Sourced and translated from Mizuki Shigeru’s Hyakumonogatari, Kaii Yokai Densho Database, Japanese Wikipedia, Yokai Jiten, Nihon Kokugo Dai-ten, and Other Sources

If you have been a bad person all your life, your troubles are not over when you are dead. During your funeral procession, as the priest and the mourners carry your coffin there is suddenly a crack of thunder and roaring from the sky to steal your dead body and drag it to hell comes … what? A flaming chariot? A cat demon? A cat demon riding a flaming chariot?

Or maybe you have just died at home, and your once beloved house pet thinks that your sin-ridden body would make a delicious snack.

Kasha are one of the most confused of Japan’s yokai. Over the centuries kasha have evolved from a fiery cart pulled by devils to an aged cat that changes form into a corpse-eating monster. Even the calling them yokai is dubious. Although yokai can be a catch-all term for Japan’s monsters, the kasha are more properly demons. They have more in common with Hell-dwellers like oni, and are found on Kamakura period Hell Portraits designed to terrify people into following the righteous path of the Buddha.

What does Kasha mean?

Kasha uses the kanji火車 which translates easily as Fire (火) chariot (車). The kanji can also be read more explicitly as hi no kuruma (火の車 ) meaning the same thing.

That’s the easy part. Now what is a kasha? That’s the hard part.

Kasha – The Fire Chariot

During the Kamakura period (1185–1333), there was an apocalyptic belief in mappō, meaning the Latter of the Days of Law. Like some Christians today, Buddhist believed they were living in End Times and had no more life times in which to which to redeem their souls; they were stuck between Hell and redemption by the Amida Buddha. This lead to a form of art called Hell Scrolls (地獄草紙; Jigoku Zoshi), which depicted the painful suffering awaiting those who didn’t hurry up and get saved.

Most of these paintings depicted oni tearing people apart and feasting on their body parts. And sometimes these oni carried these poor bodies in flaming carts. The belief eventually developed that oni crawled the Earth looking for sinners and piled them in flaming carts or chariots to drag before the dread judge of Hell Emma-O.

As with much Japanese folklore, the image of the flaming chariot took a nap while Japan fought the massive civil war known as the Sengoku era, and was re-awakened during the Edo period yokai boom. Stories began to appear in kaidan-shu collections of the kasha, or hi no kuruma, a flaming cart that descended from the sky. The cart was said to be accompanied by thunder and great winds, and a funeral procession where thunder was heard raised an alarm that the kasha was coming.

The role of the kasha was undecided early on. In the early Edo period book Kii-zodanshu (奇異雑談集; 1687; A Collection of the Idle Chat of Mysterious Things) there is a story called “The Thing that came from the storm clouds to steal a corpse in the Manor House near the rice fields of Echigo.” During a funeral procession there was a loud clap of thunder and a beast riding a flaming cart came down from the sky and snatched the dead body. An illustrator depicted the kasha as being ridden by Raidin, the Shinto deity of thunder and lighting.

Another story, from Shin Chobun-shu (新著聞集, 1749, New Tales of Things Known the World Over) called “Saint Neyo and a visit from the Kasha,” had the Buddhist saint Neyo come out to meet the flaming chariot. But instead of a messenger from Hell, it was an ambassador from the Jyodo Pure Lands. The saint begged the kasha for a little bit more time on Earth, and the cart came back exactly a year later to take him to the Pure Lands.

All of the appearances of this kasha were heavily influenced by Buddhism. Most of the stories follow the same theme; a flaming cart that snatches up the bodies of those who have accumulated a lifetime of misdeeds. To protect these bodies from kasha, priests placed rosaries around the necks of the dead bodies, although that was no guarantee. Some said that the kasha was either a messenger of the divine or the infernal depending on the karmic state of the dead body.

Kasha – The Corpse-Eating Cat Demon

So how did this flaming cart from the sky become a cat?

Like much with yokai, the origin of the cat-like form of kasha is said to come from artist Toriyama Sekien. When Sekien drew a kasha for the second volume of his Gazu Hyakki Yagyō (画図百鬼夜行; “The Illustrated Night Parade of a Hundred Demons) in 1776, he drew the bizarre cat-demon covered in flames. Like his spiritual successor Mizuki Shigeru, Sekien often blended his own imagination in with folklore, and simply invented things as well. He didn’t begin to add notes to his yokai prints until the successive volumes, so we don’t know why he chose to make the kasha a cat.

For whatever reason, Sekien’s influence on yokai was so profound that people accepted the cat-like kasha and the stories began to follow. In Boso manroku(茅窓漫録; Random Talk of Outside Cogon Grass, 1833) a typical story was told of a funeral procession interrupted by a mighty wind and thunder that swept away the coffin as a kasha came down to retrieve the corpse. This kasha was not the flaming chariot however, and was identified as a moryo, an flesh –eating animal spirit, and was drawn resembling a cat—some also point out the resemblance of the Chinese pronunciation of moryo, kuhasha, as being related to the association of cats with kasha.

In another book, Hokuetsu Seppu ( 北越雪譜; Snow Country Tales, 1837), a story is told—said to come from the Tensho era (1573-1592) in Eichigo province (Modern day Nigata prefecture)—where a funeral is interrupted by a gust of wind and a fireball that comes from the sky. Inside the fireball is a massive two-tailed cat (the calling card of the nekomata) that snatches up the coffin. But the priest attending the funeral beat away the kasha with his staff.

Over time, this cat-form of kasha began to dominate, and other Japanese cat legends became associated with kasha. Like the neko mata and the bakeneko, kasha were said to be transformed house pets that lived an unusual span. Others said it was the presences of corpses that cause the transformation. Cats who jumped over coffins were said to be able to wake the dead. A cat left alone too long with an unattended corpse would transform into a kasha and drag the body away. Fear of the kasha became so great that when someone died the household cats were instantly banished, and coffins were even weighed down with rocks to prevent them from being drug away.

This particular element makes logical sense. Cats eating their dead owners is a real thing. The phenomena is called postmortem predation and, while dogs do it too, cats are well known to waste little time making a meal of their former owner. After a day or two alone with a corpse cats will start to chow down. If a person dies alone, and the corpse is undiscovered for weeks, the family pet might make a nice little feast and leave little left to be discovered. Because of this it doesn’t take too much imagination to see how the flaming chariot that comes from the sky to snatch bodies became mixed with the very real situation of a cat eating a corpse.

Other Kasha

Japan has many other yokai similar to kasha, some even using a variation of the name. The kasha baba is one common variation, which has the same story of someone who snatches corpses from funerals but instead of a cat-like creature it is an old woman. In Kanra-machi in Gunma prefecture there was the legend of the tenmaru that snatched corpses from funerals and graveyards. To protect the dead bodies, caskets were protected by bamboo cages as part of the burial.

Read more yokai magical animal tales on hyakumonogatari.com:

Nekomata – The Split-Tailed Cat

The Cat’s Grave

The Tanuki and the White Snake

The Appearance of the Spirit Turtle

Sourced and translated from Mizuki Shigeru’s Hyakumonogatari, Kaii Yokai Densho Database, Japanese Wikipedia, Yokai Jiten, Nihon Kokugo Dai-ten, and Other Sources

Late at night, a sublimely beautiful woman walks the street alone. As she passes by the light of a paper lantern, you notice something about her shadow—it is not human. Cast by the flickering light of the paper lantern is the clear shape of a cat.

She is a bakeneko.

What is a Bakeneko?

Bakeneko has been rendered in English in a variety of ways. Monster cat. Ghost cat. But the most accurate translation would be “Changing Cat,” as that is the defining characteristic of bakeneko.

The word bakeneko (化け猫) consist of two kanji; “Bake-“(化け) means to change form, to transform. The kanji is often used with yokai, and indeed a general term for monster in Japanese is obake (御化け) meaning “changer.” “-neko” (猫), of course, just means “cat.”

The word bakeneko is often used as a catch-all term for the mysterious and magical cats of Japan. Nekomata in particular are sometimes called a type of bakeneko. But this is a misuse of the name. Kaibyo(怪猫) is the general term for paranormal cats in Japanese. Bakeneko, just as their name implies, are defined by their ability to transform.

Specifically, bakeneko are able to take human shape, or near-human shape. Some bakeneko maintain a cat form, but they are able to speak human language and wear human clothes. Some legends say that these cat-shaped bakeneko put towels on their heads and dance on their hind legs. Much, much rarer legends are humans who change shape into cats, but which are also called bakeneko.

Because of their shape-shifting abilities, bakeneko belong to a class of yokai called henge (変化), or changing yokai. This includes other shape-shifters such as tanuki and kitsune.

Like most of Japan’s magical cats, bakeneko are said to be cats who have lived a long time. There are stories of split-tailed bakeneko, who appear similar to nekomata. The primary difference between the two is the bakeneko’s ability to adopt human shape. Also like other magical cats, there are stories of bakeneko manipulating the dead, or cursing humans.

Bakeneko Origins – The Lamp Lickers

For the origins of most yokai, there is at best a definitive “maybe” on how they arose. But for the bakeneko, there is a general scholastic consciences that the legends began with fish.

Cats are not indigenous to Japan, and the little “hand-fed tigers” were imported in later years and served as house pets and rat-catchers. Most of Japan at the time lived on a diet of vegetables and grains, with very little supplementary meat or protein. Cats were fed leftovers. However, cats are carnivorous. They don’t do well on a diet of vegetables and grains, and when they are hungry they will take their protein where they can get it. And many households had a ready supply, even if they didn’t know it.

Oil lamps as the time often used rendered fish oil as fuel. To a protein-starved cat this was exactly what they needed, and they would stand on their hind legs to reach up to the lamp to lick out the fish oil. Frightened pet owners looking at the lamplight-cast shadows would see their tiny cat suddenly elongate and stand on two legs as if transforming into a human. Thus was established the connection between bakeneko and shadows.

The cries of cats have also been known to mimic human words and sounds. To an ear already disposed to think their little tabby is shape-shifting at night, imaginations were allowed to run wild and people heard their cats speaking Japanese.

The Bakeneko Rebellion of Nabeshima

While there are many, many bakeneko legends in Japan (too many to tell here), the most famous is the Bakeneko Rebellion of Nabeshima.

This story takes place in Hizen province (modern day Saga prefecture) during the rule of Nabshima Mitsushige (1632-1700). Nabeshima employed a man named Ryuzoji Matashichi to serve as his opponent for Go. One day Matashichi fell out of favor with his lord Nabeshima, and Nabeshima had him put to the death. Matashichi’s mother was heartbroken by this, and poured out her sadness to the family cat they kept, then killed herself with a knife.

The cat licked the blood from the mother, and from this transformed into a bakeneko. Every night the cat would sneak into the castle to torment Nabeshima. The curse only ended when Nabeshima’s loyal retainer Komori Hanzaemon battled the cat and won, saving the Nabeshima house.

The story is famous not only as a legend, but also because it coincides with a real succession conflict in the Nabeshima household. It was made into a kabuki play that debuted at the Nakamura-za theater in the 1840s, titled Hana Sagano Nekoma Ishibumi Shi ( 花嵯峨野猫魔碑史; The History of the Stone Monument of the Demon Cat of Sagano). The play was a hit, but the Nabeshima family successfully petitioned to have the production closed. They were too late, however. The cat was out of the bag, and the bakeneko became a popular monster for future kabuki productions.

Bakeneko also became a popular subject for Edo period ukiyo-e artists. Many of these portray a giant cat in the background, although the cat is often just a symbol showing the true soul of the human character crouching in the foreground, the true bakeneko.

Bakeneko Yujo – TheBakeneko Prostitutes

In the Edo period, books called kibyoshi (yellow books)and sharebon (which translates as “Books of Fashion”) told stories of near-do-wells and salacious tales of life in the pleasure quarters. Considering the Edo periods mania for kaidan weird tales, it was only natural that these two genres should combine to tell tales of bakeneko prostitutes who haunted the lantern-lit lanes of the Yoshiwara.

These stories usually followed a familiar pattern, where a popular prostitute would escort a customer too her room and perform her usual service. Late at night, the customer would wake up and find his lady not there. He would sneak into a different part of the house where he peeked at her, and the dainty woman would be revealed as a bakeneko, usually engaged in tearing the heads off of live fish and shrimp, blood dripping on her face.

Seafood was the dead giveaway for these bakeneko prostitutes, and sometimes customers would present a woman with a live fish to see if her true nature would be revealed. Strangely enough, this plot device was used by Mizuki Shigeru for his character Neko Musume, a bakeneko that appears as a cute little girl but suddenly transforms into a ravenous beast in the presence of fish or mice.

Further reading:

Read more yokai magical animal tales on hyakumonogatari.com:

Iriomote Oyamaneko – The Iriomote Great Mountain Cat

Kasha – The Corpse-Eating Cat Demon

Nekomata – The Split-Tailed Cat

The Cat’s Grave

Sourced and translated from Kaii Yokai Densho Database, Japanese Wikipedia, Yokai Jiten, Nihon Kokugo Dai-ten, and Other Sources

If a tree falls in the forest, and someone hears it, is that the plaintive cry of a kodama? Because that is what ancient, tree-worshipping Japanese people thought.

The Japanese have always known that some trees were special. For whatever reason—maybe because of an interestingly shaped trunk, or a sequence of knots resembling a human face, or just a certain sense of awe—some trees were identified as being the abodes of spirits. Depending on where you lived, these spirits went by many names. But the most common term, the one that is still used today, is kodama.

