. This article sets out what those sources actually say. ### Sekien's picture of 1776 The name *akaname* first appears in Toriyama Sekien's illustrated yokai catalogue *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō*, published in 1776. A later printing of the book, held by the National Diet Library, lists it among the book's spirits alongside the [kodama](https://japan.je/yokai/kodama.html), the mountain echo *yamabiko*, the [kappa](https://japan.je/yokai/kappa.html) and the [kamaitachi](https://japan.je/yokai/kamaitachi.html). The picture shows the corner of a wooden bath building. Cloths hang over a rail, and two wooden pails stand on the ground. A wild-haired figure with clawed feet crouches beside the building with its long tongue out. The only writing on the page is the name, 垢嘗, with its reading in kana. That is the whole of Sekien's entry. Sekien does not say what the akaname does, where it comes from, or whether it is dangerous. Everything said about its habits since then has been read into the picture or taken from other sources. ### The akaneburi of 1686 There is an earlier text, under a different name. *Kokon Hyakumonogatari Hyōban* ("Critiques of a Hundred Tales, Old and New"), published in 1686, is a book of ghost talk with a twist. It is framed as a gathering at which guests raise strange stories and a teacher explains each one by reasoned argument. The teacher is the poet and scholar Yamaoka Genrin (1631–1672). The *Britannica Japan* encyclopedia notes that the book is said to be his work with additions by a later hand, which fits its publication fourteen years after his death. The sixth section of the second volume is titled "On the *akaneburi*" (垢ねぶりの事). *Neburu* is an older verb for "to lick," so the name means the same as *akaname*. The full text is printed in the 1915 collection *Tokugawa Bungei Ruijū*, available from the National Diet Library. In rough translation: "Someone said: 'They say the *akaneburi* is a monster that lives in old bathhouses. I can well believe there are such things in run-down mansions too, but I do not understand the name.' The teacher said: 'The name is quite reasonable. Every creature feeds on the thing from which it is born. A fish is born from water and drinks water. A louse is born from filth and feeds on filth. In the same way, the *akaneburi* arises by transformation from a place where the vapour of dust and grime has built up, and so it keeps itself alive by licking grime. It is a matter of necessity.'" This is the earliest real description, and it is not a warning. It is a small lesson in natural philosophy. The teacher treats the creature as an example of spontaneous generation, the widely held idea that some living things arise from the matter around them. He does not say it harms anyone or that people should clean to keep it away. The book is a useful neighbour for other yokai on this site. Its table of contents also includes the kamaitachi, the kappa (as *kawatarō*), the [yuki-onna](https://japan.je/yokai/yuki-onna.html) and the kodama. The very next section deals with another creature of dirty places, the "toilet monster" (*setchin no bakemono*). There the teacher concludes that whatever people meet in a privy is a spirit of the unclean vapour that has gathered there. ### Bathhouses in Edo Japan The akaneburi lived in an "old bathhouse," and that setting would have been familiar to readers. The Nipponica encyclopedia records the first public bath in Edo in 1591, when a man named Ise Yoichi opened one near Zenigame Bridge and charged a single coin. By the Bunka era (1804–1818) Edo is said to have had more than 600 public baths. Apart from samurai mansions and large households, homes had no bath of their own, so ordinary people all used the public baths. The baths of the seventeenth century were not the bright rooms of later times. The *Sekai Daihyakka* encyclopedia explains that early *furoya* were mainly steam baths, while *yuya* had hot water to sit in. Later bathhouses placed the tub behind a low entrance called the *zakuroguchi*, which customers had to stoop under. The encyclopedia describes the space inside as cramped, dark and unhygienic, and says the Meiji government banned the design for those reasons. Nipponica adds that bathhouses closed on fixed days each month to scrub tubs, pails and floors. Grime was also part of the trade. In the early Edo period some bathhouses employed women called *yuna* to scrub the dirt from customers' backs, until they were banned in 1657. A dim, steamy room where dirt was scraped off all day was a natural home for a creature born from grime. ### After Sekien: prints, games and dictionaries The name spread through popular publishing. In *Ōjidai Morokoshi Bakemono*, a comic illustrated book of 1816 by Shinratei with pictures by Katsukawa Shuntei, a bright-red boy crawls out and introduces himself as the "*akaname kozō* monster who lives in the bathhouse." A board game of 1858, *Hyakushu Kaidan Yōbutsu Sugoroku* by Ichijusai Yoshikazu, includes squares labelled *akaname* among its ghosts and monsters. By then the akaname was a recognisable comic monster. The older word had a second life in dictionaries. Ōtsuki Fumihiko's dictionary *Genkai* defines *akaneburi* first as the name of an insect that breeds in bathrooms, and second as another word for the newt (*imori*). The ordinary word for a small bathroom pest and the name of the monster were the same. The philosopher Inoue Enryō, who set out to explain away superstitions, discussed the akaneburi together with the toilet monster in his *Lectures on Yokai Studies* (*Yōkaigaku Kōgi*). In the 1923 edition he quotes the 1686 passage in full. He then suggests the belief was a delusion born from the eerie feel of such places at night and from the fact that insects breed in unclean things. ### "It scares people into cleaning" Today the akaname is usually explained as a lesson in housework. Parents supposedly told children that it would come if the bath was left dirty, so the bath was scrubbed. A popular online article on the akaname, for example, says the creature is repelled by clean homes and that keeping the bathroom clean prevents it from settling in. No early source we have read says this. Sekien's page has no text. The 1686 book explains the creature as a product of grime, not as a punishment for it. *Genkai* treats the word as an insect, and Inoue treats it as a misunderstanding. The cleaning moral appears in popular yokai books and websites of recent times, and we could not trace it to any Edo or Meiji source. It is a reasonable reading of the picture, but it should be presented as a modern interpretation, not as old folk practice. ### Frequently asked questions ### What does akaname mean? It means "grime-licker." *Aka* is the dirt and dead skin washed off the body, and *name* means "lick." The older form *akaneburi* has the same meaning. ### Where does the akaname come from? The name and the picture come from Toriyama Sekien's *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō* of 1776. An earlier book, *Kokon Hyakumonogatari Hyōban* of 1686, describes the *akaneburi*, a monster of old bathhouses born from built-up grime. ### Is the akaname dangerous? No source we have found says it harms people. The 1686 text says only that it is born from grime and lives by licking grime. ### Did the akaname story really make people clean their baths? That is a common modern explanation, but no Edo-period text we have read says so. Sekien gives no text at all, and the 1686 book explains the creature through natural philosophy, not as a warning. ### Is the akaname a real folk belief? Not in the usual sense. There are no regional folk tales about it in the Nichibunken database. It is mainly a creature of books, prints and later popular culture, though the word *akaneburi* was also an ordinary name for a small insect found in bathrooms. ### Sources - [Akaname entry, *Digital Daijisen Plus* (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%9E%A2%E5%98%97) - [Toriyama Sekien's akaname from *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō* (Wikimedia Commons image)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SekienAkaname.jpg) - [Toriyama Sekien, *Hyakki Yagyō*, 1805 printing listing the akaname (National Diet Library Digital Collections)](https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2553975/1/8) - [National Diet Library Image Bank: Toriyama Sekien's yokai books and the 1776 date](https://www.ndl.go.jp/imagebank/column/sekienyokai) - [*Kokon Hyakumonogatari Hyōban*, "On the akaneburi" and "The toilet monster," in *Tokugawa Bungei Ruijū* vol. 4, 1915 (National Diet Library Digital Collections)](https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1883248/1/18) - [Yamaoka Genrin, entries in *Britannica Japan*, *Sekai Daihyakka* and others (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%B1%B1%E5%B2%A1%E5%85%83%E9%9A%A3-144016) - [Sentō, public bathhouses, entries in Nipponica and *Sekai Daihyakka* (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%8A%AD%E6%B9%AF-154531) - [Shinratei and Katsukawa Shuntei, *Ōjidai Morokoshi Bakemono*, 1816 (National Diet Library Digital Collections)](https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/10301039/1/9) - [Ichijusai Yoshikazu, *Hyakushu Kaidan Yōbutsu Sugoroku*, 1858 (National Diet Library Digital Collections)](https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1310691) - [Ōtsuki Fumihiko, *Genkai*, 1907 printing, entry *akaneburi* (National Diet Library Digital Collections)](https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2938224/1/77) - [Inoue Enryō, *Yōkaigaku Kōgi* vol. 4, 1923 edition (National Diet Library Digital Collections)](https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/927500/1/170) - [Nichibunken Kaii-Yōkai Folklore Database (no folk records found under akaname or akaneburi)](https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/cgi-bin/YoukaiDB3/ksearch.cgi?Name=%E3%82%A2%E3%82%AB%E3%83%8A%E3%83%A1&Pref=&Area=%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BD) - [Example of the modern "keep the bath clean" explanation (Stories from Nihon)](https://storiesfromnihon.substack.com/p/yokaiakaname-bathroom-ghost) - [Akaname (Wikipedia, used as a pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akaname) --- ## Kiyohime (清姫): Serpent Woman of the Dōjōji Legend URL: https://japan.je/yokai/kiyohime.html ### Who is Kiyohime? Kiyohime (清姫) is the woman in the legend of Dōjōji, a temple in Wakayama Prefecture. A young monk on pilgrimage to Kumano stays at her house. She falls in love with him, and he promises to come back to her, but he takes another road home. She chases him, turns into a great serpent, and finds him hidden under the temple bell at Dōjōji. She coils around the bell and burns him to death inside it. The story is one of the most retold in Japan. Heibonsha's *Sekai Daihyakka Jiten* says it inspired a huge body of literature and drama. Dōjōji itself counts well over a hundred stage works on the theme. But the name Kiyohime is a late addition. In the oldest versions the woman has no name at all, and her story looks quite different. ### The earliest version: a Buddhist miracle tale The first written form of the legend is in the *Dainihonkoku Hokke-kyō Kenki*, a collection of miracle tales about the *Lotus Sutra*. The priest Chingen compiled it in the Chōkyū era (1040–1044). Its tale is titled "An Evil Woman of Muro District, Kii Province". Heibonsha notes that almost the same story appears in the *Konjaku Monogatari-shū*, the great tale collection of about 1120 (volume 14, tale 3). In this telling, two monks, an old one and a young one, are travelling to Kumano. They stop at a roadside house kept by a widow. She tries to seduce the younger monk. He puts her off by promising to return after his pilgrimage, then goes home by another road. When she learns she has been tricked, she shuts herself in her room, and a huge poisonous snake comes out of it. In one English translation it is eighteen feet long. The snake follows the monks along the road to Dōjōji. The temple's monks lower the great bell and hide the young man inside it. The snake smashes the door of the bell tower with its tail, coils around the bell and beats on it. The bell grows so hot that the monks have to cool it with water. When they lift it, the young monk has burned to ashes. That is not the end. An old monk of the temple dreams that the young man has come back as a snake himself, forced to be the woman's husband. He asks for the *Lotus Sutra* to be copied for them both. The old monk copies a chapter and holds a service. In a second dream the two appear free of their snake bodies. The man is reborn in the Tōri heaven, the woman in the Tosotsu heaven. The point of the story is the power of the sutra. Heibonsha sums it up: the tale teaches that a woman's desire and resentment block the path to salvation, and that the *Lotus Sutra* can save her all the same. Heibonsha also notes who the monk is: a wandering Kumano pilgrim. It suggests the story was carried around the country by *yamabushi*, mountain ascetics who preached the miracles of Kumano. ### When did she become Kiyohime? The names arrived slowly. Heibonsha traces them through the texts: - The Noh play *Dōjōji* and its older source play *Kanemaki* give no personal names. The woman is the daughter of the manor steward of Manago, and the man a mountain priest from the north on his way to Kumano. - The Buddhist history *Genkō Shakusho* by Kokan Shiren (1322) is the first to name the man, as Anchin of Kurama-dera. The woman is still only a widow of Muro District. - The *Dōjōji engi* picture scroll, owned by the temple, calls her only the daughter-in-law of the steward Kiyoji of Masago. As Heibonsha notes, the temple's own scroll gives neither lead character a personal name. - A variant scroll, the *Kengaku sōshi* in the Nezu Museum, gives both characters names, but different ones: the monk Kengaku of Mii-dera and Hanahime, daughter of a rich man of Tōtōmi. Heibonsha concludes that the pair Anchin and Kiyohime cannot be found in any text from before the early modern period. It points to the puppet play *Dōjōji Genzai Uroko* as an early example. *Nipponica* dates that play to 1742. The *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* agrees: the two names appear only from early-modern *jōruri* puppet plays onward. From then on the story became fixed as the tale of Anchin and Kiyohime. A printed booklet of it, made in the Bunka era (1804–1818), came to be treated as the temple's own legend. One reference disagrees. *Nipponica*'s entry on the temple retells the *Hokke Kenki* tale using the names Anchin and Kiyohime. That is a later gloss. The other entries, including Heibonsha's, say clearly that the early text names neither of them. ### The Dōjōji picture scroll The *Dōjōji engi* is a two-scroll handscroll kept at the temple. In it the monk visits in the reign of Emperor Daigo. The woman turns gradually into a fire-breathing serpent, swims across the Hidaka River and coils around the bell. At the end the temple monks copy the *Lotus Sutra* and the two are reborn as heavenly beings. Heibonsha notes that the characters' speech is written into the pictures, in the manner of popular *otogizōshi* scrolls. A colophon says the shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki viewed the scroll in 1573. Its date is disputed. Heibonsha calls it a mid-Muromachi work. *Nipponica*'s entry on the scroll places it in the late Muromachi period, the sixteenth century. *Nipponica*'s entry on the temple says Kamakura. The temple's own timeline gives about 1394. The temple also dates the events to 928. The scroll is still in use. Dōjōji says that its priests and staff unroll a copy of the scroll and tell the story to visitors every day, more than two thousand times a year. Heibonsha calls it the only surviving example of *etoki*, preaching from pictures, that still uses a handscroll. In an interview with Wakayama Prefecture's magazine, the temple's head priest explains a detail of the scroll's meaning. It says that the Kumano god took the form of Anchin and the bodhisattva Kannon took the form of Kiyohime, so the telling is also a prayer for the listeners. ### On stage: Noh and kabuki The Noh play *Dōjōji* is set many years after the burning. *Nipponica* attributes it to Kanze Kojirō Nobumitsu, while the *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* lists the author as unknown. Both call it a shortened version of the older *Kanemaki*. That play still survives in the Kurokawa Noh of Yamagata Prefecture. A new bell is being dedicated at the temple, and women are banned from the ceremony. A *shirabyōshi* dancer talks her way in. The-noh.com describes the *ranbyōshi*, a dance of about fifteen minutes in which the lead actor and the small-drum player keep time only by each other's breathing. The dancer then leaps up as the bell drops over her. The priest tells the old story of the steward's daughter and the mountain priest. The monks pray, the bell rises, and the woman comes out as a serpent wearing the [hannya](https://japan.je/yokai/hannya.html) mask. She is beaten back and throws herself into the Hidaka River. *Nipponica* calls the play a test piece that actors must master to show they have completed their training. Kabuki took up the theme early. *Nipponica* says the earliest record is a Dōjōji dance by Tamagawa Sennojō II in the Enpō era (1673–1681). The form reached its classic version in *Kyōganoko Musume Dōjōji*, first danced by Nakamura Tomijūrō I at Edo's Nakamura-za in 1753. It turns the Noh dance into a long series of dances showing a town girl in love. It ends with the dancer reappearing from the bell as a serpent-demon. Variants followed, among them *Ninin Dōjōji*, with two dancers, and *Yakko Dōjōji*. Puppet theatre produced *Hidakagawa Iriai Zakura* (1759), based on the 1742 play. Dōjōji notes that in this play, unlike the Noh and kabuki dances, Kiyohime herself appears. Its scene at the Hidaka River crossing is still staged. The temple's timeline adds the Ryukyuan *kumiodori* drama *Shūshin Kaneiri*, first performed in 1719. ### Dōjōji temple Dōjōji stands at Kanemaki in Hidakagawa town, Wakayama Prefecture. It belongs to the Tendai school. Temple tradition says it was founded in 701 at the wish of Fujiwara no Miyako, the consort of Emperor Monmu. Heibonsha notes that excavations have found remains of a hall, a lecture hall and a pagoda, with roof tiles that confirm a founding in the early eighth century. The temple lay on the pilgrim road to Kumano, at the ferry over the Hidaka River. Heibonsha suggests this is how its legend spread. The bell in the story is not the bell the temple had later. Its second bell was cast in 1359. In the late sixteenth century Toyotomi Hideyoshi's forces dug it up and took it to Kyoto. *Nipponica* says it is now at the Hokke-school temple Myōman-ji in Kyoto. *Nipponica* also records an annual memorial service for the lost bell on 27 April. The temple's main image, a thousand-armed Kannon, and its two attendant figures were designated National Treasures in 1994. ### Frequently asked questions ### Is Kiyohime's name in the original legend? No. In the *Hokke Kenki* (1040s) and the *Konjaku Monogatari-shū*, the woman is an unnamed widow and the man an unnamed young monk. The man is first called Anchin in 1322. The name Kiyohime appears in early-modern puppet plays. Dictionaries point to *Dōjōji Genzai Uroko* (1742). ### Was Kiyohime a dragon or a snake? The early texts make her a poisonous snake. Later the creature is described as a great serpent that breathes fire. Japanese writers did not always separate the two. Heibonsha, writing about temple-bell legends, files the Dōjōji story among bell legends linked to dragon gods and snakes. ### What happens in the Noh play Dōjōji? It is a sequel. Years after the burning, a dancer slips into the dedication of a new bell, dances and leaps into the bell as it falls. She is the woman's vengeful spirit and reappears as a serpent. The monks' prayers drive her into the Hidaka River. ### Can you visit Dōjōji? Yes. The temple is in Hidakagawa, Wakayama Prefecture. Its website says that every day between 9 am and 4 pm, priests or staff tell the story of Anchin and Kiyohime from a copy of the picture scroll. Individual visitors need no booking. ### Is the story true? Dōjōji gives the year 928 for the events, but the earliest written version comes more than a century later. It is a Buddhist teaching tale, not a