More Yokai!

Since a few people really seemed to like the yokai that were presented in the last post, I decided to write another post dedicated solely to yokai and obake. Also, it's Sunday and I am in some back pain so have little to do but laze around on painkillers. And I love folkloric beings.

So here are a few more yokai from Japanese folklore!

1. Kappa -

Koopa Troopa
Property of Nintendo

These guys are really well-known. In pottery, I made one and everyone was very surprised/excited that I knew about the Kappa. What are they? They are little duck, watery beings that supposedly inspired the famous Bowser and Koopa Troopas from the Mario universe (the more I read about Kappa the less I think so, but ... Koopas, I understand I guess). Their coloring can range from yellow to blue to green. It is said that they have the stench of fish, have webbed hands and feet, a duck-like bill, and a small indent on the top of their head that holds water. Some of them have hair or leaves that surround the water spot. Even though they like to hang out in ponds and rivers, creeping out Japanese people, it is said that they will go up to the mountains and live it up as a mountain deity occasionally. There are still many shrines dedicated to the Kappa, and sometimes festivals are held during the spring and fall, times when the Kappa would be making their trips to and from the mountains.

Like many of the faerie-like beings of European folklore, the Kappa are highly curious of our human ways and are knowledgeable in the Japanese language. In exchange for things like eggplant, soba (noodles), natto

1836 painting. Not the prettiest little guy.

(fermented soybeans usually eaten for breakfast), kabocha (a type of squash), or cucumbers they will become your BFF. They adore the shit out of cucumbers. But beware, there is one food that they love even more than cucumbers and that is your children. Back in the day, when families wanted to bathe in the waters, parents would get out some cucumbers and write their names and their kids' names on them, throwing them into the bathing area in order to subdue the Kappa and bathe in peace. Because of this, there is a superstition where one should eat cucumbers before swimming. Though, if you have gained BFFdom with a Kappa, they will help you with your farm and other things. It is also believed that they taught humans how to set bones and other medicine-related topics. So, while they're really intelligent and will become BFFs with normal-sized humans, keep your kids away from them. But with the high amount of infanticide in ancient Japan, maybe the Kappa were really just used as an excuse ... though they did other asshole things such as farting in people's faces, looking up ladies' kimono, and stealing your hard-earned crops that you and your other BFF Kappa made together. The part they liked most about children was their blood and livers and taking your shirikodama. Shirikodama is basically your physical, glowy ball-shaped soul that is in your anus (I wish I made this shit up).

Picture Courtesy of ME. I made this little guy myself.
Ceramic Clay.

The water that it holds on its head is like the soft spot on a baby's head; it is its sensitive spot. Unlike a baby (or maybe still like a baby? I don't know much about babies really) the water is the source of its powers and abilities. Depending on the legend, if the water spills, they will become unable to move or perish. Since they were obsessed with being polite (except in farting in people's faces and looking up people's kimono situations I guess), if you bowed, they would bow back, having their water spill. If one were to refill them with water from their home-pond, they would become your eternal BFF. They had one other weakness, and that was their arms. You could literally rip their arm off and slap them with it and it would take little effort to do so. So if you wanted to be a real jerk, you could take their arms and taunt them into giving you stuff in return for their really shitty arms. How did they lift things if their arms came off so easily? Like me, they hate ginger, and unlike me are repelled by iron and sesame.

These guys have seriously a lot of information on them, and there are a lot of pictures if you type into Google images. Those are the basics though.

2. Tanuki -

A Tanuki in Namba. Picture courtesy of moi.

So the Tanuki is an actual animal (raccoon dog in English) and one of the abilities Mario can get in certain games. The real one is kind of like a badger/dog/raccoon/thing. They are really adorable. Like the Kappa, there is a lot of information on these guys so I will try to keep it short. So there is the real Tanuki (raccoon dog) and then there is its mythical, yokai version. They are shape-shifters and can be troublemakers. More modern depictions give them a round belly that they will drum on, a bottle of sake in their hands, and a pair of giant testicles. I am sure you can guess which attribute is the most important to this yokai's folklore.

Edo period painting.
How artistic.

They used to be a lot less benevolent, but over time the Tanuki became a fun-loving creature instead of smothering people to death with their giant, magical ball sacks. Actually, I think even modern folklore still has them doing that. Back in the day, they were much more likely to use mystifying magic to trick unwary travellers and to enchant people with their belly-drum music. In today's world, you can go into most Japanese businesses and will find a small or giant ceramic Tanuki sitting around. I've taken several pictures of them actually. Some of them retain their giant scrotum while others have been hacked of it, probably thanks to the prudish Western culture that has infiltrated Japan.