What does kodama mean?

Kodama is a very old belief, and a very old word. It was spoken long before Japan had a written language, and over the centuries there have been three different kanji used to write kodama.

The oldest, 古多万, is ambiguous to say the least. The word breaks down into 古 – (ko; old) – 多- (da; many) – 万 (ma; 10,000). Because ancient Japanese had no writing system, when the Chinese writing system was adopted kanji characters were often selected for sound rather than meaning. Unrelated symbols were jammed together to approximate the pronunciation of existing Japanese words. This is the most likely explanation for the use of 古多万.

But this combination is unsatisfying, and in later years 木魂 (木 ; ko; tree – 魂 ; dama; soul) was adopted as well as木魅(木 ; ko; tree – 魅 ; dama; soul), and now in modern times木霊 (木 ; ko; tree) – 霊 ; dama; spirit) tends to be used. There is little difference between木魂, 木魅, or 木霊, all being variations of the term “tree spirit.”

Another kanji used for kodama, 谺, also means echo. And if you read below you will find out why.

The Legends of Kodama

Along with the kanji , what exactly a kodama is has changed over the centuries, from nature gods to goblin spirits.

In ancient times, kodama were said to be kami, nature dieties that dwelled in trees. Some believed that kodama were not linked to a single tree but could move nimbly through the forest, traveling freely from tree to tree.

Still others believed that kodama were rooted like the trees themselves, or in fact looked no different from other trees in the forest. Woe betide any unwary woodsman who took an axe to what looked like a regular tree, only to draw blood as he chopped into a kodama. A kodama’s curse was something to be feared.

But they were also a sound. Echoes that reverberated through mountains and valleys were said to be kodama. The sound of a tree crashing in the woods was also said to be the plaintive cry of a kodama. (In modern times this mountain echo is associated with the yokai yamabiko and not with kodama).

Whatever form they took, kodama were said to be possessed of supernatural power, that could either be a blessing or a curse. Kodama that were properly worshipped and honored would protect houses and villages. Kodama that were mistreated or disrespected brought down powerful curses.

The History of Kodama

The first known mention of tree spirits is in Japan’s oldest known book, the Kojiki (Record of Thing’s Past) that talks about the tree god Wakunochi-no-kami, second born of the godling brood of Izanagi and Izanami.

The oldest, specific known use of the term kodama comes from the Heian period, in the book Wamuryorui Jyusho (和名類聚抄; Japanese Names for Things; written 931 – 938 CE). Wamuryorui Jyusho was a dictionary showing the appropriate kanji for Japanese words, and listed古多万 as the Japanese word for spirits of the trees. Another Heian era book, Genji Monogatari (源氏物語; The Tale of Genji), uses木魂 to describe kodama as sort of tree-dwelling goblin. Genji Monogatari also uses the phrase “either oni or kami or kitsune or kodama,” showing that these four spirits were thought to be separate entities.

Around the Edo period, kodama lost their rank as gods of the forest and were included as just one of Japan’s ubiquitous yokai. Kodama became humanized as well—there are stories of kodama falling in love with humans and taking human shape in order to marry their beloved.

Kodama Across Japan

In Aogashima, Izu Islands, people place small shrines at the base of cryptomeria (Japanese cedar) trees and still worship and pray to them. This is said to be the remainders of a nature-worshiping religion that once dominated.

In Mitsune village, in Hachijō-jima, they still have a festival every year giving thanks and respect to “kidama-san” or “kodama-san,” hoping for forgiveness and blessing when they cut down trees for the logging industry.

In Okinawa, they call the tree spirit kinushi. At night, if you hear the sound of a falling tree it is said to be the cry of a kinushi, and Okinawa’s tree-dwelling famous yokai kijimuna is thought to be a descendant of these ancient kinushi tree spirits.

Appearance of Kodama

No one really agrees what kodama look like. In ancient legends they are either invisible or indistinguishable from regular trees. Toriyama Sekian, who has set the standard for the appearance of many creatures of Japanese folklore, drew kodama as an ancient man or woman standing near a tree in his famous Gazu Hyakki Yagyō (画図百鬼夜行; The Illustrated Night Parade of a Hundred Demons).

Miyazaki Hayao used kodama extensively in his film Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke) and illustrated kodama as dual-color bobble-heads. Modern interpretations are wildly various, showing kodama as human young and old, or small nature sprites borrowing from European pagan traditions, or just cute animated characters.

Clearly, they are open for interpretation.

Kodama: The Game

This version of kodama comes from a Kodama game being developed by Dan Tsukasa, that I am helping out with as “yokai advisor.”

Here is Dan’s blurb for the game:

——————————————————-
Kodama is a game set in Japan during the time of Yokai. A nameless Kodama journeys across Japan to find his fellow Kodama and return them to the forest in order to protect it from a powerful Yokai. During his travels Kodama must use his abilities as a tree spirit to overcome countless obstacles, using nothing but the elements around him, he must traverse dangerous swamps, caverns and even Jigoku itself in order to protect the Kodama Forest. Kodama is able to use the world around him to his advantage, using his unique tree spirit abilities he is able to float on a breeze, grow to reach new heights and perform other abilities only known to a Kodama.

Kodama is a puzzle platformer with a few unique twists & a never before seen system known as the ‘Mori System’, the game features over 30 unique Yokai, 12 different locations and a wealth of information concerning the featuring Yokai themselves.

If I had to describe the ‘feeling’ of Kodama in a few short words, I’d say it was more of a ‘stop, smell the roses and take in the magnificent view’ type of game.
——————————————————-

You can find out more about the very cook Kodama game (along with some stunning art) at the Kodama Devlog.

Translator’s Note:

Kodama is the latest in my magical tree series of translations. Kodama are slightly different from my previous translation Ki no Kami, in that they are mostly considered to be lower-level tree spirits that actual gods. The Ki no Kami come down from heaven to inhabit the trees, whereas the kodama are the spirits of the trees themselves. And then there are the moidon, which are awakened trees with a soul like any human.

Thanks to Miyazaki, kodama are well-known in Japan (unlike some of the obscure folklore on familiar to true yokai lovers), although most would associate kodama with the white bobble-head from Mononoke Hime.

Further Reading:

For more magical tree stories, check out:

Ki no Kami – The God in the Tree

Moidon – The Lords of the Forest

Jinmenju – The Human Face Tree

Enju no Jashin – The Evil God in the Pagoda Tree

Ochiba Naki Shii – The Chinkapin Tree of Unfallen Leaves

Translated from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujara

In old times, this was a yokai found on the roads leading to Kyoto. The legend goes that late at night, a samurai walking down the street when a man in a kimono stepped in to block his path and said “Excuse me … just a moment of your time … “ The samurai readied himself for an attack, and shouted back “What do you want?”

The man suddenly shed his kimono and stood stark naked. He then bent over and showed his ass to the samurai, which had a single, huge eye. When the eye opened, it shown with a bright light. The samurai screamed with fright and fled from the mysterious monster.

The poet and artist Buzon included the shirime in his collection “Buzon’s Yokai Picture Scroll” (蕪村妖怪絵巻), which is the only known source of the story. It is a variation of the nopperabo legend, and the shirime is considered to be a type of nopperabo.

Regular nopperabo surprise people by suddenly showing them a featureless face, smooth as an egg. The shimire species of nopperable can give a double surprise, first showing the featureless face then bending over and exposing the eyeball butt. The shirime doesn’t have any bad intentions or evil purpose. It just thinks it is fun to surprise people.

Translator’s Note:

The shirime’s name is pretty self-explanatory; 尻 (shiri – butt)目(me – eye). The term can also be used to mean to look down on someone, or to look askance at.

Like many of this type of yokai, there isn’t much more to the story than a mischievous creature that likes to startle people. Japan has a high tolerance for body humor and grotesqueness, and the shirime is a good example of this.

Further Reading:

Check out other butt-related tales from hyakumonogatari.com:

Kappa to Shirikodama – Kappa and the Small Anus Ball

Translated from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujara and Japanese Wikipedia

When a child in Japan wakes shaking from a nightmare, she knows what to do. Hugging her face in her pillow, she whispers three times “Baku-san, come eat my dream. Baku-san, come eat my dream. Baku-san, come eat my dream.” If her request is granted, the monstrous baku will come into her room and suck the bad dream away. But the baku cannot be summoned without caution. A too-hungry baku might not be satiated with a single dream, and might suck away her hopes and ambitions along with it, leaving her hollow.

What is a Baku?

Baku are classic chimera; the body of a bear, the nose of an elephant, the feet of a tiger, the tail of an ox, and the eyes of a rhinoceros. One legend says that when the gods were finished creating the animals, they took all of the odds and ends lying around and put them together to make the baku.

According to Japanese legend, baku are the eaters of bad dreams. They are a talismanic figure, that people pray to at night to come and suck away nightmares so that they may never be seen again. But there is a darker side to the baku; some say that baku eat all dreams, not only nightmares. This includes dreams of aspiration, dreams of your future, and dreams of hope.

Is the Baku Real?

While they are wildly stylized, baku resemble the Asian tapir. And in fact, in Japanese they share the same name and kanji (獏). The baku is not alone in this; the word kirin is not only Japanese for giraffe but also a mythical Chinese monster.

Which came first—the legend or the animal—is hidden in the past, with no solid agreement on either side. Many say that the two are unconnected, and that the similar appearance is pure coincidence, with the animal being named after the legend. Some say a wayward sailor drifted to Malaysia, and came back with stories of a massive creature that was transformed by legend.

Either way, the legend is old in his book “Ancient Chinese Gods and Beasts,” Kyoto University professor Hayashi Minao points to ancient bronze ware and other artifacts inscribed with images of the mythical baku. He postulated that some creature like the Asian tapir might have existed in China at sometime, but has since gone extinct.

Baku are often confused with another Chinese legendary animal, the hakutaku (called a bai ze in Chinese). In fact, at Gobyakukan-ji temple in Tokyo, there is a statue called the Baku King, which was originally a statue of a hakutaku.

Is the Baku a Yokai?

A complicated question, that depends on how broad your definition of a yokai is. It isn’t a yokai in the sense of fantasy creatures like the nure onago or bakeneko. It is more of a sacred animal, more associated with gods than monsters. Mizuki Shigeru uses the broadest possible definition of yokai, meaning anything mysterious from Bigfoot to rains of frogs, by which the baku definitely qualifies.

The History and Legends of the Baku

Like many folkloric creatures, baku have changed over the centuries. In the oldest Chinese legends, baku were hunted for their pelts. It was said that using a blanket made from a baku was a talisman against illness and the malice of evil spirits. Due to a lack of available baku pelts, this eventually changed to where putting an image of a baku over the bed would afford you equal protection. During the Tang dynasty( 618 – 907), folding screens decorated with baku were a popular item.

Somehow, the legend of the baku was transmitted to Japan, where the beast became associated with the dream eating that it is best known for today. The Tang period book Torokuten (Six Stories of the Tang dynasty) also tells of a sacred animal called a bakuki that eats dreams, and it is likely that the two were merged into a single legend.

The baku legend as a dream-eater has stayed consistent since adopted by Japan. There have been various ways of summoning the baku. In Fukushima it is said that if, after awaking from a bad dream, you say “I give this dream to the baku,” then that dream will never trouble you again. In other prefectures, you repeat “Baku-san, come eat my dream” three times in a row to summon to baku to come and eat your nightmares.

During the Muromachi period (1337 to 1573) in Japan, it became popular for people on their death bed to hold an image of a baku as a talisman against evil spirits. They also became associated with the fantastical Treasure Galley, which often had a baku painted on its sails. During the Edo period (1603 to 1868), pillows were sold in the shape of baku, said to protect the sleeper from bad dreams.

Baku in Modern Japan

While many yokai and legendary creatures have faded until they live only in the memory of academics and comic artists, baku are still a popular figure in modern Japan. The baku appears in many modern animation and comic books, although in appearance they look more and more like authentic tapir, and less and less like the folkloric chimera.

You probably think you already know what yokai means. And, you are probably wrong. Or at least, you are only partially correct. There is more to yokai than you think.

Thanks to movies like “The Great Yokai War,” and comics and books like “Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan” and “Yokai Attack!,” yokai as a word is slowly making its way into the English language. People are becoming aware of Japan’s legacy of magic and mystery. But, “yokai” is entering English with a meaning almost-but-not-quite the same as the Japanese meaning.

It is kind of like the word “manga”—in English, manga has come to mean “Japanese comics.” Exclusively. But in Japanese, manga just means … comics. All comics. Regardless of national origin. Iron Man? Manga. Mickey Mouse? Manga. Rex Morgan, M.D.? Manga. Tin Tin? Manga. And it doesn’t even specifically mean books (That would be “manga no hon.”) “Manga” can mean toys, movies, games … anything comic-related. It has a vast meaning beyond the limited scope of usage that we have given the word in English. I digress.

Of course, yokai can refer to Japan’s menagerie of monsters. All of the beasties and spirits—the baku, the kodama, the yuki onna, the kappa—all of these are yokai. I am as guilty as the next person for using yokai as a generic term for “Japanese monster.” It works. It fits. But that’s not the whole story.

Many other things are also yokai, things that are not creatures of any sort. Like the word manga, the Japanese usage of yokai has a much larger scope. It covers much more than just monsters.

(It is worth noting that “Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan” isn’t called that in Japanese. The original title is “Nurarihyon no Mago” meaning “Nurarihyon’s Grandson.” The term “Yokai Clan” was tagged on to appeal to English readers.)