record. Scholars think wandering preachers carried it along the Kumano pilgrim road. ### Sources - [安珍・清姫: Heibonsha *Sekai Daihyakka Jiten*, *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten*, Nipponica and other entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%AE%89%E7%8F%8D%E3%83%BB%E6%B8%85%E5%A7%AB) - [道成寺縁起: Heibonsha *Sekai Daihyakka Jiten* and Nipponica entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%81%93%E6%88%90%E5%AF%BA%E7%B8%81%E8%B5%B7) - [道成寺 (the temple, the Noh play and *Dōjōji-mono*): Nipponica, Heibonsha and *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%81%93%E6%88%90%E5%AF%BA) - [京鹿子娘道成寺: *Digital Daijisen*, *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* and Nipponica entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%BA%AC%E9%B9%BF%E5%AD%90%E5%A8%98%E9%81%93%E6%88%90%E5%AF%BA) - [鐘巻: *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* and Heibonsha entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%90%98%E5%B7%BB) - [今昔物語集: *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* entry (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%BB%8A%E6%98%94%E7%89%A9%E8%AA%9E%E9%9B%86) - [元亨釈書: *Digital Daijisen* and *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* entries (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%85%83%E4%BA%A8%E9%87%88%E6%9B%B8) - [竜神: Heibonsha entry citing bell legends linked to dragon gods (Kotobank)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%AB%9C%E7%A5%9E) - ["An Evil Woman of the Muro District of Kii Province", English translation from *Miraculous Tales of the Lotus Sutra from Ancient Japan* (500 Yojanas)](https://www.500yojanas.org/an-evil-woman-of-the-muro-district-of-kii-province/) - [Dōjōji temple: history and timeline](https://dojoji.com/about) - [Dōjōji temple: the stories of the temple](https://dojoji.com/story) - [Dōjōji temple: the world of *Dōjōji-mono*](https://dojoji.com/kabuki) - [Dōjōji temple: *etoki* picture-scroll preaching](https://dojoji.com/etoki/) - [Wakayama Prefecture, *Nagomi* vol. 55: *etoki* preaching with the *Dōjōji engi* scroll](https://www.pref.wakayama.lg.jp/prefg/000200/nagomi/w55/08_09/index.html) - [the-noh.com Plays Database: Dōjō-ji](https://www.the-noh.com/en/plays/data/program_013.html) - [the-noh.com Noh Masks Database: Hannya (used in *Dōjō-ji*)](http://www.the-noh.com/sub/jp/index.php?mode=db&action=e_view_detail&data_id=11&class_id=1) - [JAANUS: Doujouji](https://aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/d/doujouji.htm) - [Wikipedia: Kiyohime (pointer to further reading)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiyohime) --- ## Amaterasu and the Heavenly Rock Cave URL: https://japan.je/kojiki/amaterasu-cave.html # Amaterasu's Cave When the Sun Disappeared Chapter One ## The Final Straw Susanoo's wild nature had shown itself from the start. His father Izanagi had banished him for refusing to rule the sea and weeping to go to his dead mother's land, so he climbed up to the Plain of High Heaven to take leave of his sister. Fearing he had come to seize her realm, she met him armed for battle, and to prove his good intentions the two produced children through a solemn pledge. Susanoo declared that he had won—and, flushed with victory, began to run wild. He broke down the ridges between his sister's rice fields, filled in her irrigation ditches, and strewed excrement in the hall where she held the feast of the new rice. Amaterasu, the sun goddess, at first made excuses for her brother: the filth, she said, must be something he had vomited while drunk, and he must have broken up the fields because he begrudged the land they took up. But his outrages only grew worse. As she sat in her sacred weaving hall, overseeing the weaving of the gods' garments, he broke a hole in its roof and dropped in a heavenly piebald horse that he had flayed backwards. One of the heavenly weaving maidens was so startled that she struck herself with her shuttle and died. It was too much to bear. Chapter Two ## The World Goes Dark Terrified at the sight, Amaterasu shut herself inside the Heavenly Rock Cave, Ama-no-Iwato, and made its rock door fast behind her. The moment she disappeared, the Plain of High Heaven and the land below were plunged into eternal night. The eight hundred myriads of gods gathered in the dry riverbed of the Tranquil River of Heaven, desperately trying to devise a plan to lure Amaterasu from her cave. For without her light, there could be no day. Chapter Three ## The Divine Plan The gods asked Omoikane, the "thought-gathering" god, a son of the creator deity Takamimusubi, to devise a scheme. Under his plan they gathered sacred objects: iron was taken from the heavenly mines and a mirror was made by the goddess Ishikoridome, while the jewel-making god Tamanoya strung a long cord of curved jewels. The gods Ame-no-Koyane and Futodama read the omens by heating a stag's shoulder blade. Then they uprooted a great sakaki tree from the heavenly Mount Kagu, hung the jewels from its upper branches, the mirror from its middle branches and white and blue cloth offerings from its lower branches, and solemn prayers were recited before the cave. They also gathered the "long-singing birds" of the eternal night—roosters—and set them crowing, as if to announce a dawn that could not come. And the strong god Ame-no-Tajikarao took up a hidden position beside the rock door. But the most important part of the plan fell to Ame-no-Uzume, the goddess later honoured as the patron of dancers and performers. Chapter Four ## The Sacred Dance Ame-no-Uzume tied club moss from Mount Kagu around herself as a sash, crowned her hair with a vine and took a bunch of bamboo leaves in her hands. Before the cave door she laid an upturned tub and stamped on it until it boomed, dancing as if possessed by a god. As she danced she bared her breasts and pushed the cord of her skirt down low—until the whole Plain of High Heaven shook, and the eight hundred myriads of gods burst into laughter together. Inside the cave, Amaterasu heard the laughter. She was astonished. She had thought that her retreat would leave Heaven and the land below in darkness. How could the gods be laughing and celebrating? What could possibly be so amusing? Chapter Five ## The Return of Light Unable to contain her curiosity any longer, Amaterasu opened the rock door just a crack and called out from inside. Why, she asked, was Ame-no-Uzume making merry, and why were all the gods laughing, when the world should be dark? Ame-no-Uzume answered that they were rejoicing because a deity even more illustrious than Amaterasu herself had appeared. As she spoke, Ame-no-Koyane and Futodama pushed the mirror forward and held it up before her. The Kojiki does not say what she believed she saw, only that the radiant sight in the mirror—her own light—made her more and more astonished, and she edged out of the doorway to gaze at it. At that moment Ame-no-Tajikarao, who had been standing hidden beside the door, took her hand and drew her out. Futodama at once stretched a sacred rope—the shimenawa—across the entrance behind her and told her she could go back no further. Epilogue ## Light Restored The moment Amaterasu came out of the cave, light returned to the Plain of High Heaven and to the land below, and all of creation could see again. As for Susanoo, the eight hundred myriads of gods took counsel and punished him: they fined him a thousand tables of offerings, cut off his beard, had his fingernails and toenails pulled out, and expelled him from Heaven. He went down to the land of Izumo, where he would face the eight-headed serpent Yamata no Orochi. But Amaterasu remained in Heaven, bringing light and warmth to the world. The mirror and the jewels that helped lure her out were later given to her grandson Ninigi when he descended from Heaven to rule the land below, and she told him to revere the mirror as if it were her own spirit. Together with the sword Kusanagi they became the three Imperial Regalia, a reminder that even in our darkest moments, there are those who will work tirelessly to bring back the light. Sources ## Sources & Versions This telling follows the Kojiki (712), Book One, in Basil Hall Chamberlain's 1882 translation: §XII (Susanoo's weeping and banishment by Izanagi), §XIII "The August Oath" and §XIV (the pledge and the children born of it), §XV "The August Ravages," §XVI "The Door of the Heavenly Rock-Dwelling" and §XVII "The August Expulsion"; the gift of the mirror and jewels to Ninigi is in §XXXIII. In the Kojiki this episode comes before Susanoo's descent to Izumo and his fight with Yamata no Orochi, not after it. The Nihon Shoki (720), Book I, in W.G. Aston's 1896 translation, tells the story in its main text and several variants, with differences: in the main text Susanoo also lets piebald colts loose to lie down in the rice fields, and it is Amaterasu herself who is startled and wounds herself with her shuttle; in one variant the victim is the goddess Wakahirume, who dies. The main text has Ame-no-Uzume hold a spear wrapped in grass, kindle fires and speak inspired words while standing on her upturned tub, and has Ame-no-Tajikarao lead Amaterasu out as soon as she peeps through the door—no mirror trick is described there. In the Nihon Shoki main text the rope is drawn by the ancestors of the Nakatomi and Inbe priestly clans (Ame-no-Koyane and Futodama), and Susanoo's punishment includes having his hair plucked out. Chamberlain reads the Kojiki as saying several weaving women died; the original can also be read as a single maiden. Kokugakuin University's Encyclopedia of Shinto notes that Ame-no-Uzume's dance was later regarded as the origin of the spirit-pacifying rite (chinkonsai) and of sacred performance. - Kojiki (Chamberlain, 1882), §XV — The August Ravages of His-Impetuous-Male-Augustness - Kojiki (Chamberlain, 1882), §XVI — The Door of the Heavenly Rock-Dwelling - Kojiki (Chamberlain, 1882), §XVII — The August Expulsion - Kojiki (Chamberlain, 1882), §XXXIII — The descent of the August Grandchild - Nihongi (Aston, 1896), Book I — The Age of the Gods, Part I - Encyclopedia of Shinto (Kokugakuin University) — Amaterasu - Encyclopedia of Shinto (Kokugakuin University) — Amenouzume - Encyclopedia of Shinto (Kokugakuin University) — Tajikarao --- ## Izanagi and Izanami: Japan's Creation Myth URL: https://japan.je/kojiki/izanagi-and-izanami.html # Izanagi & Izanami The Creation of Japan Chapter One ## In the Beginning When heaven and earth first began, the young earth had no firm shape: it drifted about like oil floating on water, like a jellyfish. Three deities came into being in the Plain of High Heaven, then two more from something that sprouted up like a reed shoot, and after them seven generations of gods. The last of these were Izanagi and Izanami—"the Male Who Invites" and "the Female Who Invites"—the divine couple tasked with bringing order to creation. The heavenly gods gave them a jewelled spear, Ame-no-Nuboko, and charged them to make the drifting land firm and bring it to completion. Chapter Two ## The Floating Bridge Standing on the Floating Bridge of Heaven, Izanagi and Izanami pushed the jewelled spear down into the brine below and stirred until it thickened and curdled. When they drew the spear up, the brine dripping from its tip piled up and became the first island: Onogoro, the "self-congealed" island. Here they prepared to bring forth the land and the gods who would fill it. Chapter Three ## The Birth of Islands Izanagi proposed a marriage ritual. They would walk around the heavenly pillar in opposite directions—Izanami going round from the right, Izanagi from the left—and when they met, they would join together. When they met, Izanami spoke first: "What a handsome young man!" Izanagi replied, "What a lovely maiden!"