Gifuぎふ

Kama-itachi is a name for a wind-borne anomaly found in Edo-period art, essays, and oral lore, referring both to the phenomenon and its alleged agent. It is tied to whirlwinds and chill gusts in northern and mountainous regions, noted for razor-like lacerations when one stumbles on the road, delayed pain or bleeding, and frequent injuries to the legs. Its true nature varies across sources: invisible minor spirits, beasts riding the wind, or acts of deities coexist as explanations. In Shin’etsu it is said to strike those who break calendrical taboos, and in Hida a three-stage action is told. In parts of Chubu and Kinki, the whirlwind itself is called kama-itachi, while Edo essays report beast tracks left after a dust devil. Under regional aliases like Tosa’s “Field Sickle,” funerary tools turned uncanny are blamed for similar wounds. In haiku it settled as a winter season word and a sign of wind-borne calamity. This version limits itself to attested sources, avoids overlinking to specific places or persons, and presents regional types side by side.

Reconstructing the 1979 timeline. The general entry outlined the seven-month arc; here the sequence becomes clearer. In early December 1978, a story circulated in Shinsei, Motosu District, Gifu, about an elderly farm woman seeing Kuchisake-onna near an outhouse. On January 26, 1979, the Gifu Nichinichi Shimbun column "Henshu Yoki", written by editorial writer Mutsumi Murase, mentioned a rumor among Gifu children about a beautiful woman resembling an actress. This forms the earliest local-newspaper layer before national coverage. On March 23, Shukan Asahi published "Kuchisake-onna Densetsu no Tokaidochu Hizakurige," an early national-magazine report. Schools strengthened patrols in April and May. The panic peaked with Etsuro Hiraizumi's major Shukan Asahi feature on June 29. On June 21, a twenty-five-year-old woman in Himeji, Hyogo dressed as Kuchisake-onna and wandered with a kitchen knife, becoming a copycat arrest. Shukan Josei and Josei Jishin followed in July, and the rumor rapidly subsided when summer vacation began in August. At the same time, patrol cars were dispatched in Koriyama and Hiratsuka, group dismissal was organized in Kushiro and Niiza, and even Ginza hostesses reportedly turned "Am I pretty?" into a service line. Such precise chronology is almost impossible for Edo oral yokai. Kuchisake-onna displays the media-age rhythm of a yokai that conquers the country quickly and recedes just as quickly. Cram schools and national magazines. Yoshiyuki Iikura notes that postwar cram schools acted as a medium for transmission. Before the war, children's rumors tended to stay within school districts. Cram schools gathered children from different districts, allowing rumors to cross boundaries before national media stepped in. When weekly magazines began covering the story in March 1979, word of mouth and print amplified each other. Edo yokai spread mainly through oral circulation, sometimes aided by prints and picture books; modern folklore collection preserved local legends through researchers. Kuchisake-onna spread through a three-layer structure: children's cram-school talk, national magazines, and television wide shows. That form belongs to the urban and media environment of 1970s Japan. Mask, cosmetic surgery, and the city. Her settled image, a beautiful woman hiding her mouth behind a mask, is sociologically rich. In 1970s Japan, cosmetic surgery was becoming more common in Tokyo and Osaka, especially double-eyelid and nose operations. The beautiful woman who may have been surgically altered became an object of fascination and unease. A masked mouth could easily become a surgical scar in imagination. The later failed-surgery origin theory narrativizes that association. Postwar nuclear families, dual-income households, and women's entry into public work also made children more likely to be alone at home or on night streets. The figure of mother or woman felt less stable, while an unknown woman encountered after dark became suspect. Kuchisake-onna gathers anxieties about city, family, and body into one image. Unlike many Edo yokai used for moral instruction or communal order, she belongs to the fears of a more individualized postwar society. Distance from Edo-period slit-mouth tales. Earlier stories of women with mouths split to the ears do exist. Kaidan Oi no Tsue gives the Okubo Hyakunin-cho umbrella-man tale; Ehon Sayo Shigure and Shin Chomonju contain related episodes, and the Shigaraki Otsuya legend belongs to the Meiji layer. These stories show that the motif is old. Yet no secure historical line connects them directly to the 1979 phenomenon. Toru Joko's School Ghost Stories and Iikura tend to read the 1979 Kuchisake-onna as an independently generated postwar phenomenon, with Edo stories remaining only as a deeper thematic background. Stressing continuity often belongs to local tourism and local-history writing; stressing independence is the more cautious folklore and sociology position. The most responsible reading is to introduce the Edo material while locating 1979 in its own postwar conditions. Modern reception: yokai dictionaries and East Asian remaking. Shigeru Mizuki's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Japanese Yokai (1991) included Kuchisake-onna as a yokai entry, a symbolic moment when a mass-media urban legend entered the same frame as Edo tsukumogami and local folk beings. In film, Koji Shiraishi's Kuchisake-onna (2007) remains the representative work, directly engaging the 1979 panic. The Japan-Korea film Ghost Mask: Scar (2019), directed by Takeshi Sone, connects her with Korean cosmetic-surgery culture and shows how the legend can cross East Asian contexts. Hell Teacher Nube's sympathetic manga version transforms the fear of a monstrous woman into a story of restoration, with Nube removing the possessing animal spirit. That ethical shift shows how postwar yokai culture absorbed modern concerns for dignity and minority representation. A modern yokai born in the 1970s still being rewritten in the 2020s proves her lasting force.