Breaking Down the Kanji – 妖怪

Like most Japanese words, the key to the meaning is in the kanji. So let’s start there.

Yokai uses two kanji;

• 妖 (yo) which means “mysterious, bewitching, unearthly, weird.” It doesn’t really have a scary nuance to it, but more of the attraction to something beyond the normal. It can be used in words like yoka (妖花) meaning an ethereally beautiful flower, or ayashii (妖しい) meaning bewitching or charming.
• 怪(kai) which means “mystery, wonder, strange.” Kai has more of a sense of horror, or the bizarre. It is the same kanji used in kaidan (怪談) meaning “weird tales” and kaiki (怪奇) meaning “bizarre, strange, outrageous.”

Put those two together and you get yokai妖怪, with a direct translation along the lines of “something that is otherworldly and strange yet captivating and appealing.” But direct translation of kanji almost never gives the full picture.

So, What Does Yokai Really Mean?

I think a better translation would be “mysterious phenomena”—or even “Fortean phenomena” if that means anything to you. “Mysterious phenomena” is probably better.

Along with folkloric creatures, yokai can refer to things like strange weather, mysterious illnesses, optical illusions, weird fruit, etc … And yokai is not limited to Japan. In his Yokai Encyclopedias, comic artist/folklorist/genius Mizuki Shigeru covers things like the Moai statues on Easter Island, or bigfoot and the yeti, or vampires and ghouls, or rains of frogs. Yokai is a broad, sweeping term that can cover pretty much everything weird on Earth.

Here’s what Japanese Wikipedia has to say:

“Yokai as a term encompasses oni, obake, strange phenomenon, monsters, evil spirits of rivers and mountains, demons, goblins, apparitions, shape-changers, magic, ghosts, and mysterious occurrences. Yokai can either be legendary figures from Japanese folklore, or purely fictional creations with little or no history. There are many yokai that come from outside Japan, including strange creatures and phenomena from outer space. Anything that can not readily be understood or explained, anything mysterious and unconfirmed, can be a yokai.”

That great arbitrator of all things yokai, Mizuki Shigeru, further breaks down the word yokai into four separate categories:

• Kaiju – 怪 (kai, mysterious) + 獣 (ju; beast), meaning “monster.” Most of Japan’s famous yokai are kaiju. Godzilla is a dai-kaiju, or “great monster.”
• Choshizen - 超 (cho; super) + 自然 (shizen; natural), meaning the supernatural, including mysterious natural phenomena.
• Henge - 変 (hen; strange) + 化(ge; to change, transform) , meaning shape-shifters like tanuki, foxes, and old cats.
• Yurei -幽 (yu; dim) + 霊 (rei; spirit), meaning ghosts, and spirits of the dead.

So if you think in the classic biological classification model, then you would have something like this:

• Bakeneko is a yokai > henge
• Oiwa is a yokai > yurei
• Bigfoot is a yokai > kaiju
• Bermuda Triangle > yokai > choshizen

(Very) Brief History of the Word Yokai

Yokai is a pretty old world, pre-dating most of Japanese folkloric vocabulary. The oldest known use of “yokai” is from the 1st century text “Junshiden” (循史伝) where the author writes “The yokai was in the Imperial Court for a long time.” The term is used to describe a sense of unnatural anxiety and foreboding. It shows up again in 772, in “Shoku Nihongi” (続日本紀) where a ritual cleansing of the palace is recommended to “clear away the yokai.” It isn’t used in the sense of any particular bad creature, but just accumulated “bad juju” that might be clinging to the palace.

Yokai as a term for Japan’s folkloric beasts didn’t really appear until the Edo period, with the publication of “Yokai Chakutocho” (夭怪着到牒 ), a yokai bestiary of the kind still familiar today. Sharp-eyed readers ( or those who know Japanese) will see that a different set of kanji was used; 夭 (yo, calamity, disaster ) + 怪 (kai). That kanji has a much more distinct menacing feel to it.

Texts from the Edo period also distinguish between types of yokai, such as “strange natural phenomenon” or “strange living things.”  Also during the Edo period, when Japan began to have contact with other cultures, books began to be published of accounts of “Yokai of the West.”

Now you Know What Yokai Means!

Of course, this is the quick and dirty version.  Whole books can and have been written on yokai, on the history of yokai, on the evolution and social meaning, etc … At least now when you want to start diving into things like that, you will have a clearer understanding of what the word yokai actually means!

Further Reading:

Secrets of the Yokai  – Types of Yokai

Secrets of the Yokai II

How Do You Say Ghost in Japanese?

Translator’s Note:

I wrote this article mainly to clear up some misapprehensions.  More and more I see people refer to yokai as if it meant some sort of tribe of Japanese monsters.   And while that isn’t exactly incorrect, it is a simplification. So here is a little deeper dive for yokai fans.

Sourced and Translated from Japanese Wikipedia and Other Sources

After enjoying the delights of one of the famed courtesans of the Yoshiwara pleasure district, a young samurai settles into his futon to sleep off his illicit encounter. But in the middle of the night he suddenly awakens, and sees his beautiful companion hunched over a rotting fishbone, stripping the flesh away with her teeth. The dim lantern-light casts an inhuman, cat-like shadown on the wall. The samurai shudders with the knowledge that he has passed the night with no human being, but one of the dreaded bakeneko prostitutes of Edo.

The bakeneko prostitutes were a common urban legend / folklore during the Edo period. Stories of them appeared in kiboshi illustrated storybooks, sharenbon accounts of the pleasure districts, kabuki plays, and in ukiyo-e woodblock prints.

Most stories follow the same basic pattern—a customer of one of the beautiful courtesans spends a night in pleasure, then curls up to sleep. He is awoken in the middle of the night to see the woman dimly outlined, either with the head of a cat or casting a cat-like shadow, while gorging herself on fish or other sea food popular with cats.

Most of the stories stop there, but darker legends continue with the yokai prostitute then turning to slake her hunger on some human meat, provided by the customer of course.

The Bakeneko Serving Maid of Shinagawa

The bakeneko prostitute legend is thought to have begun as a rumor—or urban legend if you like—of a bakeneko working as a meshimori onna, a type of low-rent waitress/maid/prostitute, at the Ise Inn in the Shinagawa-juku area of Edo, one of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō sea highway.

The gossip spread as gossip does, and soon enough people were writing about it with a fervor. In 1775, “The Courage of Genji at the Sumo Tournament” has a scene with a bakeneko prostitute scattering fish all over the room with her mouth. This scene was adapted into an ukiyo-e woodblock print, with what looks to be a human arm. Whether this is part of her costume or her meal is left up to the imagination of the viewer.

The legend appeared in rapid succession slightly re-told in several books. In 1776 it appeared in Urikotoba (The Words of Seller), and in 1798 in Haratsuzumi (Belly-drumming), which has the bakeneko prostitute chomping on shrimp. In 1796, one of the scarier legends from the book Koame Shuame Miko Matsukasu (Anticipation of Things Seen in the Rain) tells of the customer peeping in on his companion to see her in cat-form gnawing on a human arm.

The stories were often told as true accounts, as traveler’s tales of wanderers who stayed at the inn and survived an encounter with the supernatural creature.

The Bakeneko Prostitutes of Edo

Interpretations of the story changed over time, and spread away from Shinagawa to the Yoshiwara pleasure districts of Edo. More rumors of bakeneko prostitutes spread, but instead of a creature of horror they attracted fascination—customers went in search of any ladies of the night rumored to be bakeneko in disguise. Artists sold prints of samurai walking with their bakeneko mistress happily in tow, not at all bothering to disguise her cat head.

Ever the clever businesswomen, the courtesans of Yoshiwara were quick to capitalize on this new fad. Many adopted names that ended with –no, such as kono – because that was reminiscent of the name of the famed serving wench of Ise inn. Women kept cats as pets, and plied their companions for expensive fish and seafood treats, anything to play up the image and create the mystique that their companion for the night was something more than human.

Truth Behind the Legend?

Like with many yokai, there have been attempts to rationalize the story of the bakeneko prostitutes with actual history. The most popular account is the most simple—it was considered bad manners for courtesans to eat in front of their customers. The women were there for the man’s pleasure, and so while men could feast and drink all night, their women had to suppress their own hunger. Once the customer was snoozing, I’m sure many a clever woman took advantage of the time to snatch some leftover nibbles from whatever had been on the menu. And the hunched over posture, trying to hide the illicit snacks, could have appeared as a cat to a tired, drunken man awakening in the middle of the night.

Neko or Neko?

A further connection between cats and sex lies in the word neko. Cat in Japanese is neko, using the kanj i猫. But you can also use the kanji 寝子 (ne ; sleeping + ko; young girl) to draw an obvious allusion to the delights of the Yoshiwara.

Modern Cat Girls

An obvious connection can be drawn between the bakeneko prostitutes of Edo and the modern cat-girl phenomenon. Japanese comics, animation, and video games are filled with cat-eared and cat-tailed girls who can transform into cats like a true bakeneko. And real-life girls even buy nekomimi “cat ears” to wear as accessories. What people think of as a modern fad actually has deep historical roots.

Japanese men have been attracted to cat-creaztures for hundreds of years. And it isn’t likely to go away anytime soon.

Translator’s Note

I found this legend while I was doing research for my bakeneko article, and I promised I would give a deeper account of it someday. So here it is! This legend shows how deeply people believed in the reality of yokai and the supernatural during the Edo period. Many took the rumors at face value, and spent good money for the chance to spend the night with what they believed to be a supernatural creature.

Further reading:

Read more yokai magical animal tales on hyakumonogatari.com:

Bakeneko – The Changing Cats

Kasha – The Corpse-Eating Cat Demon

Nekomata – The Split-Tailed Cat

The Cat’s Grave

The Tanuki and the White Snake

The Appearance of the Spirit Turtle

Translated from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara and Japanese Wikipedia

The takaonna (tall woman) is a yokai with an interesting hobby. If she is walking along, and sees a two-story brothel, she stretches the bottom half of her body so she can peek in on men enjoying the delights inside. It’s said that the takaonna was a homely woman who could never attract male companionship, changed into a yokai by her own desire.

Takaonna were first illustrated by Toriyama Seiken in his The Illustrated Night Parade of a Hundred Demons (Gazu Hyakki Yagyo ). He drew a picture and a name, but with no story or explanation for the stretching yokai.

Folklorist Fujisawa Morihiko first recorded the story of the ugly woman peeking into brothel windows in his book Complete Discussions of Yokai (Yokai Gadan Zenshu), although he speculates that the local legends of the takaonna probably came from people seeing Toriyama’s illustration, then imagining a story to go along with it. Novelist Yamada Norio furthered the legend of the takaonna in his book Travels in the Weird Tales of Tohoku (Tohoku Kaidan no Tabi). Yamada tells of a woman consumed by jealousy and lust but too ugly to get a man, who then transforms into the takaonna and menaces anyone enjoying the pleasures of the flesh that she was denied.

There is a possible (but obscure) connection to a more horrible creature from Wakayama prefecture, a female demon called the takanyobo (tall wife).

It is said that the takanyobo was once the wife of Kijishi, a woodcutter of Kizaku village. She was a strong woman who would go and cut wood with him in the forest. He thought he was a lucky man to have such a wife, but she was actually a yokai. Kijishi was a successful woodcutter, and he always kept a servant. But the servant wouldn’t stay long. Over a year, Kijishi went through 30 servants. It was only when his own baby also disappeared that Kijishi discovered the truth at last—his yokai wife had eaten them all.

Kijishi confronted his wife and threw her into a well. He thought to let her die down there, but to Kijishi’s surprise she stretched the bottom half of her body right to the top of the well, then clambered out and made her escape into the night.

Translator’s Note:

The kanji for the tall woman is exactly what it says 高 (taka; tall) + 女(onna; woman). She is most likely an original creation of Toriyama Seiken, who apparently wasn’t feeling very creative because he didn’t give her a story. Fortunately the people of the Edo period filled in for him, and came up with a nice little urban legend based on his image.

I think the connections are obvious between the takaonna and the later kuchisake onna (split-mouth woman). Both yokai are urban legends more than folklore, both are hideously ugly women, and both have a grudge against the beautiful people they can never be, and the love (or sex) they can never share.

Further Reading

For more female yokai stories, you should read:

Bakeneko Yujo – The Bakeneko Prostitutes of Edo
Nure Onago – The Soaked Woman
The Long-Tongued Old Woman

Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara and Japanese Wikipedia

If you wake up on a cold morning to see a fire mysteriously roaring in what should be a cold fireplace, don’t be afraid. It just means the gotokoneko has been by, stoking up the hearth into a nice, satisfying, roaring blaze. Just the kind this magical cat enjoys.

Gotokoneko the Fire Builder

A type of nekomata, the gotokoneko has the split-tail and advanced age of all its kind. But the difference from average nekomata is the gotokoneko’s love of fire. Most animals—magical or otherwise—are naturally terrified of fire. They enjoy the warmth, but fear the flames. The gotokoneko is not only not afraid of fire, but is often found stoking up the fire in a cold hearth, using a hifuki-dake, a bamboo blowing tube, to coax flames from the coals.

The gotokoneko is not the only cat-yokai associated with fire—the kasha is a flame-wrapped cat demon who drags corpses to hell. Kasha and some bakeneko are said to be able to transform into hi-no-tama fireballs. Even the eyes of ordinary cats are said to be able to capture fire within them, sparkling in the dark. But of all the various cat demons and magical cats only the gotokoneko will actually sit down at a hearth and busy itself with the process of making a fire.