Real Tanuki. Picture Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Thanks Wikipedia.
Damn these guys are adorable.

Even though it seems like it would be good for us if they were terribly dimwitted and absentminded, they are instead kind of like a bunch of drunk little douchebags. They enjoy transforming into things, which you can reveal as a Tanuki by smacking it in the face with a leaf or bone (whoa, now it makes so much sense why Mario becomes Tanuki Mario with a leaf). They stumble around drunk, their tails wrapping around people's legs. Since they can be invisible, this allows for a good scare while being called mean names and feeling soft fuzziness around your legs when nothing can be seen. Since they are massive jerks, sometimes they will roll boulders down mountains to make loud noises and confuse villagers, or transform into a bundle of sticks. I don't understand why they do that last thing. They can inflate their scrotum to be the size of eight tatami mats (tatami mats are ... well ... floor mats that can be up to 1+ m in length so 3.3+ ft ... meaning that eight of them could probably be used as a form of hyperbole). There is a fun story about how a bunch of people got together on a tatami mat during a rain storm. One guy dropped his cigarette, a Tanuki crying out in pain and everyone realizing they had mistaken its balls for a mat. Sometimes they will use their own scrotum as an umbrella, covering themselves up in the rain.

3. Futakuchi-onna -

Imagine you are the Japanese wife of a poor man in the Edo period (1600's to 1800's about). You don't have a lot to eat and since you're a woman your hair is super important and must be taken care of obsessively. So you do your lady thing, taking care of your beautiful and very long hair, since cutting it was usually only done in shame or in the form of an extreme apology. One day, you begin to hear mean, spiteful things being muttered from behind you, but when you look, there is nothing there. The little food you do have mysteriously begins to go missing and your stomach feels a little bit fuller than usual.

If you looked at this picture you
already knew what was going to happen.
Edo period woodblock painting.

Little do you know, a second mouth has grown on the back of your head and your hair has become sentient, able to move on its own to fill that second mouth. It is two times more ravenous than your regular mouth and when it screams it causes you tremendous pain. The words that come out of it are usually spiteful, cruel, demanding, and obscene. 

Other legends say that this happens when a man is chopping wood and "accidentally" hits his stingy wife in the back of her head, the wound never healing and becoming the contraption mentioned above. A third way suggests that a selfish mother who starved a stepchild to death while feeding only her beloved children would feel its vengeance when its spirit becomes the talking, ravenous mouth on the back of her head. 

4. Harionago/Harionna -

There is some interesting cultural ideas regarding hair, especially women's hair, in many parts of Asia. Japan is no different. This monster, as it is specifically said not to be a ghost or a human, takes the form of a women with very long hair. She is extremely beautiful, men easily falling and chasing after her. Luckily, she is just from the western prefecture of Ehime on the island of Shikoku (one of the major islands of Japan, not too far from Osaka, actually). She wanders around, waiting for a man to approach her. When she laughs at him, she will wait to see if he laughs back, and if he does, her hair will come to life. Her hair is in the shape of razors that are at her complete beck and call. One story tells of how a man got away, running home and closing his door. When he woke in the morning, the entrance was covered in hair.

One shouldn't get too comfortable if they get away from her, she'll wait for you outside your door the next night anyway.

*I can't find any public domain pictures of her, only modern artist representations and it makes me nervous to post any since sometimes artists can be ... weird ... about people reposting their art, even if the sources are cited. So I'm just going to avoid it. There are a lot of pictures of this creature if you type Harionago into Google Images if you really want to know.

5. Bakezori -

Do you remember the Tsukumogami from last entry? Well, if you don't, basically an item that becomes 100 years old and gets its own soul.

This guy is a zori sandal (traditional straw sandal). If you treat your sandal like shit, it will come to life after being 100 years old and run around your house at night screaming. That's all it does, so I'm not sure if there's a real lesson to learn from here. 

*Same issue as with the Harionago. Just type Bakezori into Google Images if you want to know.

6. Kami-Kiri -

What a jerk ... or is he?
1737.

Back to the topic of hair, this guy is a strange, black bear creature that goes around cutting people's hair. Modern depictions turn it into a humanoid with a crow head. Even though he sounds like a huge asshole, he actually is doing you a favor if he chops your hair off. Sometimes, since most yokai can shape-shift, or at least look decently human during the daytime, they like to trick humans into marrying them. If your hair gets chopped off by one of these creatures, chances are, you may want to get to know your fiance(e) a bit better. Since hair was so important, if your hair was cut before a marriage ceremony, the ceremony would be postponed. Marriage between otherworldly beings and humans usually ended kind of shittily, especially for the human, so really he was just performing public services.