The original text of the Nihon Shoki etches Sukuna's body in remarkable concreteness: "one body with two faces, each turned away from the other; their crowns joined so that there is no nape; limbs on either side; knees, yet no hollows behind them and no heels." One torso, two faces set back to front, no nape where the heads meet, and limbs on each side—read plainly, four hands and four feet alike, an eight-limbed marvel. Yet most of the images that survive locally are carved as "two faces, four arms"—two faces, four arms, two legs. That the Shinsen Mino-shi records the founder of Nichiryūbu-ji as a "two-faced, four-armed stranger" belongs to the same strain, and the discrepancy between the textual description (eight limbs) and the iconographic tradition (four arms, two legs) is not to be overlooked in reading the Sukuna image. It was Enkū who raised that iconography into art. The seated Ryōmen Sukuna at Senkō-ji sets its two faces side by side rather than front and back, one wearing wrath, the other compassion. This form, salvation glimmering within fury, resonates with the belief that Sukuna was an incarnation of Guze or Senju Kannon. His historical reality demands caution. Naniwa no Neko Takefurukuma, named as his vanquisher, properly belongs to the section on Empress Jingū, so his placement in the Nintoku chronicle is itself anachronistic. That a Kannon-incarnation tale should attach to Nintoku's reign—supposedly before Buddhism's arrival—is likewise a later construction, and the view that the whole account is a fabrication of the editorial stage carries weight (Nagafuji Yasushi). Nagafuji reads Sukuna as the original deity of Mt. Kurai, a hero hidden away by the central histories, while Hōga Toshio traces him genealogically to the ancestor of the Hida no Miyatsuko. As for the monstrous body, Haga Susumu reads it as the misperceived and exaggerated gear—shin guards and the like—of Hida's mountain folk. The name, too, invites many theories. From the sound "Sukuna," some traditions argue a tie to Sukunabikona, and Ōbayashi Taryō offered a comparative-mythology framework treating Sukunabikona as Ōkuninushi's "second self." The motif of a god who appears in pairs chimes with the two-faced form of Sukuna. Some also overlay the image of the uncanny Sukuna onto the fact that ancient Hida was a singular "land of craft" that sent its artisans (Hida no Takumi) to the center, though there is no direct documentary link between the two. What is certain is that a single name has been handed down in opposite directions by center and province, and that this very split is what gives the being called Ryōmen Sukuna its shape.

In medieval Japan, the monkey deity was told as a fusion of mountain divinity and simian monster. It ruled mountain domains and demanded offerings like a calendar ritual, seen as a relic of ancient sacred marriage rites, yet storytelling emphasized its brutality as a yokai. In slaying tales, a passing hunter or a monk with sacred power stands in as a substitute, and a trained dog plays the decisive role. The defeated deity sometimes possesses a shrine official to beg forgiveness, hinting at lingering sanctity. In some regions it was known as a possessing spirit, with sudden rages blamed on its curse. Early modern ghost stories pair man‑eating ferocity with comic butt‑fondling, portraying the ambivalent scorn and fear directed at monkeys.

A simian-form apparition modeled on Sekien Toriyama’s Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki entry and natural-historical notes in Sino-Japanese texts. It appears on remote mountain paths, instantly voices the thoughts of woodcutters and travelers, and gauges their behavior. Disinclined to harm humans, it withdraws swiftly when sensing danger, in line with Sekien’s text. In folktales its figure varies by region—monkey, mountain man, tengu, or tanuki—but its core is “mind reading” and retreating at sudden noises. Its mind reading mirrors the other’s thoughts and repeats them, closer to a warning than provocation. It reads presences in mountain stillness yet proves vulnerable to the unexpected—sparks from a campfire or a flying splinter. The name Kakku is linked to the character 玃 through phonetic conflation, from which an independent yokai image emerged. Traditions span Chubu to Kanto, Tohoku, Chugoku, and Kyushu, telling of a being that measures the boundary between people and the otherworld in the mountains.