What is a Gotoko?

In traditional Japanese homes, trivets (gotoko) were often found near the sunken hearth. Hot utensils from the fire — like tea kettles or pots and pan — were set on trivets so as not to char the tatami mats. As the name implies, the gotokoneko wears a trivet on his head like a hat.

In his book Mujyara, Mizuki Shigeru points out that nobody knows why the gotokoneko wears a trivet on its head. It just does.

The History of the Gotokoneko

The gotokoneko first known appearance is in Tomi Mitsunobu’s Muromachi-period yokai collection Hyakki Yagyo Emaki (百鬼夜行絵巻; Illustrated Scroll of the Night Parade of 100 Demons). There is no description of the yokai, just a background figure of a cat marching in the Night Parade with a trivet on its head. It is thought that later artists copies this trivet-wearing cat and developed a mythology to go along with it.

The gotokoneko next appeared in Toriyama Seiken’s Edo-period Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro (百器徒然袋, A Bag of 100 Tedious Objects). Toriyama made a pun in the title of this collection, replacing the kanji –ki (鬼; demon) with the homophone –ki (器; objects). Sure enough, most of the yokai in this collection are either tsukumogami—a type of yokai that is an ordinary object come to life—or are associated with some object like the gotokoneko with the trivet on its head.

And Toriyama was nowhere near finished with his puns.

The Five Virtues

Toriyama wrote on his illustration:

“As the man who danced the Dance of the Seven Virtues forgot two of them, perhaps you will also forget this cat or think it just a dream.”

He makes both an allusion and a pun. Because the term “gotoko” refers to the trivet, but it also can mean “The Five Virtues. “ This is a reference to an old story by Shinano no Zenji Yukinaga.

In the story, a man is supposed to dance the Dance of the Seven Virtues—embodying all of the manly virtues required to be a warrior –before the Tang Emperor of China. Unfortunately, the man has forgotten two of the virtues. He figures if he can’t remember them, no one else will either, and announces his “Dance of the Five Virtues” that he then performs magnificently.

So Toriyama is making a pun, drawing a link between the object gotoko and the Five Virtues gotoko. This leads to the gotokoneko sometimes being translated into English as the “Five Virtues Cat,” but that is not correct. Aside from the homophone of the name, the gotokoneko is clearly not an embodiment of manly virtues, but is at home in front of a hearth, blowing his bamboo tube to stroke the flames, and wearing a trivet on its head.

Translator’s Note:

Another magical cat story! And just when I think I know them all, I find a new one to write about. The gotokoneko is a pretty rare beast—I don’t think he shows up much outside of Toriyama and Mizuki Shigeru. But I could be wrong.

The kanji for gotokoneko is exactly the pun Toriyama created. Go (五; Five) + to (徳; Virtues) + Neko (猫; cat). It is rare in Japanese for homophones to share the same kanji, but that is exactly the case here. However, the “trivet” version of the word is far more common than the “Five Virtues” version.

Further Reading

For more magical cat stories, check out

Nekomata – The Split Tailed Cat

Bakeneko – The Changing Cat

Kasha – The Corpse-eating Fire Demon

Bakeneko Yujo – The Bakeneko Prostitutes of Edo

Iriomote Oyamaneko – The Iriomote Great Mountain Cat

The Cat’s Grave

When the god Izanagi returned from the Land of Yomi, he purified himself in a bath. As he dried his body, each falling drop of water soaked into the soil and imbued the land with supernatural potential. Thus, the yokai were born.

The story of Izanagi and the origin of yokai comes from the oldest known work of Japanese literature and the basis of Japanese mythology, the 8th century Kojiki (古事記; Record of Ancient Matters). In Japan’s creation myth, the land itself—the rocks, trees, mountains, and rivers—are infused with latent magical energy. This energy needs only a focus to give it life. Just as nebulous gas ignites to form stars, this energy is compressed by events like volcanoes or earthquakes, or strong human emotions like fear or hatred, until it emerges as one of Japan’s menagerie of monsters and phenomena. Yokai take many shapes, and are as varied and complicated as human imagination can make them.

Yokai have not always been a single tradition. In ancient times, small tribes and kingdoms populated the island. Each isolated region gave birth to its own rich folklore, its own gods and monsters. It took the conquering and warlike Yamato clan in the 3rd century to subdue these tribes into a unified nation and culture. As centuries passed, new technologies like the printing press allowed regional folklore to spread. People learned for the first time what scared their neighbors when the lights went out.

The Golden Age of yokai was the Edo period (1603-1868), an unprecedented time of peace and prosperity. Folklorists and artists like Toriyama Sekien (鳥山石燕; 1712 – 1788) scoured the country for obscure legends and half-whispered folktales to populate their Yokai Encyclopedias and illustrated yokai scrolls. As the Brothers Grimm did for Germanic folklore, Toriyama and others rescued these stories from obscurity by putting them on paper at a time when oral traditions were vanishing.

Yokai almost disappeared following the Edo period, when Japan was swept up in a mania for modernization. When meeting with the Western powers, the country was embarrassed of its provincial passion for the supernatural. The government tried to sweep yokai under the carpet in favor of rational thinking and scientific advancement. As the military took over and Japan plunged into the darkness of WWII, the yokai were forgotten.

But one young man remembered. Comic artist Mizuki Shigeru (水木しげる; 1922 – Present) was raised on yokai stories told by his village wise woman. When he came home from the war, he started working in the new manga industry, drawing the stories he had heard as a boy. His comic Ge ge ge no Kitaro (ゲゲゲの鬼太郎) became one of Japan’s most popular comics, and Mizuki taught all of the children of Japan about the country’s mythical past.

Mizuki Shigeru’s influence continues, and yokai are again known throughout Japan. Children who grew up on Mizuki’s comics started creating their own yokai stories. People like Shibashi Hiroshi (椎橋寛; 1980 – present) created comics like Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan (ぬらりひょんの孫), which were then translated into other languages and spread the yokai phenomenon across the world.

Further Reading:

What Does Yokai Mean in English?

Secrets of the Yokai – Types of Yokai

Secrets of the Yokai II

Translator’s Note

I have been consulting on a Yokai Art exhibition that is being held at the Wereldmuseum in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. This is a short little piece I wrote about this history of yokai and its connection with modern manga, that will be used as an introduction to the exhibition. Just thought I would share it with everyone.

But don’t worry–I am still working on Hashihime for my next post!

Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Kaii Yokai Densho Database, Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Sources

In Japanese folklore, if you make a promise you had better keep it—even if you are the Emperor of Japan. Otherwise, the person you betrayed might hold it against you and transform into a giant rat with iron claws and teeth and kill your first-born son. That is the story of the Emperor Shirakawa, his son Prince Taruhito, and the Abbot of Miidera temple Raigo—better known as Tesso, the Iron Rat; or more simply as Raigo the Rat.

What Does Tesso Mean?

The kanji for Tesso is about as straight-forward as you can get. 鉄 (te; iron) +鼠 (sso; rat). The name Tesso was given to this yokai by artist Toriyama Sekien in his yokai collection Gazu Hyakki Yako (画図百鬼夜行; The Illustrated Night Parade of a Hundred Demons,), although the character is much older.

Toriyama’s Text: The Abbot Raigo transformed into a monsterous rat.

Tesso is different from many yokai in that he is a singular character. There is only one Tesso. Until Toriyama came up with the much cooler name for his collection, Tesso was known as Raigo Nezumi (頼豪鼠), meaning Raigo the Rat.

The Story of Raigo the Rat

The tale begins with the Emperor Shirakawa, who was desperate for an heir to his throne. He enlisted the aid of the Abbot of Miidera temple, a powerful Buddhist monk named Raigo. Emperor Shirakawa promised Raigo vast rewards if he could use his spiritual powers to give the Emperor a son. Accepting the offer, Raigo threw himself into meditation and prayer and magic. Soon enough a son was born to Emperor Shirakawa, the Prince Taruhito.

Raigo went to the Emperor for his promised reward, and asked only for the funds to build an ordainment platform at his temple of Miidera. The Emperor was too happy to oblige, until temple politics interfered.

Miidera had a rival temple, the powerful Enraku-ji in Mt. Hiei in Kyoto. The monks of Enraku-ji were not normal, peaceful monks, but a terrible army of militant warriors feared across all Japan. It was said the Emperor could influence all on Earth except three things—the blowing of the wind, the rolling of dice in a cup, and the monks of Enraku-ji. Even though they were both of the Tendai sect of Buddhism, Miidera and Enraku-ji has split into different factions after the death of their founder. Enraku-ji was not about to allow new Tendai monks to be ordained at Miidera, a privilege they reserved for themselves.

The Emperor had no choice but to break his promise to Raigo. He asked if there was anything else he could give, but Raigo was adamant. So adamant, in fact, that he went on a hunger strike and died after 100 days, cursing the Emperor with his final breath. At the house of his death, a figure in white was said to have appeared beside the cradle of the 4-year old Prince Taruhito, who died soon afterward. What Raigo had given, Raigo had taken away.

What happened next was strange—up until now this is the usual ghost story with Raigo returning as a yurei. But the tale does not end there. Raigo used black magic to ensure he was reborn after death as a dread yokai. He twisted his body into the form of a giant rat as large as a man, with a body as strong as stone and with claws and teeth or iron.

The newly-named Raigo the Rat invaded Enraku-ji with an army of rats, devouring their rare and valuable Buddhist scriptures, and even eating statues of the of the Buddha himself. This reign of rat-terror when on until a shrine was built to appease Raigo, transforming him from a deadly emissary of vengeance into a protecting kami spirit. Because that’s how evil spirits roll in Heian-period Japanese folklore.

Raigo the Onryo

Old texts describe Raigo as an onryo, the name for the grudge-bearing spirit popular in Japanese horror films. Raigo wouldn’t be seen as an onryo nowadays—his transformation into a rat makes him more of a monster than a ghost. But in the Heian period the word onryo had a more specific meaning, being something with a grudge against the Emperor of member of the Imperial family. And that label suits Raigo just fine.

Raigo and the Heike Monogatari

The story of Raigo comes from the Heike Monogatari (平家物語; Tale of the Heike) an epic poem from the Heian period that tells of the Heike/Taira wars that split Japan as two factions struggled for the throne. The Heike Monogatari is often called Japan’s version of The Odyssey, freely mixing historical fact with the supernatural and mythological.

Because the Heike Monogatari comes from an oral storytelling tradition, there are multiple versions of it with variations of the story of Raigo the Rat. In one of the older versions—the Engyo Hon (延慶本; Book of the Engyo Period), the story ends with the death of Prince Taruhito. In later versions Raigo gets more and more monstrous. The 48-volume Genpei Seisuiki version has Raigo attacking Enraku-ji with his army of rats, and in the 14th century historical epic Taiheiki (太平記; Record of the Great Peace) Raigo is described as having a body of stone and claws and teeth of iron. This Raigo ate not only the sacred texts of Enrakuji, but also their statue of Buddha.

Other Tales of Raigo

Raigo the Rat was a popular enough character that other writers continued the story after the Heike Monogatari. For example, a collection of Tanka poems from Otsu city, Shiga prefecture called Kyoka Hyakumonogatari (狂歌百物語; A Hundred Stories of Satirical Poems) featured the poem Raigo of Miidera and retold the story from the Heike Monogatari.

During the Edo period, author Gyokutei Bakin wrote the story Raigo Ajari Kaisoden (寺門伝記補録; The Tale of the Abbot Raigo who Transformed into a Monsterous Rat), illustrated by famous ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai.

Gyokutei puts Raigo into a different historical narrative, telling the story of Shimizu Yoshitaka (also known as Minamoto no Yoshitaka), the orphaned son of Minamoto no Yoshihara. Yoshitaka was on a pilgrimage of holy sites when he had a vision of the Raigo, who told Yoshitaka he would teach him the secrets of black magic and help him amass an army to take vengeance against his father’s killers. All Yoshitaka has to do is write an official request for help, and place it before Raigo’s shrine along with a donation.

Yoshitaka does as requested (of course), and soon finds himself in possession of Raigo’s shape-changing ability and mastery over rats. As an additional twist, Yoshitaka is hunted by Nekoma Mitsuzane (who’s name ironically begins with the kanji for “cat” in a traditional cat-and-mouse game). In one scene, Nekoma finds Yoshitaka and is about to kill him when a massive rat leaps to Yoshitaka’s defense. In another scene, Nekoma is torturing Yoshitaka’s mother-in-law and Yoshitaka leads and army of rats to her defense, saving the day.

Hundreds of years later, Raigo still has a hold on the popular imagination. Modern author Kyogoku Natsuhiko used the story of Raigo as the basis for his mystery novel “Tesso no Ori” (鉄鼠の檻; The Cage of the Tesso).

The Historical Raigo

Although the tale of Raigo the Rat is fictional, most of the key players are historically verified. Shrine records show Raigo was the Abbot of Miidera, and at one time petitioned Emperor Shirakawa for funds to build an ordination platform—a petition that was denied. There is little doubt that rival temple Enraku-ji played some hand in the denial. At the time, Enraku-ji’s power was absolute.

The only person not involved in the affair was Prince Taruhito. Records put the young Prince’s death in 1077, while Raigo himself died in 1084. This contradicts the facts of the legend.