Though, it is said he is particularly fond of servant girls' hair. If one wanted to keep the little creeper away there was a spell that could be written on entrances or hair items. 

When they chop your hair off, they like to scream, "mogaaaa!" I don't think that really means anything; I like to think of it as a battle/victory cry. 

7. Nuppepo/Nuppefuho -

So, I have been compiling a bestiary for myself for the last two and a half years. It covers any folkloric being I can find on the internet. Undoubtedly, there are weird beings spread across every culture, but the Japanese seem to have more than others. I wouldn't say that makes them any more or less weird, but it is interesting.

1776 Japanese painting.

This creature is a 1.5 m in height (like 4 feet or something) pile of flesh. It comes with a terrible smell, as if it were decaying. It looks like a pancake made of fat with stubby hands and feet. Thanks to the way its flesh is shaped, it looks like it sort of has a face. It is almost like a giant, humanoid(?) version of blobfish (a real fish, go look it up). Strangely, it doesn't do anything but wander around by itself at night, smelling terrible and looking suspiciously like a giant lump of human skin. They are usually found in graveyards, abandoned temples, or other spooky places around the end of the year. Supposedly there have been sightings of them in groups, but it is rarer than seeing them solitary.

In case you somehow came to the conclusion that you wanted to know how it tasted, you would be granted eternal youth if you took a chomp from it. There are no accounts of what it tastes like, though.

My question is what did the Japanese people see for them to come up with this thing?

8. Nurikabe -

This guy belongs to Nintendo.

Do you like Mario? Since I already may have ruined your thoughts of Tanuki Mario and made Koopas more interesting, let's talk about this guy. This is whomp. He's most famously from Mario 64 and would squish you if you got in his way. Like many of the creatures from the Mario world, he is based off of the Nurikabe.

This creature is a wall. Or like a wall. Either way it acts like a wall. It especially enjoys messing up travellers, ruining their already exhausting day. It can extend itself forever, so no matter how long you travel to get around it, you will never find a way.

This picture is Public Domain. It's from the 1800's.
So technically I don't have to source it.

It's appearance is a bit unknown besides this old painting of one. One story says how a lost traveller watched as a mass of tar came from the ground and surrounded him. It is said that you can peacefully keep going if you knock on the lower left part, making the creature disappear. Like the Whomp, it can fall on and crush you. In one case, someone managed to get away, or so they thought, before it reappeared in front of them before falling onto the terrified traveller. 

Like many creatures from Japanese folklore, this one is sometimes blamed on the Tanuki being it's jerk self and using magic.

9. Onryo -

I was going to post a picture from The Grudge but then after looking at pictures I decided I didn't want to. If you've seen any of The Grudge films, The Ring films, or Scary Movie 3 (which parodies The Ring), you will know what this is. Or you have seen this creature before.

You know the deal, white dress (it is supposed to be a white burial kimono but some of the above listed movies just have them wearing a white dress), black and messy hair, white skin ... a thirst for vengeance that will never be quenched. There's our princess. They never had such a specific look, but they do now thanks to Kabuki theatre (traditional Japanese theatre that was heavily dramatized with dramatic make-up, dramatic poses, dramatic talking voices, dramatic clothes, dramatic weapons, dramatic everything. Seriously, go look it up. It will explain every manga you've read, every anime you've watched or any entertainment related to Japan).

Usually these unfortunate spirits would arise from being powerless or weak in their living life, murdered ruthless or beaten by a man in their life. After dying, they come back almost invincible with their soul purpose being vengeance. However, their vengeance is never satisfied as they will go on to kill entire villages or people who were not involved in her death, sometimes without actually killing the one who did her wrong. Her hair is said to be long and messy and a dark aura hovers over her. If you run into this ghost, it is said that at first she will appear as an unconscious woman, but as you get closer your chest and head will begin to hurt. She will move, usually by levitating while making strange sounds like sobbing or groaning. It is said that their vengeance can even create earthquakes, fires, storms, famine, pestilences, and other natural disasters.

10. Kitsune -

Picture found on Wikipedia. So cute. Much adorable.

Originally, I wasn't going to include the Kitsune, since it is an at-length creature like the Kappa and Tanuki. There's a lot to this thing. But since you made it this far, here we go. Also, it is a staple in Japanese folklore and is all over the place. Kitsune is the Japanese word for fox, but, like the Tanuki, there is a mythical version of the animal. The mystified fox is not special to Japan, Korea and China have their own versions, which is probably where Japan got its folklore from in the first place. The Korean Kumiho/Gumiho is a bit more viscous and sinister than its Japanese counterpart, but today we're focusing on the Japanese one. If you've ever heard of the nine-tailed fox, this is where it comes from.