—though he remarked that it was not fitting for the woman to speak first. Their first child was Hiruko, the "leech child," a failure whom they placed in a boat of reeds and set adrift. Their next, the island of Awa, was also counted as no child of theirs. Troubled, the couple went up to Heaven to ask the heavenly gods what had gone wrong. The gods divined the answer: it was because the woman had spoken first. So they went back down and circled the pillar again, this time with Izanagi speaking first. From this union the great islands of Japan were born, one after another: Awaji, Shikoku, Oki, Kyushu, Iki, Tsushima, Sado, and finally the largest, Honshu—the "Land of the Eight Great Islands." Six smaller islands followed. Chapter Four ## The Gods of Nature Having created the land, Izanagi and Izanami went on to give birth to deities: gods of rock and soil, of the house and of the wind, a great god of the sea, gods of the river mouths, of trees and mountains and moors, of mountain passes and valleys, a god of the heavenly bird-boat and a goddess of food. Each deity brought a new dimension to the growing world, filling it with the forces that would shape and sustain life. The couple's creative power seemed boundless, and the world blossomed with divine presence. Chapter Five ## The Fire God's Birth But tragedy struck when Izanami gave birth to Kagutsuchi, the god of fire. The flames burned her as she bore him, and she fell sick and lay down. Even as she lay dying, more deities came from her: gods of metal from her vomit, gods of clay from her excrement, and from her urine a goddess of water and a god of growth. At last she died. Izanagi crawled weeping around her pillow and her feet, lamenting that he had traded his beloved wife for a single child, and from his tears a weeping goddess was born. He buried Izanami on Mount Hiba, on the border of Izumo and Hōki. Then, in his grief and rage, he drew his long sword and cut off Kagutsuchi's head. From the blood on the blade eight gods came into being—among them gods who split rocks and roots, gods of fire and swiftness, the mighty Takemikazuchi, and the water gods Kuraokami and Kuramitsuha—and from the fire god's body came eight gods of the mountains. But none of this brought comfort to Izanagi, for his beloved wife was gone. Chapter Six ## The Descent to Yomi Unable to accept his wife's death, Izanagi decided to follow her to Yomi, the land of the dead, to bring her back. When Izanami came out through the palace door to meet him, he called to her. "My beloved wife," he said, "the lands we were making are not yet finished. Please come back with me." Izanami answered that it was a great pity he had not come sooner, for she had already eaten food cooked at the hearth of Yomi. Yet because he had come so far for her, she wished to return, and she would talk it over with the gods of Yomi. "But do not look at me," she warned. Chapter Seven ## The Forbidden Sight Izanami went back inside, and she stayed there so long that Izanagi could wait no longer. He broke off one of the end teeth of the comb in his hair, lit it as a torch, and went in to look, defying his wife's warning. What he saw filled him with horror. Izanami's body was rotting and swarming with maggots, and eight thunder gods had been born and dwelt in it—in her head, her breast, her belly, her loins, her hands and her feet. She had become a thing of death and darkness. Izanagi fled in terror. "You have put me to shame!" Izanami cried, and she sent the hag of Yomi, Yomotsu-shikome, to pursue him. Chapter Eight ## The Great Separation Izanagi fled back toward the world of the living. He threw down his black headdress, which turned into grapes, and while the hag stopped to eat them he ran on. He broke the comb from the other side of his hair and threw it down; it turned into bamboo shoots, and again she stopped to eat. Then Izanami sent the eight thunder gods after him with fifteen hundred warriors of Yomi. Izanagi ran on, swinging his sword behind him, until he reached the foot of Yomotsu Hirasaka, the slope at the border of Yomi. There he took three peaches from a tree growing at its base and struck at his pursuers with them, and they all fled back. Izanagi thanked the peaches and charged them to help the people of the land whenever they fell into trouble. Last of all, Izanami herself came after him. Izanagi pulled a huge boulder, one that would need a thousand men to drag, across the pass, sealing the land of the dead away from the land of the living. The Kojiki says this pass is the Ifuya Pass in Izumo. From opposite sides of the boulder, the divine couple spoke their final words to each other. Izanami declared that if he did this, she would strangle a thousand of the people of his land every day. Izanagi responded that, in that case, every day he would set up fifteen hundred birthing huts. So it is that each day a thousand people die and fifteen hundred are born—and from then on Izanami was called the Great Goddess of Yomi. Chapter Nine ## Purification Defiled by his visit to that foul land, Izanagi went to purify himself at a small river mouth at Tachibana in Himuka, on the island of Tsukushi (Kyushu)—the place later called Tachibana no Odo. As he threw down his staff, his belt, his clothes, his hat and his bracelets, a god was born from each. As he washed in the middle of the stream, more deities were born: gods of misfortune from the pollution of Yomi, gods who set misfortune right, and gods of the sea's depths, middle and surface. But the most important births came when he washed his face: From his left eye was born Amaterasu, the sun goddess, who would light the world. From his right eye was born Tsukuyomi, the moon god, who would govern the night. And from his nose was born Susanoo, the storm god, whose wild nature would challenge the heavens. Epilogue ## The Foundation Overjoyed that at the end of all his begetting he had gained three noble children, Izanagi divided the world among them. He took off his necklace of jewels, shook it so that it jingled, and gave it to Amaterasu with the High Plain of Heaven to rule. To Tsukuyomi he gave the realm of the night. And to Susanoo, he gave the plain of the sea. Having completed his tasks, Izanagi withdrew from the world: the Kojiki says that he dwells at Taga in Ōmi, while the Nihon Shoki says he built a hidden dwelling on the island of Awaji and stayed there in silence. But the islands he and Izanami created remained, the foundation of Japan. The gods they birthed continued to shape the world. And the cycle they established—of creation and destruction, life and death—continues to turn, eternal and unchanging. This is how Japan came to be, born from the love and tragedy of two divine beings, shaped by their creative power, and forever marked by the separation of life from death, the living world from the realm of shadows. Sources ## Sources & Versions This telling follows the Kojiki (712), Book One, in Basil Hall Chamberlain's 1882 translation: §I–II (the first deities and the seven generations), §III "The Island of Onogoro," §IV–V (the courtship, Hiruko, and the birth of the eight great islands), §VI (the birth of the nature deities), §VII–VIII (Izanami's death and the slaying of the fire god), §IX "The Land of Hades" (Yomi), §X "The Purification of the August Person," §XI (the three children receive their realms) and §XII (Izanagi's dwelling at Taga). The Nihon Shoki (720), Book I, in W.G. Aston's 1896 translation, differs in important ways. It opens with heaven and earth still mixed together in a chaotic mass "like an egg," from which the clear part rose to become heaven. In its main text, when the woman speaks first Izanagi objects at once and they circle the pillar again, so no failed child results; Hiruko is born later, after the sun and moon, and still cannot stand at three years old (a variant follows the Kojiki, with the heavenly gods divining the mistake). Above all, in the main text Izanagi and Izanami together give birth to the sun goddess, the moon god and Susanoo, and Izanami does not die; Kagutsuchi, the journey to Yomi and the purification appear only in its variant accounts ("in one writing it is said"), several of which tell them differently, for example cutting the fire god into three or five pieces. Kokugakuin University's Encyclopedia of Shinto notes that the Kojiki leaves Izanami out of the birth of the three noble children, and that one Nihon Shoki variant places her burial at Kumano rather than Mount Hiba. - Kojiki (Chamberlain, 1882), §III — The Island of Onogoro - Kojiki (Chamberlain, 1882), §V — Birth of the Eight Great Islands - Kojiki (Chamberlain, 1882), §VII — Retirement of Her Augustness the Princess-Who-Invites - Kojiki (Chamberlain, 1882), §IX — The Land of