Rats, of course, were an actual source of fear to the fragile book collections of temples across all of Japan. So it is no wonder that a double-punch of an angry spirit and a scroll-eating rat was a natural mixture for Kaidan.

Tesso Shrines

There are a couple of supposed shrines to Raigo, each claiming to be THE shrine that ended Raigo’s scroll-devouring revenge.

In Hyoshi Taisha, in the Sakamoto district of Otsu city, Shiga prefecture, there is a shrine called the Shrine of the Rat that some connect to Raigo. Shrine records, however, say that the shrine is dedicated to the Rat God of the Chinese Zodiac and not to Raigo.

Miidera shrine has the most obvious connection, and has a small monument and shrine dedicated to Raigo also called the Shrine of the Rat. This shrine faces directly at Mt. Hiei in Kyoto and is said to be placed in defiance of Enraku-ji’s role in Raigo’s curse.

However, Mt. Hiei has their own shrine—the Shrine of the Cat—that looks directly at Miidera. Some suspect the two shrines are connected by an older legend of a monk who summoned a giant cat to destroy a giant rat that was menacing the area.

In truth, probably both of these Shrines of the Rat were re-dedicated to suit interests in the story. Like Relics in Catholic churches, a shrine or artifact connected to a popular legend can mean tasty tourist dollars and neither Buddhist temples nor Shinto shrines never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Especially one that attracted tourists.

Translator’s Note:

This was translated for Mike Mignola, who picked out Tesso from a copy of Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara that I showed him at Emerald City Comic Con. Mignola liked the illustration of Tesso, and I am only too happy to give him the story behind the image.

Plus, I did a lot of cats last year. It is only fair that at least one rat gets to appear as well.

Translated from the Heike Monogatari

During the Imperial reign of the Emperor Saga, there lived a courtly lady consumed by jealousy. So powerfully was she in jealousy’s grip that she made a pilgrimage to the shrine at Kifune and cloistered in prayer. For seven days, she devoted herself to a single-minded wish: “Oh great and powerful Kami of Kifune, grant me the powers of a devil while I am still living. Make me a fierce being, terrible to behold. Let my outer form match the flame of jealousy that burns so brightly within. Let me kill.”

That great miracle-working Kami of Kifune understood the depths of her desire, and heeded her call. “I am moved by pity and by the sincerity of your prayer. If you wish to become a living oni, to change into a monstrous form, get thee to the Kawase river in Uji. Perform the ceremony I shall now teach you, and then return to submerge yourself in the waters of the river. Do this for 21 days.” This courtly lady saw and heard the manifestation of this celestial being, and was in rapture.

The woman returned to the capitol city and made her preparations. She found a secluded spot where she could work her magic. First, she twisted the long strands of her hair into five horns. Then she ground cinnabar for her face and vermillion for her body until she was as bright red as an oni of legend. Finally, she crowned her head with a three-pronged trivet, and set in it three torches of burning pine. In her teeth she clenched two further torches.

Her preparations complete, she ran south down Yamato-oojidori, torches blazing in the deep night, skin bright red and with an iron crown resting on her eyebrows. Her every aspect was that of an oni, and all who saw her collapsed, dying of terror at the manifested horror they had seen. At the end of her path was the Kawase river, where the lady dutifully sank beneath its waters. As promised by the Kami of Kifune, after 21 days she transformed in living body into an oni, the dread Bridge Princess called Hashihime.

In this way the Hashihime took her revenge on the man who was the target of her jealousy, and all of his relatives above and below. Her wrath knew no boundaries. When she slew men, she appeared as a woman. When she slew women, she appeared as a man. All in the town were a’ feared of her, and during the Hour of the Monkey none dared leave their dwelling.

At that time, the lord Minamoto no Yorimitsu had four brave fighters and protectors. Known as the Four Heavenly Kings, they were Watanabe no Tsuna, Kimitoki, Sadamichi, and Suetake. Of these Tsuna was the greatest.

Yorimitsu had business in the town of Ichijo Omiya and dispatched Tsuna as a messenger. Tsuna arrived on horseback in the dead of night, the famous sword Higekiri (Beard Cutter) tucked into his obi. He planned a short trip, and to soon return with a message for his master. Yet when he crossed the Modari Bridge over the Hori river, on the Eastern side he saw a beautiful woman of a bit more than 20 years of age. Her skin was as white as new-fallen snow, so much that she had the visage of a yurei. Yet he saw the flair of her under-kimono peeking out—red as the red-blossomed plum tree. She bore a sash across her chest, and a sutra in the folds of her sleeves.

She stood on the bridge, facing South. She was quite alone. Tsuna mounted the bridge from the West, and the sound of his horse cracking the silence of the night.

The woman called out, “What business is yours? I am making a pilgrimage to Gojo. It is dangerous to travel alone at night. You gave me a scare!” Her tone was overly familiar for such a meeting. Tsuna answered “Come upon my horse. It would be my pleasure to help you on your errand.”

Tsuna brought his horse near and dismounted, then lifted the woman into the saddle. She held the warrior tight, as he spun his horse around and headed West. The woman directed him towards Shogimachi, saying “Great sir, in truth I am not on a pilgrimage to Gojo. My home lies a little bit outside of the capital. If you would do me the honor of taking me as far as the gates, I would be in your debt.”

Tsuna complied, saying it would be his pleasure to see the lady home. With that, the woman changed into the form of an oni, saying “It is I who shall be taking you to Mt. Atago!” She grabbed Tsuna’s topknot and flew into the air taking Tsuna with her. Tsuna was caught off guard for only a moment, before drawing Higekiri and slicing off her arm mid-air. He looked into the sky and saw the North Star as he plummeted to earth. Tsuna flees, the hand of the severed arm still holding his topknot. Where the hand held tight his hair had turned white as snow.

Tsuna gave Lord Yoshimoto quite a shock when he returned, severed arm still firmly in place. The sorcerer Abe no Seimei was summoned, who advised Tsuna to be given seven days leave, during which time he must pray to the two Deva kings for release from the arm.

Translator’s Note:

Part one of the long-requested Hashihime. I will do a standard entry next with the history and different versions of the yokai, but I thought it might be fun to translate the actual Heiki Monogatari passage on Hashihime instead of just referencing it. Apparently I have a strange idea of fun … Heian period Japanese is hard!

This is only one version of the tale of the Hashihime of Uji. Because the Heiki Monogatari comes from an oral tradition, there are multiple versions of every tale. The second tale, of Tsuna and the sword Higekiri cutting off the arm of an oni, is only sometimes connected to the Hashihime (and even then only marginally). Other times he meets the oni at the Rashomon gate and cuts off its arm there. The tale follows with the oni coming back to Tsuna in some hidden form and stealing back its arm.

Further Reading:

For more tales of dangerous women on hyakumonogatari.com, check out:

Ushi no Koku Mairi – Shrine Visit at the Hour of the Ox

Nure Onago – The Soaked Woman

Takaonna – The Tall Woman

Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Kaii Yokai Densho Database, Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Sources

Nothing quite embodies the saying “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” like the Hashihime. A human woman consumed by jealousy and hatred, she transformed herself through sheer willpower—and the assistance of a helpful deity who taught her a complicated ritual—into a living demon of rage and death. A yokai from the Heian period, she is one of the most powerful and fierce creatures in Japan’s menagerie.

What Does Hashihime Mean?

With only two kanji, her name is straight-forward: 橋 (hashi; bridge) 姫 (hime; princess). But there is a secret meaning hidden inside. In ancient Japanese, the word airashi (愛らしい; pretty; charming; lovely; adorable) could be pronounced “hashi.” So “Hashihime the Bridge Princess” was also a homophone for (愛姫) “Hashihime the Pretty Princess.”

The only real question is why does such a horrible demon have such a lovely, delicate name? This is because the name predates the monster. There have been Bridge Princesses—benign deities of the water—for far longer than there have been jealous women with crowns of iron and burning torches clenched between their teeth.

Hashihime as Water Goddess

Going back into ancient, pre-literate Japan, there has long been a mythology built around bridges. Japan was—and still is—an animistic culture where nature is embodied by spirits of good and ill. The wonders of nature, like particularly large and twisted trees or odd and out of place rocks, had their own guardian deities called kami. Rivers too, especially large rivers, were the abodes of gods.

Bridges across these rivers were the proverbial double-edged sword. They allowed you to cross for commerce and trade, but they also allowed enemies in. Any bridge of significant size was believed to have guardian deities that acted as gatekeepers, letting allies in and keeping enemies out.

The guardian deities of bridges were thought to be a matched set—you had both a male and female river deity, a Bridge Prince and a Bridge Princess. Shrines dedicated along these bridges were dedicated to both equally.

Overtime, the female deity became the more popular of the pair—she was thought to be luminously beautiful and sometimes appeared in human form.

In the year 905 CE, we get one of the oldest known written mentions of the Hashihime, in a poem from the 14th scroll of the Kokin Wakashū (古今和歌集; Collection of Poems of Ancient and Modern Times). This is especially notable because it mentions not just any Hashihime, but the Hashihime of Uji—a legend that would come to dominate all images of this fantastic creature.

“Upon a narrow grass mat
laying down her robe only
tonight, again –
she must be waiting for me,
Hashihime of Uji”

Hashihime as Female Demon

How the transformation happened—from benign, sexy river goddess to avatar of female rage—is unknown. Most likely it happened like all folklore, organically and over time. The shrines to the Hashihime existed near bridges, and as people forgot their original purpose they began to make up new stories. Most of these stories tended to include some legend of the Hashihime as “woman done wrong.” There are old legends of a woman whose husband went off to war and never came back, and she wept by the river bank in sorrow until she was transformed into the Hashihime. Others are stories of jealousy and revenge.

“Hashihime” is the title of one of the chapters of Japan’s first work of literature, Genji Monogatari (源氏物語; The Tale of Genji) and she is mentioned several times throughout. While the Hashihime is used mostly as a metaphor, Genji Monogatari tells the story of Lady Rokujo, a woman consumed and transformed by jealousy into a monster. Lady Rokujo becomes an ikiryo, a rare creature in Japanese folklore able to release their soul—their reikon—and all of its powers while they are still alive.

While Lady Rokujo is not the Hashihime, this story of the power of a woman’s jealousy caught the Japanese imagination, and more and more similar characters started to appear in theater and song. Noh Theater in particular loved the Hashihime, and the face of the Hashihime is one of the official masks of Noh.

The Heike Monogatari and the Hashihime of Uji

The story of the Hashihime was solidified in the Heike Monogatari (平家物語; The Tale of the Heike), an epic poem handed down by oral tradition not unlike The Odyssey. Because the Heike Monogatari was told by so many storytellers over so many generations, when written language was discovered multiple, conflicting versions of the poem made it onto the printed page.

Many of these versions told a story of the Hashihime of Uji. She was a noble woman who—by conflicting accounts—either had a husband who cheated on her, or who took a second wife and paid more attention to her. The unnamed woman prayed to the Kami of Kifune for revenge, and was given a complicated ritual that would turn her into a still-living oni.

For more details and a translation of the Heike Monogatari, see The Tale of the Hashihime of Uji.

The Heike Monogatari emphasizes repeatedly than the Hashihime is a “still-living” oni. This is different from other versions of the tale, where the woman dies in the river and rises again as the Hashihime (although not as a yurei. The Hashihime is never a ghost). In Japanese folklore, death has a powerful transformative effect—many stories follow the pattern of post-death revenge. So the Hashihime of Uji being a “still-living” oni adds and extra layer of unnatural terror.

The Hashihime of Uji influenced all following interpretations of the Hashihime, and remains definitive. When Toriyama Sekien put the Hashihime in his Konjyaku Gazu Zokuhyakki (今昔画図続百鬼; The Illustrated One Hundred Demons from the Present and the Past) he specifically referred to her as the Hashihime of Uji.

Toriyama’s Text:

“The Goddess Hashihime lives in the under the Uji Bridge in Yamashiro province (Modern day Southern Kyoto). That is the explanation for this drawing of the Hashihime of Uji.”

Kanawa – The Iron Crown

The Noh play Kanawa (鉄輪; The Iron Crown) comes from one of the versions of the Hashihime story from the Heike Monogatari. In this version, the courtly woman has a husband who takes a second wife, as was the custom at that time. The woman is overcome with jealousy about the second wife, and tries to curse and kill her. But her husband has consulted with the great yin/yang sorcerer Abe no Seimei, who arrives at the last moment to break her curse.

Abe no Seimei then constructs a katashiro, a paper amulet in the form of a human, that reflects the curse back on the first wife, transforming her into a demon. (At this part of the play the lead actor changes into the Hashihime mask). Ashamed of her appearance, the woman (now the Hashihime) flees back to the river, jealousy and revenge burning in her heart.

The Hashihime again attacks the second wife, but is beaten off my Abe no Seimei with the assistance of 30 kami spirits. The Hashihime claims she will return, and disappears.

Other Hashihime

Although she is by far the most famous, the Hashihime of Uji is not the only Hashihime. Nagarabashi bridge over the Yodogawa river in Osaka and the Setanokarabashi bridge over the Setagawa river in Sega prefecture also lay claim to their own Hashihimes.

The Hashihime Shrine

A little off the beaten path, near Uji Bridge, you can find the Hashihime Shrine. It isn’t a big place, and people might not be so eager to guide you there because of the shrines’ reputation—and what it is for.