Rooted in the classic image of the Azukiarai, it blends with the sounds of ravines and flumes, washing red beans through the midnight hours. It lures with sound and tests the curious who peer in. Drawing on early modern notes that it excels at counting and judges vessel measure and bean quantity at a glance, it is not wantonly harmful, but serves as a keeper of taboos along the water’s edge.

A depiction of the hihi based on Edo-period images and folklore. Said to dwell in mountains, it is an aged monkey transformed into a giant, powerfully built being. Many regions tell that it bursts into loud laughter, and when its long upturned lips roll back to cover its eyes, it leaves an opening to strike. Tales include the abduction of women, bouts with woodcutters, and raising wind and storm to hurl people. Natural history compendia such as Wakan Sansai Zue report black hair, large size, and hearsay of human speech, though exact locales and physical evidence remain uncertain. Its name is commonly linked to its laugh. It is sometimes conflated with yama-warawa or monkey deities, but is often distinguished as an ape-shaped mountain monster.

An interpretation based on Toriyama Sekien’s Konjaku Hyakki Shūi entry “Kakurezato” (Hidden Village). The mouse and koban coins at the lower right recall tales in which subterranean mice carry wealth (the so‑called Nezumi Jōdo legend), hinting at ties between the village and chthonic or underworld realms. The shop curtain reads “Kakurezato,” expressing a boundary that opens suddenly as an extension of the everyday. The Hidden Village is not a single yokai but a boundary acting as if it has will, repeating wayfinding confusion, temporal slippage, the granting of fortune, and cycles of manifestation and disappearance. Outcomes swing with a visitor’s conduct and greed, from generous hospitality to wealth turning into leaf-litter, resonating with mountain otherworld tales and views of the beyond.

An Aobōzu type based on images in Edo-period picture scrolls and regional field collections. Depicted as a monk with a bluish hue or as a one-eyed priest, it may be told as an animal in disguise, a manifestation of a mountain deity, or an uncanny being of uncertain nature. It serves to warn children against wandering, anchors tales of hauntings in fields, mountains, and vacant houses, and conveys oral taboos. No fixed proper name or origin is agreed upon, and its conditions of appearance and behavior vary by region. Because Sekien’s print lacks commentary, notes from other sources list it alongside the “One-Eyed Monk” or as an allegory for an unseasoned priest, but neither view is definitive. In premodern oral accounts, concrete images coexist under multiple labels such as “Blue Priest,” “Great Monk,” and “Little Monk.”

The Myth of the "Curse" of Immortality. The legend of Yao-bikuni is the most beautiful yet cruelest answer Japanese folklore offers to humanity's universal "fear of aging" and "thirst for eternal life." At first glance, immortality seems like the ultimate blessing, but in this tale, it is explicitly depicted as a "curse." Her tragedy is not that she cannot die, but that "everyone other than herself will inevitably die." Left behind in the world as a beautiful teenage girl while watching her beloved ones grow senile and pass away, this overwhelming temporal isolation inflicted upon her an agony worse than death. Her nationwide pilgrimages to perform good deeds (building infrastructure and planting trees) can be interpreted not merely as acts of compassion, but as an agonizing journey of atonement to find some meaning in an endless existence and to sublimate her karma. Wakasa's Kuin-ji Temple and the Concept of "Nyujo". The cave where she is said to have spent her final moments (Yaohime-gu) still remains at Kuin-ji Temple in Obama City, Fukui Prefecture, the terminus of Yao-bikuni's journey. What is particularly noteworthy is that her end is not told as a simple "death (starvation)," but as "Nyujo." Nyujo refers to a high-ranking Buddhist monk entering a deep state of meditation while still alive in order to save sentient beings, becoming an eternal entity (a mummy or Sokushinbutsu). Having been stripped of a physical death by the Ningyo meat, the only way she could "end her existence (or elevate her dimension to something sacred)" was by confining herself to a cave by her own will and renouncing food. The Metaphor of "Yao-bikuni" in Modern Times. In modern subcultures—such as literature, manga, and animation—Yao-bikuni (or her motifs) is an immensely popular subject. Elements like "eternal youth and beauty," "never-ending loneliness," and "the agony of being unable to die" resonate deeply with modern society's fanaticism over anti-aging and the very real social issues of "aging and isolation" in a society with increasing longevity. She is not merely a character from an old folktale, but an eternal heroine who continuously confronts humanity with the ultimate proposition of how we should face time and death.