Hades - Kojiki (Chamberlain, 1882), §X — The Purification of the August Person - Kojiki (Chamberlain, 1882), §XI — Investiture of the Three Illustrious August Children - Nihongi (Aston, 1896), Book I — The Age of the Gods, Part I - Encyclopedia of Shinto (Kokugakuin University) — Izanagi - Encyclopedia of Shinto (Kokugakuin University) — Izanami - Encyclopedia of Shinto (Kokugakuin University) — Kagutsuchi - Encyclopedia of Shinto (Kokugakuin University) — Hiruko --- ## Ōkuninushi: White Hare of Inaba to Izumo Taisha URL: https://japan.je/kojiki/okuninushi.html # Ōkuninushi's Trials The Nation Builder of Izumo Chapter One ## The Youngest Brother He began as the least of eighty brothers, carrying everyone's luggage. He was killed twice, tested in the underworld by the storm god Susanoo, and rose to become Ōkuninushi, "Great Lord of the Land", who shaped and healed the country — and then gave it away. His story, told almost entirely in Izumo, is the heart of the Kojiki's earthly myths. Six generations after Susanoo settled in Izumo, there lived a god called Ōnamuji (大穴牟遅神), who would later be known as Ōkuninushi (大国主神). He had eighty brothers, the yasogami, "eighty gods", and all of them wished to marry the princess Yagami-hime of Inaba, in the east. They set off together to court her. Ōnamuji went too — not as a rival, but as their porter, with their bag slung over his back, trailing behind them all. Chapter Two ## The White Hare of Inaba At Cape Keta, on the Inaba shore, the brothers found a hare lying on the sand, stripped of all its fur. They told it, laughing, to bathe in the sea and then lie on a high hillside in the wind. The hare did as it was told; as the salt water dried, its skin cracked open in the wind, and it lay there weeping in pain. Ōnamuji, coming last, found it and asked why it wept. The hare told him its story. It had been living on the island of Oki and wanted to cross to the mainland, but had no way over. So it tricked the wani of the sea — sea creatures, usually understood today as sharks — by proposing a contest: let them line up from the island to the cape, and it would count them as it hopped across, to see whose tribe was bigger. The wani lay down in a line, and the hare ran across their backs, counting. But just before it reached the shore it could not resist crowing that they had been fooled — and the last wani seized it and stripped off its coat. Then the eighty gods had come by, and their advice had made it worse. Ōnamuji told it to go at once to the river mouth, wash in fresh water, then spread out the pollen of the cattails that grew there and roll in it. The hare did so, and its body was made whole again. Grateful, it made a prophecy: the eighty gods would never win the princess. Though he carried their bag, Ōnamuji would be the one she chose. The hare is honoured as a god, the Hare Deity of Inaba, at Hakuto Shrine in Tottori to this day, and it has become one of the best-loved stories in Japan. Chapter Three ## Killed by His Brothers The hare was right. Yagami-hime told the eighty gods she would marry none of them — she would marry Ōnamuji. Enraged, the brothers resolved to kill him. At the foot of Mount Tema in Hōki, they told him that a red boar lived on the mountain: they would drive it down, and he must catch it at the bottom or they would kill him. Then they heated a great boulder shaped like a boar until it glowed with fire and rolled it down the slope. Ōnamuji caught it, was burned against the stone, and died. His mother wept and went up to heaven to plead with the creator deity Kamimusubi, who sent two shellfish goddesses, Kisagai-hime and Umugi-hime — the Princesses of the Ark Shell and the Clam. One ground and scorched her shell; the other carried water and spread the mixture over him like mother's milk. Ōnamuji rose again as a handsome young man. The brothers tried again. They led him into the mountains, split a great tree, wedged it open, made him stand in the gap — and pulled out the wedge, crushing him to death. Again his mother searched for him, found him, broke open the tree and brought him back to life. If he stayed, she told him, they would destroy him in the end. She sent him away to the god Ōyabiko in the land of Ki. When the brothers tracked him there and raised their bows, he slipped away through the fork of a tree. Chapter Four ## The Ordeals of Susanoo There was only one god great enough to advise him: Susanoo, the old storm god, who now dwelt in the Ne-no-Katasu-kuni (根之堅州国), the deep "root land" beneath the world. Ōnamuji went down to him. At Susanoo's palace he met the god's daughter, Suseri-hime (須勢理毘売), and the two fell in love at first sight and were married. She went in and told her father a very beautiful god had come. Susanoo looked at the young man, called him "the ugly fellow of the Reed-Plains", and welcomed him — into a room full of snakes. That night Suseri-hime gave her husband a scarf: wave it three times, she said, and the snakes would grow still. He slept untroubled. The next night Susanoo put him in a room of centipedes and wasps, and again she gave him a scarf, and again he came out unharmed. Then Susanoo shot a whistling arrow into a wide moor and sent Ōnamuji to fetch it — and set the grass alight all around him. Trapped in the fire, he heard a mouse speak: inside it is hollow, hollow; outside it is narrow, narrow. He stamped on the ground, fell into a hollow beneath it, and hid while the fire passed over. The mouse brought him the arrow, its feathers nibbled away by the mouse's children. Suseri-hime, believing him dead, came weeping with funeral offerings, and Susanoo stood on the moor thinking the matter finished — until Ōnamuji walked out of the ashes and handed him the arrow. Chapter Five ## The Escape from the Root Land Susanoo took him into his great hall and told him to pick the lice from his hair. The "lice" were centipedes. Suseri-hime slipped her husband berries of the muku tree and red clay; he chewed the berries and spat them out with the clay, and Susanoo, thinking he was crunching up the centipedes, felt fond of him and fell asleep. Ōnamuji tied the sleeping god's hair to the rafters, blocked the door with a boulder, lifted Suseri-hime onto his back, and took Susanoo's great sword of life, his bow and arrows of life, and his heavenly koto. As they ran, the koto brushed a tree and the earth rang with its sound. Susanoo woke and pulled the house down — but by the time he had untangled his hair from the rafters, the pair were far away. Susanoo chased them to the slope that divides the underworld from the land of the living, and there, gazing after them, he shouted his blessing as a curse. Take the sword and the bow, he roared, and drive your brothers down the hillsides and into the rivers. Become Ōkuninushi, Great Lord of the Land. Make my daughter your chief wife. Build your palace at the foot of Mount Uka with pillars sunk to the bedrock and roof-beams rising to the heavens — and live there, you rascal! Ōkuninushi did as he was told. With Susanoo's sword and bow he scattered the eighty gods, and he began to make the land. Chapter Six ## The Tiny God from Across the Sea Ōkuninushi was a great lover as well as a great lord: the Kojiki records his courtship songs to princesses as far away as Koshi, and the jealousy of Suseri-hime, and the cup they shared when they made their peace. But his true labour was the land itself. One day, at Cape Miho in Izumo, a tiny god came riding in over the crests of the waves in a boat made from the seed pod of a kagami vine, dressed in the skin of a small creature — geese in the older translations, a moth in many modern readings. No one knew his name. A toad said that Kuebiko would know — Kuebiko, the scarecrow of the fields, who cannot walk but knows everything under heaven. Kuebiko named him: Sukunabikona (少名毘古那神), a child of Kamimusubi. Kamimusubi confirmed it — this was the child who had slipped through the gaps between his fingers — and told the two gods to be brothers and build the land together. So they did. The Nihon Shoki adds that the two gods together devised ways to heal sickness in people and animals, and to ward off harm from birds, beasts and insects. When the work was not yet done, Sukunabikona crossed the sea to Tokoyo, the Eternal Land. Ōkuninushi lamented: how could he finish the land alone? Then a light came across the sea — a god who promised to help if Ōkuninushi would worship him on the eastern mountain of Yamato. That god dwells on Mount Miwa to this day. Chapter Seven ## The Land Is Given Away From the High Plain of Heaven, Amaterasu looked down on the Central Land of Reed-Plains and declared that it should be ruled by her own descendants. But the land below seemed restless and full of unruly earthly gods, and the heavenly gods held council on how to bring it under heaven. Their first envoy, Ame-no-Hohi, came down and was won over by Ōkuninushi, and for three years sent no word. The second, Ame-no-Wakahiko, married Ōkuninushi's daughter Shitateru-hime and schemed to take the land for himself; for eight years he sent no word. When heaven sent a pheasant to ask why, he shot it — and the arrow flew up to heaven, was thrown back down, and killed him where he slept. At last heaven sent the thunder-sword god Takemikazuchi with Ame-no-Torifune. They came down to the little beach of Inasa in Izumo, drove their swords point-up into the crest of a wave, sat cross-legged on the points, and asked Ōkuninushi what was in his heart. He said his son Kotoshironushi should answer. Kotoshironushi, fetched from fishing at Cape Miho, agreed that the land should be given up — then tipped over his boat and vanished. Another son, Takeminakata, came carrying a boulder on his fingertips and challenged the envoy to a contest of strength; but Takemikazuchi's hand turned to ice and then to a sword blade, and when he took Takeminakata's hand in turn he crushed it like a reed. Takeminakata fled as far as the lake of Suwa in Shinano, and there he too submitted. Then Ōkuninushi gave his answer. As his sons had said, so would he: he would yield the land. He asked only one thing — that a dwelling be built for him with pillars sunk to the bedrock and cross-beams raised to the High Plain of Heaven, as grand as the palace of heaven's own