Shrine records claim the Hashihime Shrine dates back to 646 CE, making it older than most known legends of the Hashihime of Uji. Most likely it was originally dedicated to the water goddess under the bridge, and the kami of the shrine evolved along with the legends.

The shrine is unusual in that it is essentially a divorce shrine. People come—mostly women, to be honest—to pray for freedom from difficult or unwanted attachments. This can be anything or anyone you want to be free of, but in practice most women come to pray for divorce or miscarriage.

The shrine even sells you something to help you on your way. Most Shinto shrines sell some sort of amulet, something to protect you from bad spirits. The Hashihime Shrine does too—it sells magical scissors that you can use to metaphorically cut yourself from entanglements, all without needing to transform yourself into a still-living oni bent on revenge.

Further Reading:

The Hashihime is the last in my series on trivet-wearing yokai. For the rest of the trivet-wearing yokai, check out:

The Tale of the Hashihime of Uji

Ushi no Koku Mairi – The Shrine Visit at the Hour of the Ox

Gotokoneko – The Trivet Cat

Translator’s Note:

This is part 2 of the long-requested Hashihime. I translated the text from the Heike Monogatari for the first part, and this entry gives more of the history and context. The Hashihime is a favorite of mine because I have spent quite a bit of time in Uji. Uji is one of my favorite places in all of Japan. You really should go there if you are ever in Japan. It is stunningly beautiful, with century-old teashops and the magnificent Byoudoin temple. Of course, you must also visit the Uji Bridge where the Hashihime dwells and the Hashihime Shrine to pay your respects.

Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Kaii Yokai Densho Database, Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Sources

Legends of a Great White Whale usually bring to mind Moby Dick, but the white of this whale is the color of its bones. For bones are all you can see of the Bakekujira—a massive, skeletal baleen whale that appeared and disappeared under mysterious circumstances once of the coast of Japan. Is it a monster? Is it a ghost? Is it a god? No one really knows for sure.

What Does Bakekujira (化鯨) Mean?

Bakekujira’s name is the same as many magical animals in Japanese folklore, with a difference of nuance. For most bake- creatures (bakeneko, bakenezumi, etc … ) the kanji 化 (bake; change) refers to a transformation, the ability to shift from one form to another. In Bakekujira—化 (bake; change) +鯨 (kujira; whale)—bake does not refer to a transformation. It just sounds scary and bizarre. This is one instance where translating bakekujira as “ghost whale” or “goblin whale” instead of “transforming whale” would be perfectly appropriate.

The Tale of the Bakekujira

One rainy night, something massive and white appeared off the coast of Okino Island, Shimane prefecture. Fishermen from the village watched it get closer and closer, and finally decided to take a rowboat out and see what it was. From its size, they knew it must be some sort of whale, but no one had seen a whale like that before. As they rowed out their boat, they saw the waters of the ocean glimmer with thousands upon thousands of fish, the likes of which they had never seen.

As they neared the white whale, one of the fisherman threw his harpoon and it passed through the mass of white unnoticed. Their vision obscured by the pounding rain, the fishermen finally got a good look at the monster—it was the skeleton of a great baleen whale, without an ounce of skin nor meat on it. But it was moving and alive.

The men were terrified, even more so because the ocean was writhing with unknown fish, and the skies were filled with strange birds. In the distance they saw an island that hadn’t been there before, as if they had rowed into some mysterious country. Then suddenly the vision ended, and the massive bakekujira—for that is what they called it—retreated back to the open sea as quickly as it had come.

When the fishermen went back to shore, they speculated that it might have been the ghost of a whale killed in a hunt or some strange god. Whatever it was, the bakekujira was never seen again.

The History of the Bakekujira

That’s it. There is that one story of the one appearance of the bakekujira, and that is the sum total of knowledge on the boney beastie. Anything else you read about the bakekujira is pretty much just made up to try and fill in the gaps.

In fact, for being so well-known in the modern world, the bakekujira is a limited and obscure yokai. It wasn’t important enough to be added to Toriyama Sekien’s numerous Edo-period yokai collections; there aren’t any ukiyo-e prints or kaidan collections including the bakekujira—at least not that I could find when I was researching for this article. In fact, the first mention I could find of the bakekujira was from Mizuki Shigeru, whose cool character design seems largely (solely?) responsible for the bakekujira being known today.

But Japan does have a long history of whale gods and venerated bones, to which the bakekujira fits in nicely. So allow me to segue to another aspect of Japanese folklore—the Whale Cults of Japan.

Hyochakushin – The Drifting Ashore God

In pre-seafaring Japan—before Samurai William brought the secret of keels and ocean-going vessels—fishermen were limited to the coastal waters their small ships could take them too. They eked out a subsistence living harvesting what was in reach. But every now and then, the oceans would deliver a bounty beyond imagination.

Whales would sometimes come inland, or beach themselves on the shore. Fishermen hunted these whales in a practice called Passive Whaling, using harpoons to kill the whale that was trapped in the shallows. This was a rare and auspicious event—a single whale provided vast amounts of meat and resources for the village, and seemed like a gift from the gods. And the whale itself was only a piece of the bounty. Whales often came in following larges schools of fish, so their arrival meant an abundance of sea life beyond the leviathan itself. The arrival of a whale could save a village teetering on the edge of starvation and ruin. It was mana from the oceans.

Like modern Cargo Cults, the villagers could not understand from where or why the whale came in to shore. They only knew that a whale meant wealth and rare full stomachs. Whales were considered to be embodied deities (神体; shintai), and whale religions sprang up in coastal villages, called Hyochakushin (漂着神; Drifting Ashore God) or Yorikami Shinkyo (寄り神信仰; The Religion of the Visiting Kami).

The Whale and Ebisu

These original whale cults were primitive. The people praying generally had one request—send more whales. But in time they evolved. Like many religions, the Whale Cults in Japan were built on a portion of respect and gratitude and a portion of fear. Because whaling—even Passive Whaling—was a dangerous operation, some whale religions also saw in whales the ability to be malevolent gods, and prayed to appease their spirits and assuage their wrath. Bad storms of poor catches could mean an angry whale god, and nobody wanted that.

In time, these whale religions merged with another, more popular deity, the god of abundance Ebisu. Whales were first thought to be emissaries of Ebisu, and then became considered to be an incarnation of Ebisu himself. Because whales were thought to have the power to control fish, fishermen began carrying images of the god Ebisu as a whale to give them the same fish-controlling powers.

Kujira Jinjya – Whale Shrines

When you have feasted on the body of a god, it only makes sense to give the leftovers a proper burial. After stripping the body of everything useful, villagers buried the whale carcass in mounds called Kujira Tsuga (鯨塚; whale mounds). Kujira Tsuga were capped with monuments of some sort, varying from carved stone tablets to pagodas to small wooden or rock shrines. Often these Kujira Tsuga were created in memory of some particularly bountiful harvest, and annual festivals where held like the Daihyo Tsuifuku (大漁追福; Big Catch Memorial Service). Or people prayed to the Kujira Tsuga for Kaijyo Anzen Kito (海上安全祈祷; Prayers to Ensure Safety at Sea).

Places where passive whaling was more prevalent also had Kujira Haka (鯨墓; whale graveyards) and Kujira Ishibumi (鯨碑; whale stone monuments). There are about 100 known whale graveyards throughout Japan.

Many Kujira Tsuga have their own legends and myths. In Miyagi prefecture, Kesenmema city, Karakuwa town, a legend is told of a ship foundering in the storm that was approached by two massive, white whales. The two whales swam to either side of the ship and steadied it, guiding it into port before sailing away. From that day forward, the citizens of Karakuwa down abandoned their ancient custom of whale eating.

The legend is attached to the MIsaki Shrine in Karakuwa, but the connection is not exactly accurate. Misaki Shrine is an old Kujira Tsuga, raised over a whale corpse and topped with a stone monument expressing gratitude for the whale’s death.

In Ehime prefecture, Seiyo city, Akehama town there are three known Kujira Tsuga, one of which is high up in the mountains. The shrine is ancient, and overlooks the ocean. It now sits along the national highway route making it much more accessible. Hauling up that carcass must have been quite the event.

On June 21st, 1837 (Tenpo 8th), a massive whale came to shore directly underneath this shrine. This was during the Great Tenpo Famine, and the whale saved the entire area from starvation. The villagers gave the whale a posthumous Buddhist name, meaning roughly “The Great Whale Scholar of the Universe who Brings Health.” That was extremely rare at the time, as posthumous Buddhist names was an honor reserved for great lords. The shrine is still honored by the villagers today

Whalebone Tori Gates

By the Edo period, Japan had become a seafaring nation and created a whaling industry and culture. Whaling Associations established and maintained official Whale Shrines in coastal areas, many of which still exist today. Whale shrines were also built in Taiwan when it was under Japanese rule, usually dedicated to Ebisu.

The most dramatic of these have Whalebone Tori gates—the picturesque post-and-lintel design that signifies the presence of a kami spirit.. The oldest Whalebone Tori is in Wakayama prefecture, Taijicho town, called the Arch of Ebisu. Ihara Saikaku mentions this Tori in his book Nippon Eitaigura (日本永代蔵; Japan’s Warehouse of Eternity; 1688). The tori is probably much older, however. The newest whalebone tori is in Nagasaki, Shinkamigostocho town at the Kaido Jinjya (Shrine of the Sea). Dedicated in 1973, it was built by the Japan Whaling Association.

Nirai Kanai

In an odd and unrelated Okinawan legend, a whale dressed in a kimono was said to have brought the secrets of rice cultivation to Japan. You can read more about this in my article on Nirai Kanai.

The Curse of the Bakekujira

There are two odd footnotes to the story of the bakekujira, that don’t really fit in anywhere else so I am sticking them on here at the end.

In the 1950s, manga artist Mizuki Shigeru was working on a kamishibai story about the bakekujira, and also eating a lot of whale meat. He suddenly came down with a terrible fever, that only stopped when he quit working on the story. He calls this the “Curse of the Bakekujira.”

In 1983, an intact whale skeleton was spotted floating off the shores of Anamizu, Ishikawa prefecture. The press jumped on the story naming it a “real-life bakekujira.”

Translator’s Note:

This article was done at the request of comic book writer Brandon Seifert, who does the incredibly cool folklore/horror comic Witch Doctor, as well as other things. If you are a folklore fan, I highly recommend his work. And look for the bakekujira to possibly pop up his boney head in one of Seifert’s upcoming comics!

Further Reading:

For more tales of ocean-going yokai, check out:

Umibozu – The Sea Monk

Funa Yurei

Nirai Kanai

The Appearance of the Spirit Turtle

Once upon a time the Obakemono Project was the coolest place on the internet to chat with like-minded folks about yurei, yokai, and other Asian and world folklore monsters. Sadly, the owner lost interest in the site and didn’t designate any other Admins before abandoning it.  The site became overrun with SpamBots, and–while a few of us fought valiantly to keep the site clean–we lost.

Like a spunky band in a zombie show, eventually we had to give up our no-longer safe haven and strike out for something new.

After a few months of testing, fiddling, and building up our own walls and fortifications to ensure the SpamBot horde wouldn’t destroy our new home, we are proud to announce the new coolest place on the internet to chat with like-minded folks about–well, you know.

Welcome to Obake Forums !!!!

There you can hang out and chat yokai, post questions, get answers, give answers, and do all of that cool forum stuff with some of the leading English-language experts on yokai and Asian folklore. People like Matt Alt (Yokai Attack!: The Japanese Monster Survival Guide, Yurei Attack!: The Japanese Ghost Survival Guide), Mathew Meyer (The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons: a Field Guide to Japanese Yokai), and–humbly–myself, Zack Davisson (Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan, Kitaro, upcoming Yurei: The Japanese Ghost).

Some come check it out. Register. And start chatting.

Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Kaii Yokai Densho Database, Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Sources

What walks on its hind legs like a human, is covered in fur, and hauls off horses in the middle of the night to eat? If you answered Onikuma, the Demon Bear, then you are definitely up on your Japanese yokai.

What Does Onikuma mean?

The name onikuma is broken down into two kanji 鬼(oni; demon, ogre) + 熊(kuma; bear). It’s an unusual name for a yokai of this type—the vast majority of magical animal yokai use some variation of bake-, like the bakekujira, or bakeneko. I have no idea why this isn’t called a bakeguma, but it just goes to show that folklore doesn’t follow any rules. A monster bear comes tromping through your town, you get to name it whatever you please.

In this case the word “oni” doesn’t mean that this is a half-oni bear. It’s just used as a descriptive term, meaning this is one big, tough bear.

The Legend of the Onikuma

Onikuma come from Kiso province (modern day Nagano prefecture). They are a fairly obscure yokai, and one of the few known depictions of them is from the Ehon Hyakumonogatari (1841). Like almost all magical animal yokai, the onikuma is a bear that has lived an exceptionally long life and has transformed into a yokai.

Onikuma have no special powers other than walking on their hind legs like humans, and being exceptionally strong. Legends say an onikuma can move rocks that 10 men together can’t push. There are still some rocks in odd places around Nagano prefecture that are rumored to have been put there by onikuma, since they are far too large for a group of men to manage.

Their favorite food is horse. They are rarely seen, but sometimes sneak into villages at night to carry off horses by their forelegs, which they then devour in their caves.

Hunting the Onikuma

A legend says that a group of villagers once hunted and killed an onikuma. They were sick of their horses being carried off, and tracked the onikuma back to its cave lair. In preparation, they carved long spears from massive trees, and placed fresh meat as bait in front of the onikuma’s cave. When it came out for its supper, the villagers attacked with their long spears, killing it. They took the carcass back to their village where they stretched and tanned the hide. It was said to be big enough to cover the floor of an entire large room.