Like many other Japanese folkloric beings, this one has a few age factors. At age 100, it will grow a new tail. The more tails, the stronger and more powerful the fox will be. Eventually, after it gains its ninth tail, the fox

A nine-tailed fox. Old Chinese text.
Public domain.

will become rather white or gold. Like the Tanuki, it can shape-shift. It especially likes to shape-shift into humans. If you think you might actually be hanging out with a fox, never fear, for their shadows and reflections will still show their true form. Also, their tails will hang around, so if your friend seems obsessed with hiding their ass, you could be a little suspicious. Get them nice and drunk and they'll get careless, showing off their tails. I guess age doesn't always grant wisdom.

The god/goddess (it's hard to tell with Japanese gods since they like to take both forms, we'll go with female for now, though) Inari is often accompanied with kitsune. She is the goddess of foxes, rice, fertility, and a whole bunch more. Often times she is portrayed as a kitsune. But we aren't really here to talk about her specifically, she just deserved to be mentioned. We're here to talk about kitsune. The kitsune who followed her were white, a good omen. Though black foxes and nine-tailed foxes were also considered so. There are two types of kitsune, the zenko who were of celestial origin, and the yako ... more mischievous, trickster-like kitsune. Foxes tend to achieve godhood and there are many shrines in Japan dedicated to them. Inari's kitsune are thought to keep away bad/evil spirits and omens.

The kitsune are supernatural beings. They can use powerful magic, often taking up abandoned homes or occasionally attaching themselves to someone else's house. Since, like most folkloric beings, they do not think the same way we do, they may not help us in ways we find moral. If a kitsune hangs out at your house and brings you money, you should probably be suspicious of where that money came from. But the good side of having a kitsune around is that they will never lie to you. If you do them a favor, they will loyally do whatever they can to pay you back. Though, they tend to pay you back in twigs and leaves disguised as money through illusion (or they stole it as mentioned above). I guess it's not something your BFF Kappa would do, but it's the thought that counts, right? But hey, you know what your BFF Kappa probably wouldn't do (since I couldn't find anywhere that suggested they would)? Offer you eternal protection, impart valuable wisdom, or the gift of longevity. You see, the kitsune don't really do the whole material thing.

Woodblock painting, late 1700's.
Her shadow gives it away as a kitsune.

If the hair cutter mentioned above doesn't get to you before your wedding (though it seems like it only chops off women hair, so if you're a dude, this entry is for you), there is a chance you could end up with a kitsune bride. However, she usually ends up being very devoted and loyal to her husband, so maybe it's not such a bad deal. If caught, she will run away, or the husband will wake up disillusioned, far away from home, dirty, and full of shame. In some cases, your fox wife will have little half fox-human babies, all sporting mystical kitsune powers. If it rains while the sky is clear, it means that a wedding between kitsune is happening. Though, they aren't really fond of uninvited guests and you might end up with a vengeful kitsune couple after you.

They are portrayed as intelligent beings, and as mentioned before, their powers and wisdom increase with age. Specific legends have specific ages, but either way, there are certain ages where the kitsune will gain special powers such as omniscience (usually 900 or some other high age), shape-shifting (100 or 50), flight,

Wood block. Late 1700's.
Inari with a kitsune appear to a warrior.

invisibility, possession, controlling fire or lightning, going into people's dreams, and creating illusions. Similar to the Tanuki, or more like the opposite of the Tanuki, before they can transform, they must place a leaf, reeds, or a skull on their head. They usually prefer to take on the form of a beautiful women, young girls, or elderly men. In some cases, the kitsune can become powerful enough to warp reality, time, and space. They may drive people to insanity or gain the ability to transform into giant trees or a second moon. However, the kitsune has retained a little bit of the sinister aspects of its Korean version. The more trickster-like kitsune prefer to mess with egotistical samurai or greedy merchants instead. Crueler, asshole versions will abuse monks or farmers, their victims usually men since they greatly prefer to possess women instead of just messing with them (explaining their possession of women deserves its own entry really so I won't go into it here). Some kitsune, ones who are a little bit more malevolent, seek out human life sources, dining on human blood or taking their life through sexual contact akin to a succubus. They also can control balls of fire, or will o' the wisps, in order to confuse travellers or create illusions.

And that's the end of it! Maybe I will do more yokai segments in the future, but these ten sum up some of the more important yokai in Japanese folklore.

I hope you enjoyed my list!

~Until Next Time