heir. There he would withdraw and remain out of sight. With that, the land passed to the heavenly line, and Amaterasu's grandson Ninigi would later descend to rule it. Chapter Eight ## The Shrine That Touched the Sky The Kojiki says a heavenly dwelling was built for him on the shore of Tagishi in Izumo. That promise is remembered in Izumo Taisha — Izumo Ōyashiro — the Grand Shrine of Izumo, where Ōkuninushi is enshrined, and where the shrine itself traces its origin to the kuni-yuzuri, the "yielding of the land". A Nihon Shoki variant makes the bargain explicit: the heavenly grandchild would govern the visible affairs of the world, and Ōkuninushi would govern the hidden ones, the matters of the gods. Tradition holds that the ancient shrine stood far taller than today's, and a tenth-century text called it the largest building in the land. Today Ōkuninushi is worshipped above all as the god of en-musubi, the tying of bonds between people — and every autumn, in the lunar tenth month, the gods of all Japan are said to come ashore at the same Inasa beach where the land was once given up, and gather with him in Izumo. The god who began at the back of the line, carrying his brothers' bag, ended as the lord of everything unseen. Sources ## Sources & Versions - Kojiki (712), Book One — Chamberlain §XX (descent from Susanoo; the god's five names), §XXI "The White Hare of Inaba", §XXII "Mount Tema", §XXIII "The Nether-Distant-Land", §XXIV–XXV (the wooing songs; the cup pledge with Suseri-hime), §XXVII "The Little-Prince-the-Renowned-Deity" (Sukunabikona), §XXVIII (the god of Mount Miwa/Mimoro), §XXX–XXXII (the deliberation, Ame-no-Wakahiko, the abdication), §XXXIII (Ninigi's descent). - Nihon Shoki (720), Book I, sixth variant on the Izumo section: Ōnamuchi and Sukunabikona build the land and establish healing; Sukunabikona leaves from Cape Kumano, or is flung to Tokoyo from a millet stalk on Awashima; he arrives in a boat of kagami dressed in wren feathers and slipped through Takamimusubi's fingers (the Kojiki says Kamimusubi). The god of Miwa is identified as Ōnamuchi's own spirit. - Nihon Shoki, Book II, main text and variants on the land transfer: the envoys are Futsunushi and Takemikazuchi (the Kojiki has Takemikazuchi and Ame-no-Torifune); the beach is called Itasa; Takeminakata does not appear; heaven's command comes from Takamimusubi; in the second variant Ōnamuchi agrees to "direct secret matters" while the heavenly grandchild directs public affairs. - The White Hare, the brothers' killings and the underworld ordeals appear only in the Kojiki, not in the Nihon Shoki. - Lineage: the Kojiki makes Ōkuninushi a sixth-generation descendant of Susanoo; the Nihon Shoki main text makes Ōnamuchi Susanoo's son. - Izumo no Kuni Fudoki (733) offers further Izumo traditions not covered here (see the site's Regional Legends page). - Izumo Ōyashiro (official): kuni-yuzuri origin, en-musubi, the tall ancient honden, Kamiari festival and Inasa beach. Source URLs: - Chamberlain, Kojiki §XXI: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_21 - §XXII: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_22 - §XXIII: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_23 - §XXVII: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_27 - §XXVIII: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_28 - §XXX: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_30 - §XXXI: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_31 - §XXXII: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_32 - (Also at sacred-texts.com: https://sacred-texts.com/shi/kj/index.htm) - Aston, Nihongi Book I: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nihongi/Book_I - Aston, Nihongi Book II: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nihongi/Book_II - Izumo Ōyashiro, English overview: https://izumooyashiro.or.jp/en/ - Japan Tourism Agency multilingual commentary, "Kamiari Festival" (Izumo Ōyashiro text): https://www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db/R3-00191.html --- ## Ryujin's Palace: Hoori and the Sea God Watatsumi URL: https://japan.je/kojiki/ryujin-palace.html # Ryujin's Palace The Palace of the Sea God Chapter One ## The Two Gifts Two princes, grandsons of the heavenly line, were born with opposite gifts — one for the sea, one for the mountains. When the younger lost his brother's fishhook beneath the waves, his search carried him to the palace of the sea god, to a marriage between land and ocean, and to a birth that would found Japan's imperial house. Long after the heavenly prince Ninigi came down to rule the land, he and his bride Konohanasakuya-hime had three sons, born in the flames of a burning birthing hut. The eldest, Hoderi (火照命, "Fire-Shine"), took his luck from the sea: he was Umisachihiko, the Prince of the Sea's Bounty, who drew in fish "broad of fin and narrow of fin". The youngest, Hoori (火遠理命, "Fire-Subside"), took his luck from the mountains: he was Yamasachihiko, the Prince of the Mountain's Bounty, who hunted beasts rough-haired and soft-haired. The Japanese word sachi meant both luck and the tools that carried it — the fishhook was the sea-luck, the bow and arrows the mountain-luck. One day Hoori proposed that they trade. Three times his brother refused. At last, reluctantly, Hoderi handed over his fishhook and took the bow. Chapter Two ## The Lost Fishhook The trade went badly for both of them. Hoori sat on the shore with his brother's line and caught nothing at all — and then the hook was gone, lost somewhere in the sea. When Hoderi came to take back his own luck, saying that each gift belonged to its owner, Hoori had to confess that he had neither fish nor hook to return. Hoderi would not forgive it. Hoori broke his own long sword and forged its metal into five hundred fishhooks; his brother refused them. He made a thousand; his brother refused those too. Only the original hook would do. Chapter Three ## The Old Man of the Tides Hoori wandered weeping along the shore until an old god of the sea-currents found him: Shiotsuchi no Kami (塩椎神), the "Salt-Possessor". Hearing the story, the old god built a small boat woven so tightly it had no gaps, set the prince inside, and pushed him out onto the sea. Follow the current, he said, and a pleasant sea-road would open; at its end stood a palace built like the scales of a fish — the palace of Watatsumi (綿津見神), god of the sea. By the palace gate, Shiotsuchi told him, there was a well, and above it a great many-branched katsura tree. If Hoori climbed it and waited, the sea god's daughter would see him and know what to do. (In the Nihon Shoki the old man sinks him into the sea in a basket instead — the versions differ, the destination does not.) Chapter Four ## The Light in the Well Everything happened as the old god had said. Hoori climbed the tree and waited. Presently the handmaidens of the sea god's daughter, Toyotama-hime (豊玉毘売, "Abundant-Jewel Princess"), came with jewelled vessels to draw water — and saw a light shining up from the well. Looking up, they found a beautiful young man sitting in the branches. He asked them for water. When they offered it, he did not drink; instead he took a jewel from the cord at his neck, held it in his mouth, and let it fall into the vessel. The jewel fixed itself to the bowl so that no one could pull it free. The maidens carried it, jewel and all, to their mistress. Toyotama-hime went out to look, and the moment their eyes met, the matter was settled. She told her father there was a beautiful stranger at the gate. The sea god came out himself, recognised the young man as a child of the heavenly line, and led him inside — onto eight layers of sealskin rugs with eight layers of silk spread over them — and held a great feast. He gave Hoori his daughter in marriage. Chapter Five ## Three Years Beneath the Waves Hoori lived in the sea palace for three years. Then one night he remembered why he had come, and let out a single deep sigh. Toyotama-hime heard it — in three years he had never sighed — and told her father. The sea god asked his son-in-law gently what troubled him, and why he had come to the sea at all, and Hoori told him everything. Watatsumi summoned every fish of the sea, great and small, and asked whether any of them had taken a hook. They answered that the tai, the sea bream, had lately complained of something lodged in its throat, so that it could not eat. They looked — and there was the hook. It was washed clean and placed in Hoori's hands. Chapter Six ## The Jewels of the Tides The sea god did not send Hoori home with only the hook. He taught him words to say as he handed it back — a spell naming it a gloomy, fretful, poor and foolish hook — and told him to give it with his hand turned behind him. He told him to plant his rice fields high when his brother planted low, and low when his brother planted high: because the sea god ruled the waters, Hoderi's fields would fail. Then he gave Hoori two jewels: the shiomitsu-tama (塩盈珠), the tide-flowing jewel, and the shiofuru-tama (塩乾珠), the tide-ebbing jewel. If his brother attacked him, he should raise the flood tide with the first; if his brother begged for mercy, he should draw the waters back with the second. To carry him home, Watatsumi called together the wani — the great sea creatures, "crocodiles" in the oldest English translation and usually understood today as sharks — and asked which could make the journey fastest. A wani one fathom long promised to do it in a single day, and did. Hoori tied his small sword around its neck in thanks, and it has been honoured as a god ever since. Chapter Seven ## The Brother Yields Everything followed the sea god's instructions. Hoderi received his hook with the words of the spell, and from that day he grew poorer and poorer. In his anger he came to attack his younger brother. Hoori raised the tide-flowing jewel and the sea rose to drown him; when Hoderi cried out in distress, Hoori raised the tide-ebbing jewel and the waters drew back. Humbled, Hoderi bowed his head and swore that from then on he would guard his younger brother day and night. The Kojiki records that his descendants — the Hayato people of southern Kyushu — still performed, in the chronicler's own day, the gestures of a man struggling in the water, in memory of that