Maya Calendar

Yōkai traits

The zashiki-warashi is a yokai in the form of a child that takes up residence inside a house, handed down in the Tōhoku region, above all in Iwate and Aomori Prefectures. Most often it is a child of about five or six, with a flushed face and bobbed hair, dressed in kasuri (splash-pattern cloth) or a red sleeveless jacket, said to appear suddenly in the parlor or an inner room. It rarely carries anyone off or does harm; instead it makes its presence felt as footsteps running down the corridor at night, or as the laughter of a child in an empty room. The zashiki-warashi’s defining trait is how firmly its fate is bound to the fortunes of its house. It was firmly believed that a household in which a zashiki-warashi takes up residence—and whose members can see it—will grow rich and prosper, while a household the zashiki-warashi leaves will fall into ruin in no time[[cite:tono-monogatari]]. For this reason the zashiki-warashi has been spoken of, with both dread and affection, not as a mere child’s ghost but as something like a guardian deity that governs the rise and fall of the house.