Henge or Kaiju?

In Hokkaido, instead of transformed animals the term “onikuma” is used for giant bears who have killed and eaten humans. In his book Mujyara, Mizuki Shigeru makes the case that perhaps the onikuma is not a henge-type transforming animal like bakeneko, but just a monstrous bear and should be considered a kaiju (monster) –type yokai.

Translator’s Note:

Onikuma comes by request for reader Michael Goldstein who runs the blog Yokai Composed. It’s one of those yokai where there really isn’t too much to tell—it’s a giant, horse-eating bear. There are quite a few yokai like that, where there is only one story and not much other folklore. Still, demon bears are always cool.

Further Reading:

For more magical animal tales, check out:

Bakeneko – The Changing Cat

Bakekujira and Japan’s Whale Cults

Iriomote Oyamaneko – The Iriomote Great Mountain Cat

Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Kaii Yokai Densho Database, Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Sources

If you are wandering through the forests of Japan and happen across a beast that looks like a strange blend of monkey and bear, don’t be scared. Just offer to split your lunch with it and the creature will most likely repay you by carrying your heavy load. At least that’s the story of the Ijuu, the strange beast.

What Does Ijuu Mean?

Whoever named the Ijuu wasn’t feeling particularly imaginative. Ijuu has two kanji making up its name, 異 (I; strange, mysterious) + 獣 (Juu; beast, creature). The name translates literally as “strange beast.”

The Tale of the Ijuu

There is only one story of the Ijuu, and it comes from Suzuki Bokushi’s Edo period book Hokuetsuseppu (北越雪譜; Snow Stories of North Etsu Province, 1837).

Long ago, in Echigo province (modern day Niigata prefecture), a porter named Takesuke was engaged in hauling a heavy load over a mountain pass to a faraway town. He had gone about 7 shaku (28 kilometers), when he became exhausted and hungry. Takesuke leaned his backpack against a tree, then sat down and rested against that same tree, unpacking his lunch and preparing to tuck in.

Before Takesuke could get a bite into his mouth, the thick bamboo of the forest was pushed aside, and an incredible monster stepped into sight. It was larger than a human, and looked like some mix between a monkey and a bear. It had long tufts of hair on its head, and fur covering its entire body.

Instead of panicking, the porter calmly looked at the strange beast. It looked hungry, Takesuke decided. He then casually split his lunch, offering the animal half. The creature was delighted, and accepted the food and ate it with vigor.

With the meal done, the strange beast leapt to its feel and shouldered Takesuke’s burden as if it weighted nothing at all. The porter walked ahead down the mountain trail, while the creature happily ambled along behind. When they got within sight of the porter’s definition, the creature took off the heavy backpack, set it down carefully, and scampered back into the forest.

It was never seen again.

Translator’s Note:

Ijyuu is another one-shot yokai with only one appearance, and another translation for reader Michael Goldstein of Yokai Composed.

For as obscure and limited the Ijyuu is, it still got one of the coveted spots as a bronze statue on Mizuki Shigeru Road in Sakaiminato, Tottori prefecture.

Further Reading:

For more mysterious monsters, check out:

Shirime – Eyeball Butt

Onikuma – The Demon Bear

The Kappa of Mikawa-cho

Translated and sourced from Kitaro’s Daihyaka, Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Japanese Wikipedia, and various Gegege no Kitaro comics

Half yokai. Half human. All scoundrel. Nezumi Otoko is the trickster character in Mizuki Shigeru’s seminal yokai comic Gegege no Kitaro. Filthy, greedy, and conniving, Nezumi Otoko sides with whoever looks like they will come out on top, and yet he always manages to be back with Kitaro for the next adventure. Even though his constant schemes and betrayals earn the ire of everyone around him, Mizuki Shigeru has long said that Nezumi Otoko is his favorite character and that without Nezumi Otoko Gegege no Kitaro could not exist.

What Does Nezumi Otoko Mean?

Almost all sources (including this article) give Nezumi Otoko’s name as “Rat Man” in English, but this is not technically correct. This translation is based on a pun in Japanese and his appearance rather than his actual name. The truth is more complicated.

Written in Japanese, his name is ねずみ男 (Nezumi Otoko). Sharp-eyed readers will notice that while he uses the kanji for “man” (男; otoko), he doesn’t use the kanji for “rat” (鼠; nezumi). Because “nezumi” is written in hiragana, there is no inherent meaning. One those rare occasions where kanji is used, Nezumi Otoko’s name is given as 根頭見 (根; ne – root,) + (頭; zu – head) + (見; mi – look). So, a transliteration of would be “Guy With the Root-Shaped Head.” If you look at him, that fits pretty well. But it’s more of a mouthful than “Rat Man.”

Even then, Nezumi Otoko is only a nickname. In one adventure where the Kitaro gang journeyed to Nezumi Otoko’s homeland, his true name was revealed as Nezumi Pekepeke (根頭見ペケペケ). This was an inside joke Mizuki Shigeru made to himself, as “pekepeke” is the word for “shit” in the language of the Tolai people of New Guinea where Mizuki once lived. Nezumi Pekepeke is one of those “secret facts” that show up on yokai quizzes. For all intents and purposes, his name is Nezumi Otoko.

Nezumi Otoko has one more nickname, Bibibi no Nezumi Otoko (ビビビのねずみ男). This is a play-off of Kitaro’s own nickname Gegege no Kitaro, and refers to the onomonopiac sound of slapping someone in the face (which Nezumi Otoko does often). He is also known to use the pseudonym Nagai Futen in his schemes, and has a passport and documentation in that name.

The Origin of Nezumi Otoko

Nezumi Otoko is a half-yokai, what Mizuki Shigeru calls a hanyokai and what Takashi Rumiko calls a hanyo. But even though he is half-yokai / half-human, the accounts of his birth vary and the human half is never explained.

In the most official version, the one used for his profile in Kitaro’s Daihyaka (鬼太郎大百科), Nezumi Otoko was mysteriously born as a human baby on an island populated only by rats. That’s it. End of story.

In another story, Kitaro’s Hell Compilation (鬼太郎地獄編), Nezumi Otoko comes from a land on the boarder of the world of the living and the world of the dead. This world is populated by people like himself, and “Nezumi Otoko” is a general term for the species. Nezumi Otoko’s mother appears in this story, looking like female version of the rat man himself. But she is later revealed to be Sasori Onna in disguise as part of a revenge plot by Nurarihyon. However, Nezumi Otoko’s world and people are never referenced again outside of Kitaro’s Hell Compilation.

About Nezumi Otoko

Whatever his origins, Nezumi Otoko is a true yokai. He is over 360 years old, and likes to claim that he has never taken a bath in all that time (which is untrue, like almost everything Nezumi Otoko claims). His body is repulsive, covered in ringworm and scabies, and is home to unique diseases that evolved to live only in Nezumi Otoko. He can eat anything, no matter how rotten or unpalatable.

His most powerful weapon is his own filth. Nezumi Otoko’s breath is so foul it can knock people out cold, and he can fart with the power of a rocket blast. In some stories, he is even able to fly by spreading out his cloak and farting, using the hot air to take off. His cloak is as dirty as he is, and can also be used as a weapon based on its stink alone.

He has other random weapons in his arsenal—his rat-like teeth are sharp enough to bite through things, and his long whiskers have been shown to be as strong as iron. He is quick with a slap, earning his nickname Bibibi no Nezumi Otoko. Mizuki Shigeru has a tendency to make things up as he goes along, so Nezumi Otoko might unveil some special power for one story, never to be mentioned again.

Even though he isn’t officially “Rat Man,” his rat-like nature is enough to excite the appetite of the cat girl Neko Musume and other cat yokai. Cats are Nezumi Otoko’s natural enemies, and he is terrified of them.

Nezumi Otoko – For Love or Money

Money is Nezumi Otoko’s main motivation, and he is constantly scheming to acquire it even though it always slips through his fingers.

Whenever possible, he secretly charges people for Kitaro’s help or even sells humans to monsters if the price is right. As part of his schemes, Nezumi Otoko claims to be a degreed professor from the prestigious Yokai University and deeply knowledgeable about all things yokai. This isn’t a complete lie, and it is often speculated that Kitaro and Nezumi Otoko met as co-students at Yokai University. (Although Nezumi Otoko’s graduation is dubious).

The other thing that drives Nezumi Otoko is his quest for love. In many stories, he has attempted to romance some unsuspecting woman, usually though devious schemes and hiding his true nature. But, as is the case with all of his plans, the truth eventually outs and all ends in tears.

Brief Publication History of Nezumi Otoko

Like Medama Oyaji and Neko Musume, Nezumi Otoko is an original yokai creation from Mizuki Shigeru. He first appeared in the story “The Lodging House” (下宿屋) in the rental manga Hakuba no Kitaro (墓場の鬼太郎; Graveyard Kitaro). In that story, Nezumi Otoko was an unnamed servant of Dracula the 4th, and was in charge of securing lodgings and victims for his master. He disappeared halfway through the story when Kitaro and Medama Oyaji met the true menace.

He appeared again, this time officially as Nezumi Otoko, in the story “The Strange Fellow” (おかしな奴) . He presented himself to Kitaro and Medama Oyaji as a famous Yokai Professor, offering his services to them—for a modest fee, of course. Another introduction happened in the Gegege no Kitaro novel from Kodansha. Nezumi Otoko shows up out of nowhere and steals a fish dinner out from under Neko Musume. Hijinks ensue, and Nezumi Otoko is soon part of the regular group.

Nezumi Otoko’s first animated appearance was in “Yasha” (夜叉), the second episode of the first season of the animated Gegege no Kitaro. He has appeared in every series of the cartoon ever since, as well as several live-action TV shows and movies.

Nezumi Otoko has appeared in every possible medium, and on every possible product. He even has his own train. You would be hard-pressed to find anyone in Japan who didn’t know Nezumi Otoko, and he is one of the most well-known and popular characters in Japan.

Mizuki Shigeru on Nezumi Otoko

In any interview, whenever he is asked about his favorite yokai, Mizuki Shigeru is quick to answer “Nezumi Otoko.” He likes the rest of the Kitaro family about the same, but Nezumi Otoko is his favorite child. Mizuki explains “Kitaro is actually kind of dumb. He’s like Superman, giving everything he has to random strangers without hope of reward or happiness. That’s boring. If I don’t put Nezumi Otoko in there to mess things up a bit, I don’t have a story. “

Mizuki further says that his original goal with Kitaro was social commentary and satire. It was at the publisher’s request that he change his stories to focus on Kitaro as a Hero, using his supernatural powers to defeat monsters. Nezumi Otoko is the only character that embodies Mizuki’s original intentions for the comic.

Mizuki says his own life philosophy is much closer to Nezumi Otoko’s—he values money, luxury, and happiness and would never give it away for free like Kitaro does. Sometimes he uses Nezumi Otoko to voice his own opinions in a way he can’t with Kitaro. Life was exceptionally hard for Mizuki until he found his success as a comic artist, and those feelings of hunger, of failure, of grasping for success that continually eludes you, are embodied in Nezumi Otoko.

When Mizuki Shigeru wrote his own autobiography and history comic, Showa: A History of Japan, he used Nezumi Otoko as his narrator and mouthpiece.

Nezumi Otoko’s Model

Along with himself, Mizuki Shigeru based Nezumi Otoko on his friend Umeda Etaro (梅田栄太郎). Umeda worked in the rental manga market along with Mizuki Shigeru, and he was always thinking up get-rich-quick schemes to try and squeeze a little bit more money out of kids. And like Nezumi Otoko, his schemes always failed.

In the 2010 drama Gegege no Nyobo, Uragi Yoshino (浦木克夫), was also named as an influence on Nezumi Otoko.

Translator’s Note

This is my first piece in a series on yokai who appear in my translation of Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan from Drawn & Quarterly.

In doing my translation on Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan and my work on Kitaro (also from Drawn & Quarterly) I gained a new appreciation of Nezumi Otoko. Just like Donald Duck and Wimpy from Popeye, Nezumi Otoko plays an important role in Gegege no Kitaro, and it is easy to see why he is Mizuki Shigeru’s favorite.

Just like Walt Disney soon learned that Mickey Mouse—while popular—was too bland of a character to carry on a story by himself, Mizuki needs Nezumi Otoko to be greedy, to betray, to do the wrong thing; all of which pushes the story forward.

Further Reading:

For more on Mizuki Shigeru and his yokai, check out:

Mizuki Shigeru in Rabaul

What are Hanyo?

Mizuki Shigeru’s Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan

Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Kaii Yokai Densho Database, Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Sources

The Sazae Oni may not look like much—just a giant shellfish with an odd set of arms. But then you read the legends, and discover that this bizarre creature is a testicle thief that has more in common with the classical succubus of the Malleus Maleficarum than traditional Japanese yokai … and it starts to get more interesting. And scarier.

What Does Sazae Oni Mean?

Sazae are a popular menu item in Japan, although almost unknown in the West. They are called Turbo cornutus, which literally means horned turban. But, they are more often called Turban Shells or Turban Snails in English, or just by the Japanese word Sazae.

The Sazae Oni’s name uses the kanji 栄螺 (Sazae; turban shell) + 鬼(Oni; Demon, Ogre). Like the Onikuma (Demon Bear), the term “oni” is used in a general sense of “demon” instead of the sense of the Japanese yokai, Oni.