submission. Chapter Eight ## The Birth on the Shore Some time later, Toyotama-hime rose from the sea to find her husband. She was carrying his child, she said, and a child of heaven should not be born in the ocean. On the edge of the waves she began building a birthing hut thatched with cormorant feathers — but her time came before the roof was finished. Before she went in, she made one request. Those from other lands, she said, give birth in the form of their own country; she would take her true shape. Do not look at me. Hoori found the words strange — and looked. Inside the hut his wife had become a wani eight fathoms long, coiling and writhing on the floor. In the Nihon Shoki's main telling, she had become a dragon. He fled in terror. Toyotama-hime knew she had been seen. Ashamed, she left the child on the shore, closed the path between the sea and the land, and returned to the depths. Her son was named Ugayafukiaezu (鵜葺草葺不合命) — "Cormorant-Thatch-Unfinished". Yet she could not stop loving her husband. She sent her younger sister Tamayori-hime to nurse the child, carrying a poem: red jewels shine, even to the cord that strings them, but her lord, like white jewels, shone more. Hoori answered that he would never, to the end of his life, forget the wife he had slept beside on the island where the wild ducks land. The child grew up and married Tamayori-hime, his aunt and foster-mother. Their youngest son was Kamu-Yamato-Iwarebiko — remembered as Jimmu, the first emperor of Japan. Through Toyotama-hime, the imperial line traced its ancestry not only to the sun in heaven but to the god of the sea. Chapter Nine ## Watatsumi, Ryūjin and Urashima Tarō The Kojiki never calls the sea god a dragon. His name there is Watatsumi (綿津見神) — from old words meaning "holder of the sea" — a sea god born in the age when Izanagi and Izanami brought forth the gods of nature (three more Watatsumi arise when Izanagi purifies himself after returning from the underworld). The palace is simply the sea god's palace, "built like the scales of fish". The name Ryūjin (龍神, "dragon god") and the idea of the Ryūgū (龍宮, "dragon palace") came later, as Chinese and Buddhist traditions of dragon kings who rule the waters blended with Japan's older reverence for serpent-shaped water spirits. In folk religion Ryūjin became the god whom fishermen asked for calm seas and full nets, and over time the sea god of the Kojiki and the dragon king of the sea came to be thought of as one. The Nihon Shoki's image of Toyotama-hime as a dragon helped the two pictures meet. That later name is the one this map uses — but the story it tells is Watatsumi's. A different, later tale is often confused with this one: Urashima Tarō, the fisherman who rescues a turtle, is taken to the Dragon Palace, and returns home to find that centuries have passed. Its earliest form is a brief entry in the Nihon Shoki (Emperor Yūryaku, year 22), in which a fisherman of Tango catches a turtle that becomes a woman and travels with her to Hōrai, the land of immortals; fuller versions survive in the Tango Fudoki and the Man'yōshū. The familiar name Urashima Tarō, the Dragon Palace and the forbidden box come from medieval and later retellings. It is a separate story — but it swims in the same waters. Sources ## Sources & Versions - Kojiki (712), Book One — Chamberlain's sections XXXVIII (birth of the three brothers), XXXIX "The August Exchange of Luck", XL "The Palace of the Ocean-Possessor", XLI "Submission of His Augustness Fire-Shine", XLII "The Parturition-House of Cormorants' Feathers", XLIII (the children of Ugayafukiaezu, including Jimmu). This telling follows the Kojiki. - Nihon Shoki (720), Book II ("Age of the Gods", part 2) — main text and several variant accounts. Differences: the elder brother is named Ho-no-susori and the younger Hiko-hoho-demi; Shiotsuchi sinks the prince in a basket rather than a boat; the hook is found in the mouth of the "red-woman" (akame, a name for the sea bream); the sea god is in one variant called Toyotama-hiko; and in the main text Toyotama-hime turns into a dragon (tatsu), while variants say a wani. - Nihon Shoki, Book XIV (Emperor Yūryaku, 22nd year) — the earliest Urashima entry. - Kokugakuin University Encyclopedia of Shinto: entries "Watatsumi", "Umi no kami" and "Ryūjin shinkō" — for the distinction between the classical sea god and the later dragon god. Source URLs: - Chamberlain, Kojiki (1882), §XXXIX: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_39 - §XL: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_40 - §XLI: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_41 - §XLII: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_42 - (Also at sacred-texts.com: https://sacred-texts.com/shi/kj/index.htm) - Aston, Nihongi (1896), Book II: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nihongi/Book_II - Aston, Nihongi, Book XIV (Urashima): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nihongi/Book_XIV - (Also at sacred-texts.com: https://sacred-texts.com/shi/nihon0.htm) - Kokugakuin, "Watatsumi": https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9733 - Kokugakuin, "Umi no kami": https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9971 - Kokugakuin, "Ryūjin shinkō": https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=8979 --- ## Tsukuyomi and Ukemochi: Why Sun and Moon Part URL: https://japan.je/kojiki/tsukuyomi.html # Tsukuyomi's Banishment Why the Sun and Moon Never Meet Chapter One ## The Child of the Right Eye Of the three great children of Izanagi, the moon god Tsukuyomi is the quietest — the Kojiki names him and then never mentions him again. But the Nihon Shoki keeps one story about him: a feast, a killing, and a quarrel with his sister the sun that explains why day and night have lived apart ever since. When Izanagi returned from the land of the dead, he went down to a river mouth to wash away its pollution. As he washed his left eye, Amaterasu, the sun goddess, was born. As he washed his right eye, Tsukuyomi (月読命) was born. As he washed his nose, Susanoo was born. Izanagi rejoiced that at the end of all his begetting he had three noble children. He gave each of them a realm. To Amaterasu he gave the High Plain of Heaven. To Susanoo he gave the sea. And to Tsukuyomi, in the Kojiki's words, he gave the realm of night. His name is usually read as "moon-reckoner": tsuki, the moon, and yomu, to count or read — the one whose phases measured out the months for people who planted and harvested by the lunar calendar. He is usually understood as a male god, a cool, silver counterpart to his radiant sister. Chapter Two ## The Moon Who Was Not Forgotten After that, the Kojiki falls silent about him. Amaterasu hides in her cave, Susanoo slays the serpent, Ōkuninushi builds the land — and the moon god does not appear again. The Nihon Shoki, finished eight years after the Kojiki, remembered him differently. Instead of one account it gathers many, setting the official telling beside a row of "other writings" (aru fumi) that the compilers had collected. In its main account, the moon was born after the sun and given a place beside her in the sky, because his light was second only to hers. In one variant he is told to rule the tides of the ocean. And in another — the eleventh variant on the birth of the gods — he is set beside his sister to share in the affairs of heaven. It is in that variant that his story is told. Chapter Three ## The Errand Amaterasu, newly enthroned in heaven, had heard that down in the Central Land of Reed-Plains there lived a goddess named Ukemochi (保食神, "Keeper of Food"). She sent her brother Tsukuyomi down to wait upon her. Ukemochi welcomed the moon god with a feast. She turned her face towards the land, and boiled rice came from her mouth. She turned towards the sea, and from her mouth came fish of every kind, broad-finned and narrow-finned. She turned towards the mountains, and from her mouth came game, rough-coated and soft-coated. All of it she arranged on a hundred tables and set before her guest. Chapter Four ## A Feast Refused Tsukuyomi saw where the food had come from, and his face darkened with anger. It was filthy, he said — how dare she serve him things she had spat from her own mouth? He drew his sword and struck her down. To the moon god it was an insult. To the reader of the myth it is something stranger: the abundance of the whole world — the fields, the sea, the mountains — had been pouring out of a single goddess, and he had cut it off. Chapter Five ## Day and Night Divided Tsukuyomi returned to heaven and reported everything he had done. Amaterasu was furious. He was a wicked god, she told him, and she would never again look upon his face. From then on the sun and the moon lived apart, separated by a day and a night. She rules the daylight; he rises only after she has gone. The two can share the sky, but never meet face to face. Chapter Six ## Seeds from the Fallen Goddess Amaterasu sent another messenger, Ame-no-Kumahito, to see what had become of Ukemochi. The goddess was truly dead. But her body had not stopped giving. From the crown of her head had come the ox and the horse; from her forehead, millet; from her eyebrows, silkworms; from her eyes, barnyard millet; from her belly, rice; and from her loins, wheat and beans, large and small. The messenger gathered all of it and carried it to heaven. Amaterasu rejoiced: these, she said, were the things that living people would eat to survive. She made the millets, wheat and beans the seed of the dry fields, and rice the seed of the flooded paddies, and sowed the first rice in the fields of heaven. That autumn the ears hung heavy and long. She took the silkworms in her mouth and drew thread from them, and so began the art of raising silk. Out of a killing came agriculture. The gods' quarrel left humankind its harvest. Chapter Seven ## The Other Telling: Susanoo and Ōgetsu-hime Readers who know the Kojiki will recognise this story — but with a different god holding the sword. In the Kojiki, the moon god never kills anyone. The food goddess is slain by Susanoo. In the Kojiki's version, Susanoo has just been expelled from heaven after his rampage — the rampage that drove Amaterasu into her cave. On his way down he asks for food from the goddess Ōgetsu-hime (大気都比売, "Princess