Academic Correction (Most Important Note for this Species): The monsters included in the "Mei" volume of Toriyama Sekien's *Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki* (1779) are Nue, Itsumade, Jami, Moryo, Mujina, Nobusuma, Nozuchi, Tsuchigumo, Hihi, Dodomeki, Buruburu, Gaikotsu, Tenjo-sagari, Ohaguro-bettari, Okubi, Dodomeki, Kanedama, and Amanozako (18 entities in total), and Tsurube-otoshi is not included. What Sekien drew was the related yokai Tsurubebi, which was included in *Gazu Hyakki Yagyo* (1776) — the predecessor to Zoku Hyakki. The original text for Tsurubebi is Yamaoka Genrin's *Kokon Hyaku Monogatari Hyoban* (published in 1686; the "Tsurube-oroshi of Nishinooka" tale in Nishiyama, Kyoto), which theorized the strange phenomenon of a large tree's spirit turning into a fireball and descending from the tree on rainy nights using the Five Elements theory (Wood generates Fire). In other words, the "Yokai Tsurube-otoshi (a severed head or demon mask falling from a tree)" and "Sekien's Tsurubebi (a mysterious fire dropping from a large tree)" are separate lineages that diverged after the Showa era, and Sekien did not directly depict the former. No primary visual sources with the name "Tsurube-otoshi" from the Edo period exist, and it mainly appears as local folklore in Taisho period topographical records and folklore collections. This is a critical correction that must be specified to maintain the academic quality of yokai.jp, and the widespread "1779 Sekien iconification theory" should be explicitly denied. The primary records of Tsurube-otoshi are Taisho period local materials and folklore collections. The Kyoto regional study *Kuchidanba Kohishu* (a Taisho era collection of folklore from Minamikuwada and Funai Districts) serves as the core historical document, recording it as a local legend of mountain roads, passes, and old trees in the Chubu and Kinki regions. The fact that the primary source is not Edo period iconography but local folklore oral collection is a unique characteristic of this yokai, making it an exceptional case that does not fit the generalization that "yokai originate from Edo period iconification." The local folklore of Tsurube-otoshi is concentrated in the Chubu and Kinki regions: 1. Kyoto Prefecture — Hoki, Sogabe Village, Minamikuwada District (present-day Sogabe-cho, Kameoka City; drops from a kaya tree, laughs "Finished your night work? Shall I drop the bucket? Squeak, squeak" and rises again), Tera, Sogabe Village (a severed head descends from an old pine, devours people, and disappears for 2-3 days when full), Tomimoto Village, Funai District (present-day Yagi-cho, Nantan City; a pine tree covered in ivy), Tsuchida, Ooi Village (present-day Ooi-cho, Kameoka City; eats people) — documented in the Taisho period regional study *Kuchidanba Kohishu*. 2. Kuze Village, Ibi District, Gifu Prefecture (present-day Ibigawa-cho) — drops a bucket from a large tree that is dim even during the day. 3. Hikone City, Shiga Prefecture — drops a bucket from tree branches aiming at passersby. 4. Kuroe, Kainan City, Wakayama Prefecture — similar lore. 5. Tamba-Sasayama City, Hyogo Prefecture. 6. Mikawa mountainous region, Aichi Prefecture (folklore in Toyone Village, etc.). It has a geographic characteristic of concentrating around ancient trees (pine, kaya, cedar, zelkova) along mountain roads, passes, and shrine grounds in the Chubu and Kinki areas. Its behavior is bifurcated by region: The Kyoto lineage is predatory (eating people and staying full for 2-3 days), making it a lethal yokai; the Gifu-Shiga lineage is intimidating (only dropping a bucket to scare people), causing little real harm. The Kyoto lineage features a specific predatory pattern of "not appearing for 2-3 days when satiated," and was feared as a murderous monster rather than a mere scarer. On the other hand, the Gifu-Shiga lineage, as its name suggests, simply drops a "tsurube (well bucket)" from a tree to startle people, a relatively harmless yokai positioned between a "supernatural threat" and a "laughing matter." Despite sharing the name "Tsurube-otoshi," the entity itself varies significantly depending on the region, providing an excellent example of the regional diversity of local legends. The modern visual of a "red-faced, bearded, disheveled old man's head" depends heavily on Shigeru Mizuki's artwork and is not the original standard form in local folklore. The original form varies widely by region, splitting into three lineages: 1. A solitary severed head (Tera, Sogabe Village, Kyoto), 2. A formless monster that drops a well bucket itself (Gifu and Hikone, Shiga), and 3. A spirit type