What is a Sazae Oni?

The origins of the Sazae Oni are obscure, and come in two distinct different flavors. According to one legend, the Sazae Oni is a typical animal yokai, one that has lived a long time—in the case of the Sazae Oni, 30 years—and been transformed by the magic of long life into a supernatural creature. Like many of these creatures, the Sazae Oni grows to unusual size, and becomes a blend of human and animal features, gaining two powerful arms and eyes on its shell.

Artist Toriyama Sekein used the Sazae Oni as a metaphor for the mysterious universe that we live in, a realm where all things are possible. Toriyama included the Sazae Oni in his yokai collection Gazu Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro (画図百器徒然袋; The Illustrated Bag of One Hundred Random Demons), where he wrote:

“If a sparrow becomes a clam upon entering the sea, and a field-rat can transform into a quail, then in this unfathomable universe it is no impossible thing that a turban shell might become a demon. I have seen this in something like a dream.”

Toriyama is making a reference to a Chinese proverb, that comes from the Liji (礼記; Book of Rites). It says that a sparrow may become a clam in the sea, and a field-rat may become a quail. The proverb means that even impossible things can happen in the mysterious world we live in.

These Sazae Oni are harmless creatures, who do nothing more than rise to the surface of the ocean on moonlit nights to dance on the waves. There is even some mixing with the sea dragons that rule the land beneath the waves.

And then there is the other, less esoteric origin.

Sazae Oni – The Succubus of the Sea, and the Testicle Thief

In Kishu province (modern day Wakayama and Mie prefectures), there is a legend that Sazae Oni are born from lustful women who are thrown into the ocean as punishment for their wanton ways.

In one story, a ship of pirates hugging the coast heard the cries of a woman drowning in the waves. Seeing that the woman was beautiful, the pirates decided to rescue her. Once on board, the pirates planned to rape her but found instead that the woman was willing. Over the course of the night, she had sex with every member of the crew.

The woman had her own agenda—she kept a souvenir from each of her conquests, the man’s testicles that she supposedly bit off when she was finished. Discovering that they had been robbed of the precious possessions, the men charged at the woman who revealed herself as a Sazae Oni. She offered to sell the pirates back their testicles in exchange for their plundered treasure.

In this way the Sazae Oni traded “gold” for gold, as the Japanese word for testicles is kintama (golden balls).

This story of the Sazae Oni draws a further, and interesting, correlation with the succubus. In the 1486 Witchhunter’s manual, the Malleus Maleficarum, it is said that succubus gather semen from their male lovers in order to breed. In a similar way, the Sazae Oni collects testicles, and some legends have sprang up saying that the Sazae Oni also uses the semen from the testicles in order to breed new Sazae Oni. This is a completely modern theory, however, and does not appear in old folklore studies.

There is a further legend of Sazae Oni, from the Boso peninsula in Chiba prefecture. In a story almost entirely unrelated to other instances, the Sazae Oni is said to take the form of a woman who wanders at night, staying at inns and making a meal of the innkeepers.

Translator’s Note:

This is another in my series of yokai that appear (however briefly) in my translation of Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan. The Sazae Oni appears when Nonnonba buys Mizuki Shigeru an exceptionally large sazae to heat, and speculates that it might be a Sazae Oni. This plays on the young Shigeru’s imagination, as he searches for eyes on the massive shell.

Further Reading:

For other ocean-based yokai, check out:

Umibozu – The Sea Monk

Bakekujira – The Skeleton Whale

Nure Onago – The Soaked Woman

Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, The Catalpa Bow, Myths and Legends of Japan, Occult Japan, Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Sources

There are eight million gods and monsters in Japan, and more than a few of them like to ride around in human bodies from time to time. Yurei. Kappa. Tanuki. Tengu. Kitsune. Snakes. Cats. Horses. Almost anything can possess a human. But when they do, they are all known by a single name—Tsukimono, the Possessing Things.

What Does Tsukimono Mean?

Tsukimono is a straight forward term. It combines the kanji憑 (tsuki; possession) +物 (mono; thing). There is a different word for actual possession憑依 (hyoi), which is the kanji 憑 (tsuki again, but this time pronounced hyo—because Japanese is hard) + 依 (I; caused by).

Although they are collectively known as tsukimono, different types of tsukimono use –tsuki as a suffix, such as kappa-tsuki (河童憑; kappa possession), tengu-tsuki (天狗憑; tengu possession), or the most common of all, kitsune-tsuki (狐憑; fox possession).

(憑 is an odd kanji by the way. It can do double duty not only as the verb tsuku (憑く; to possess) but also as a kanji for  tanomu (憑む; to ask a favor). So in a strange way, possession means asking a favor of someone—really, really hard.)

Shinto God Possession

Spirit possession is an ancient and ubiquitous belief in Japan. In his 1894 book Occult Japan, Percival Lowell wrote:

“The number of possessing spirits in Japan is something enormous. It is safe to say that no other nation of forty millions of people has ever produced its parallel….”

Probably the most ancient form of the phenomenon is God Possession. There have long been mediums who could voluntarily drawn the power of kami or ancestor spirits into their bodies to serve as oracles. As in many spiritual traditions, the medium goes into a trance and clears their mind so that the kami can enter. The medium is just an empty vessel that gives voice to the kami.

The kami can be singular or plural, an ancestor spirit or merger of deities. Because of the obscure nature of the kami and their relation to the sorei ancestor spirits, it can be hard to tell. As Lowell says, “In Shinto god-possession we are viewing the actual incarnation of the ancestor spirit of the race.”

However, this kind of God Possession—known alternately as kamiyadori (神宿り; kami dwelling), kamioroshi (神降ろし; kami descending), or kamigakari (神懸り; divine possession) –is different from tsukimono.

Tsukimono – Yokai and Animal Possession

Tsukimono are almost exclusively yokai or animal spirits invading human bodies. This is rarely a spontaneous event—often the yokai possesses the human as an act of revenge, for when a human kills one of the yokai’s children, or destroys it’s home, or something along that lines. Or it could be simple greed, like a fox who wants to eat a delicious treat that it normally can’t get it’s paws on. The reasons are as innumerable as the yokai themselves. But as opposed to the Shinto God Possession, it is always involuntary on the part of the possessed. No one invites a tsukimono into their body.

The effects of the possession vary widely as well. In most possessions the victim takes on the attributes of the yokai or animal. A victim of tanuki-tsuki (tanuki possession) is said to voraciously overeat until their belly swells up like a tanuki, causing death unless exorcized. Uma-tsuki (horse possession) can cause people to become ill-mannered, huffing at everything and sticking their face into their food to eat like a horse. Kappa-tsuki become overwhelmed with the need to be in water, and develop an appetite for cucumbers.

In general, the only way to free someone from a tsukimono is through an exorcist. Usually these were the wandering Shugendo priests called Yamabushi. They were the great sorcerers and exorcists of pre-modern Japan, roaming through the mountains and coming down when called to perform sacred services and spiritual battles.

Types of Tsukimono – Snakes, Foxes, and Everything Else

The types of tsukimono change depending on who you ask, and when. The great Meiji-era folklorist Yanagita Kunio split tsukimono into two distinct types, snakes (hebi-tsuki) and foxes (kitsune-tsuki).

The snake was found primarily in Shikoku, and went by various names. Hebigami (蛇神; snake god), Tobyo or Tonbogami. As you can see by the name, these snakes were not typical snakes, but where thought to be snake gods with the ability to possess humans. In many descriptions they do not even resemble snakes, but are more like great earthworms.

What Yanagita referred to as a kitsune was quite different from the usual fox. It was a small, four-legged furry creature that resembled a weasel or shrew more than anything else. The kitsune also went by regional various names, like ninko (人狐; human fox) or yako (野狐; field fox). The animal roamed over Kansai, Kanto, and Tohoku districts. Whatever the animal was called in the local vernacular, the description given was always the same; a distinctly non-foxlike animal that every called a fox.

Yanagita was quick to put the name kitsune to all 4-legged animal possessors. He linked the kitsune-tsuki to one of Japan’s other great possessing animals, the inugami (犬神; Dog God), that moved throughout Shikoku and Chugoku districts.

Very few folklorists agree with Yanagita’s fox/snake categories. Most who write on the subject have seen much, much more variety in tsukimono. Percival Lowell wrote:

“ … there are a surprising number of forms. There is, in short, possession by pretty much every kind of creature, except by other living men.”

Mizuki Shigeru agrees with Percival Lowell. In his Mujyara, series he identifies the following types of possession. It is is by no means meant to be a complete list:

• Jizo-tsuki – Possession by Jizo
• Kappa-tsuki – Kappa possession
• Gaki-tsuki – Hungry Ghost possession
• Tengu-tsuki – Tengu possession
• Shibito-tsuki – Ghost possession
• Neko-tsuki – Cat possession
• Hebi-tsuki – Snake possession
• Tanuki-tsuki – Tanuki possession
• Hannya-tsuki – Hannya possession
• Ikiryo-tsuki – Living Ghost possession
• Uma-tsuki – Horse possession
• Inu-tsuki – Dog possession
• Kitsune-tsuki – Fox possession

Kitsune-tsuki and Kitsune-tsukia – Fox Possession and Fox Users

Kitsune-tsuki is by far the most common type of tsukimono. It is also different from other tsukimono—instead of the possessed taking on fox-attributes, kitsune-tsuki feels like a bodily attack, with shortness of breath, phantom pains, speaking in strange voices, and epileptic fits. Kitsune-tsuki symptoms resembled classic demonic possession in Western culture.

Up until WWII, kitsune-tsuki in particular was treated with deadly seriousness, by both mystics and scientists. F. Hadland Davis wrote in his 1913 book Myths and Legends of Japan:

“Demonical possession is frequently said to be due o the evil influence of foxes. This form of possession is known as kitsune-tsuki. The sufferer is usually a woman of the poorer classes, one who is highly sensitive an open to believe in all manner o superstitions. The question of demoniacal possession is still and unsolved problem, and the studies of Dr. Baelz of the Imperial University of Japan, seem to point to the fact that animal possession in human beings is a very real and terrible truth after all. He remarks that a fox usually enters a woman either through the breast or between the finger-nails, and that the fox lives a separate life of its own, frequently speaking in a voice totally different from the human.”

Another huge different with kitsune-tsuki is that, instead of the possession being the will of the yokai, it could be a deliberate attack. A breed of sorcerers known as kitsune-tsukai (Fox Users) were said to have invisible kitsune at their command, and could send them to possess people at will. This could also be for any reason, from revenge to profit. A particularly devious type of extortionist kitsune-tsukai would send their kitsune to possess someone, then appear in the guise of an exorcist to drive the spirit out—for a fee, of course.

Kitsune-tsukai gain power over their familiars in what is known as the Izuna-ho, or Izuna rite. The complete ritual is laid out in the 17th century Honcho Shokkan; find a pregnant fox and feed her and tame her. When she gives birth, take special care of her cubs. When her cubs are strong enough, she will eventually come and ask you to name one as thanks. With that done, the fox you named is under your control, and will respond to the power of its name. Continue to feed the fox, and you are know a Kitsune-tsukai. You can ask it questions that it must answer, or send it to perform your nefarious deeds.

A hallmark of the kitsune-tsukai is that they were the nouveaux riches—people of poverty who suddenly gained wealth and property. There was no possible explanation for the sudden rise in status of these people other than they had a magical, invisible fox at their command.

One strange aspect of kitsune-tsukai is that—along with the dog-possession called inugami—it is thought to be hereditary. Becoming a kitsune-tsukai taints your entire line, and from that time forward invisible foxes will hang around the houses of your ancestors. You are now part of a tsukimono-tsuji, a witch clan.

Kitsune-tsukai and tsukimono-tsuji were actively discriminated against. It was a taint that lasted forever, and people would carefully check the family background of potential marriage or business partners to ensure that they had no hint of kitsune-tsukai lineage. To bind your family to a tainted family was disastrous—you and all your heirs would now carry the taint. During the Edo period in particular people were vigilant against kitsune-tsukai. Accused families would be burned out of their homes and banished.

With no surprise, kitsune-tsukai discrimination is often linked to burakumin discrimination. Many burakumin families were accused of being kitsune-tsukai, and people said that when you walked through a burakumin village you could see the invisible foxes haunted the houses, waiting for their master’s commands.

Predjudice against tsukimono-tsuji and kitsune-tsukai families lasted well into the 1960s when human rights laws were enacted forbidding discrimination against them. To this day, however, I am sure you can find a few people who would be shy to marry or do business with a known kitsune-tsukai.

Translator’s Note:

This article was done for Brandon Seifert, who does the incredibly cool comic Witch Doctor. Is there a yokai-inspired comic in Seifert’s future? I suggest you keep an eye out on your local comic shop!

I feel like I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this article—it started out as a simple explanation of tsukimono, but soon expanded into much, much more. And even this is just a glimpse; there is much more to tell about tsukimono, kitsune-tsukai, and the various other forms of possession than I can fit on this blog. Hopefully this will serve as a solid overview. Time permitting, I will do individual articles on the different types of possession in the future.

For now, anyone interested in learning more should check out The Catalpa Bow: A Study in Shamanistic Practices in Japan. The chapter on tsukimono—or Witch Animals—is available online here.

Further Reading:

For more stories of possessing yokai and snakes, check out:

Inen – The Possessing Ghost

The Tanuki and the White Snake

The Snake’s Curse