of Great Food"). She draws delicacies from her nose, her mouth and her body and prepares them for him. Susanoo, spying on her, thinks she is serving him filth and kills her. From her head grow silkworms; from her eyes, rice; from her ears, millet; from her nose, red beans; from her loins, wheat; from her lower body, soybeans. The creator deity Kamimusubi has them gathered and made into seed. The two chronicles agree on the shape of the myth: a food goddess who produces food from her own body, an offended god, a killing, and the first crops springing from her corpse. They disagree on who struck the blow, which goddess died, and what the killing explains — in the Kojiki it is the origin of seeds; in the Nihon Shoki it is also the reason the sun and moon never meet. Some scholars have noted that the Nihon Shoki's Tsukuyomi, who in one variant rules the sea and in this one kills a food goddess, looks remarkably like Susanoo — and that a moon god, who measures the farming year, is a fitting figure to stand at the origin of crops. The Kojiki was never wrong and the Nihon Shoki never right; ancient Japan simply remembered the story more than one way. Chapter Eight ## The Moon God Today Tsukuyomi has no great adventure of his own, but he was never forgotten. At the Grand Shrines of Ise, where his sister Amaterasu is enshrined, he has his own detached shrines — Tsukiyomi-no-miya near the Inner Shrine and Tsukiyomi-no-miya near the Outer Shrine (the names are written with different characters) — and older shrines to him stand in the Kyoto and Ise regions. The Nihon Shoki even records, in the reign of Emperor Kenzō, an oracle in which the moon god spoke through a human medium and asked for land to be offered to the creator deity Takamimusubi. Each night, when the sun has set and the moon comes up alone, the old story is told again without words: two divine siblings who share the same heaven and have not looked at each other since the day of the feast. Sources ## Sources & Versions - Kojiki (712), Book One — Chamberlain §X (Tsukuyomi born from Izanagi's right eye), §XI (Izanagi assigns the realms: Tsukuyomi receives the realm of night), §XVII (Susanoo kills Ōgetsu-hime; the seeds). Tsukuyomi does not reappear in the Kojiki. - Nihon Shoki (720), Book I ("Age of the Gods", part 1), the section on the birth of the deities: main text (sun and moon born of Izanagi and Izanami; the moon sent to the sky beside the sun); a variant in which Tsukuyomi is to rule the tides of the ocean; and the eleventh variant ("In one writing it is said…"), which contains the Ukemochi story told here. The killing of Ukemochi and the separation of day and night are not in the Kojiki. - Nihon Shoki, Book XV (Emperor Kenzō) — oracle of the moon god. - Names: Aston gives the messenger as Ame-kuma-bito (天熊人); some modern references read the name Ame-no-Kumanoushi. Ukemochi and Ōgetsu-hime are sometimes identified as the same goddess, but the texts present them separately. Source URLs: - Chamberlain, Kojiki §XI: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_11 - Chamberlain, Kojiki §XVII: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kojiki_%28Chamberlain,_1882%29/Section_17 - Aston, Nihongi Book I: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nihongi/Book_I - (Also at sacred-texts.com: https://sacred-texts.com/shi/kj/index.htm and https://sacred-texts.com/shi/nihon0.htm) - Kokugakuin, "Tsukuyomi": https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9136 - Kokugakuin, "Ukemochi": https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/?id=9741 --- ## Yamata no Orochi: Susanoo and the Serpent URL: https://japan.je/kojiki/yamata-no-orochi.html # Yamata no Orochi The Eight-Headed Serpent Chapter One ## The Banished God Susanoo, the unruly god often called the storm god, had been cast out of the Plain of High Heaven. His rampage there had driven his sister, Amaterasu, the sun goddess, to hide herself away in the Heavenly Rock Cave, and when she came out the eight hundred myriad gods punished him: they fined him a thousand tables of offerings, cut off his beard, had his fingernails and toenails pulled out, and drove him from Heaven. He came down to earth at a place called Torikami, at the headwaters of the Hi River in the land of Izumo. There he noticed something strange—chopsticks floating downstream. Where there were chopsticks, there must be people. Following the river upward, he came upon the sound of weeping. Chapter Two ## The Grieving Family Before him were an old man and an old woman with a young girl between them, all three in tears. The old man said that he was an earthly deity, a son of the great mountain god Ōyamatsumi. His name was Ashinazuchi, his wife's was Tenazuchi, and their daughter was Kushinada-hime. Susanoo's heart, though wild, was not without compassion. He asked what this serpent looked like. Chapter Three ## The Beast Revealed "Its eyes are red like winter cherries," Ashinazuchi answered. "It has one body with eight heads and eight tails. Moss grows on it, and cypress and cedar trees too. It is so long that it stretches over eight valleys and eight hills, and its belly is always bloody and inflamed." The creature had no other name: yamata no orochi simply means "the eight-forked serpent." Even for a god, this would be a formidable opponent. But Susanoo had a plan—and a condition. "If this is your daughter," he said, "will you give her to me?" The old man answered that he would, with reverence—but he did not know the stranger's name. When Susanoo revealed that he was Amaterasu's brother, newly come down from Heaven, the old couple agreed at once. Chapter Four ## The Trap Susanoo turned Kushinada-hime into a many-toothed comb and tucked it into his hair. Then he told the old couple to brew sake refined eight times over, to build a fence with eight gates, to set up a platform at each gate, and to place on each platform a vat filled with the strong sake. Then they waited. And the serpent came, exactly as the old man had described it—Yamata no Orochi, its eight heads swaying above one vast body that sprawled across the hills. Chapter Five ## The Battle The serpent found the sake. Each of its eight heads dipped into a vat and drank deeply of the powerful brew. Soon the creature was thoroughly drunk, and all its heads sank down and slept. This was the moment Susanoo had waited for. He drew the great sword at his side—a "ten-grasp" sword, ten hand-breadths long—and cut the sleeping serpent to pieces. So much blood poured out that the Hi River flowed on as a river of blood. Chapter Six ## The Divine Sword Puzzled, Susanoo used the point of his sword to split the tail open. Inside lay a great, sharp sword. Thinking it a wondrous thing, he took it and presented it to his sister Amaterasu. The Kojiki gives no reason for the gift; the Nihon Shoki has him say that this is a divine sword, and that he would not dare keep it for himself. This is the sword known as Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, the "Grass-Mowing Sword." One account in the Nihon Shoki says that its first name was Ame-no-Murakumo, "Gathering Clouds of Heaven," perhaps because clouds always hung over the serpent, and that it was renamed in the days of the hero Yamato Takeru. Generations later Amaterasu sent it down to earth with her grandson Ninigi, and it is counted among the three Imperial Regalia of Japan. Epilogue ## A New Beginning With the monster dead, Susanoo searched Izumo for a place to build a palace. When he reached Suga he declared that his heart felt refreshed—suga means "pure, fresh," and this is said to be how the place got its name. There he built a palace for himself and Kushinada-hime, and as it rose, clouds climbed up from the land. Susanoo made a song: The song, which opens with the words Yakumo tatsu ("eight clouds rise"), was later honoured as the root of Japanese waka poetry, and it is often called Japan's first poem. Susanoo made old Ashinazuchi the headman of his palace, and the land of Izumo was safe. The tale of the eight-headed serpent would echo through the ages—a reminder that even the fiercest monsters can fall, and that a god who brought only chaos to Heaven could bring order to the land below. Sources ## Sources & Versions This telling follows the Kojiki (712), Book One, in Basil Hall Chamberlain's 1882 translation: §XVII (Susanoo's punishment and expulsion from Heaven), §XVIII "The Eight-Forked Serpent" and §XIX "The Palace of Suga"; the sword's later journey to earth with Ninigi is in §XXXIII. Between his expulsion and his arrival in Izumo, the Kojiki also places a short episode in which Susanoo kills the food goddess Ōgetsu-hime, from whose body the first seeds grow; it is left out here. The Nihon Shoki (720), Book I, tells the story in its main text and several variant accounts, in W.G. Aston's 1896 translation. Its main text has no floating chopsticks: Susanoo simply hears weeping at the headwaters of the Hi. The sake is set out in eight "cupboards" rather than behind eight gates, the serpent's eyes are again "like the winter-cherry," and firs and cypresses grow on its back. Susanoo's sword is only "slightly notched," he gives the sword he finds to the gods of Heaven, and a note gives its original name as Ame-no-Murakumo, changed to Kusanagi in Yamato Takeru's time. In the Nihon Shoki the poem appears only as "one version," which is one reason some scholars doubt its age. Other variants move the story to the Ye River in Aki, or have the old couple ask Susanoo to slay the serpent before he may marry their daughter. The "winter-cherry" (akakagachi) is the plant now called hōzuki, the Chinese lantern plant. Kokugakuin University's Encyclopedia of Shinto notes readings of the myth as the taming of the Hi River for rice-growing. - Kojiki (Chamberlain, 1882), §XVII — The August Expulsion - Kojiki (Chamberlain, 1882), §XVIII — The Eight-Forked Serpent - Kojiki (Chamberlain, 1882), §XIX — The Palace of Suga - Kojiki (Chamberlain, 1882), §XXXIII — The descent of the August Grandchild - Nihongi (Aston, 1896), Book I — The Age of the Gods, Part I - Encyclopedia of Shinto (Kokugakuin University) — Yamata no orochi - Encyclopedia of Shinto (Kokugakuin University) — Kushinadahime - Encyclopedia of Shinto (Kokugakuin University) — Susanoo