accompanied by laughter and speech (Hoki, Sogabe Village, Kyoto). The image of the "red severed head" was popularized through Shigeru Mizuki's manga and anime such as *GeGeGe no Kitaro* and *Akuma-kun*, becoming fixed as the modern general image, but from a folkloric perspective, the standard form changed pre- and post-Mizuki. This is also a perfect illustration of the decisive impact "Mizuki Yokai Culture" had on Japanese people's perception of yokai. The idiom "autumn days drop like a tsurube" (a metaphor comparing the rapid darkening of the autumn sunset to the motion of a well bucket and rope plunging down at once) has no direct lineage connection to the yokai Tsurube-otoshi. They share the same metaphorical source of "a well bucket = something that falls rapidly," but the idiom was established independently as a meteorological expression. However, the fact that the concept behind the yokai's naming (the three elements of falling speed, darkness, and surprise) stands on the same metaphorical foundation as the idiom is noteworthy in cultural history — demonstrating the richness of Japanese metaphorical culture, where an everyday tool like a "well bucket" evolved into both a meteorological phrase and a yokai name. Distinctions from similar yokai: 1. Tsurubebi (the mysterious fire dropping from a tree in Sekien's *Gazu Hyakki Yagyo*, which, as mentioned, is the Edo period origin lineage that diverged from Tsurube-otoshi in modern times), 2. Kodama (tree spirits in general; Tsurube-otoshi is an "individual monster dwelling in a specific ancient tree," a variant of the kodama lineage), 3. Kosoma (an acoustic supernatural phenomenon making axe and falling tree sounds in the mountains, different in nature from Tsurube-otoshi which primarily relies on visual dropping attacks), 4. Severed head lineages (Otoshikubi, Kubikireuma, etc.; they share the "head" aspect, but the Kyoto lineage's severed head in Tsurube-otoshi is an independent yokai entity, not a monster of decapitation). Toriyama Sekien's four-part yokai series consists of *Gazu Hyakki Yagyo* (1776) -> *Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki* (1779) -> *Konjaku Hyakki Shui* (1781) -> *Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro* (1784), and all images are publicly available on the National Diet Library's NDL Image Bank. Tsurubebi is included in the "In" volume of *Gazu Hyakki Yagyo*. When listing Tsurube-otoshi on yokai.jp, it should be clearly stated that typeOfSource = "Local folklore (Chubu/Kinki)" and firstAttestedSource = Taisho period *Kuchidanba Kohishu*, while explicitly denying the widespread misinformation of the "Edo period Sekien iconification theory." In modern yokai culture, it was popularized by Shigeru Mizuki's *Yokai Zukan* and the bronze statue on *Mizuki Shigeru Road* (Sakaiminato City, Tottori Prefecture), and appears as a Kyoto yokai in *GeGeGe no Kitaro* (3rd season VA: Masato Hirano, 5th season: Hisao Egawa) and *Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan*. As an excellent example of a grassroots yokai originating from local oral tradition being popularized by Shigeru Mizuki's artwork, Tsurube-otoshi is an important case study showing the modernization mechanism of Japanese yokai culture — a fascinating yokai situated at the intersection of folklore studies, art history, and media theory, demonstrating a modern yokai circulation route from unillustrated Edo period local folklore to Taisho period oral collection, Mizuki's popularization, and modern anime and games.

Taiba is recorded as a sudden apparition arriving with wind and blowing sand. It appears from April to July, especially May to June, and travelers were warned on days that shift between sun and cloud. Accounts vary by region regarding the victim horse’s coat and sex: in Mino white horses were targeted, in Enshu chestnut and bay, while old women and mares were said to be spared. Eyewitnesses tell of each mane hair standing on end, a red gleam shining, and when the horse collapses the wind falls still. The Owari and Mino “Giba” is regarded as a personification of Taiba, a small girl who descends from the sky, ensnares a horse, then vanishes with a smile; the chosen horse spins rightward several times and dies. Folk countermeasures include covering the horse’s neck with cloth, fitting deerfly-proof belly guards or bells, and in emergencies letting a little blood from the ear, needling the center of the tailbone, or cutting the air ahead with a sword while reciting the Komyo Mantra. Temples and shrines fostered prayers for quelling horse-plagues, and talismans to horse deities and belly wraps were used as Taiba wards.