The fascination of Ogetsuhime lies in how land, food, and body are superimposed onto a single name. In the "Birth of the Land" in the *Kojiki*, Awa Province—one face of the island of Iyo-no-Futana—is named Ogetsuhime, acting as Ogetsuhime as the name of Awa Province. In the "Birth of the Gods," Ogetsuhime-no-Kami is born. Then, in the episode of Susanoo's banishment, she produces food from her body and is killed, giving rise to the five grains and silkworms. This overlapping indicates that ancient storytellers felt the land not merely as a map, but as a body that generates food. Awa Province is read not just as a place name, but as the name of a food goddess. Her feast begins from the exact opposite of pure, pristine sacred offerings. Asked for food, Ogetsuhime produces various items from her nose, mouth, and rectum, and cooks them to serve—providing food from the nose, mouth, and rectum. Here, the body's orifices are simultaneously places of defilement and the gates through which food enters the world. That Susanoo viewed this as filthy was not simply a misunderstanding; it expresses a fundamental revulsion toward food being too close to the body. Food sustains life, but its roots touch flesh, blood, and excretion. Ogetsuhime offers it without erasing this uncomfortable proximity. Through her murder, the deity's body transforms into a catalog of seeds. Silkworms grow from her head, rice seeds from both eyes, millet from both ears, adzuki beans from her nose, wheat from her genitals, and soybeans from her rectum—forming seeds generated from body parts. This is a grotesque corpse transformation, yet it perfectly illustrates how agricultural societies perceived food. Seeds do not come from nothing. They appear as what remains after something is broken, torn apart, and dies. By having Kami-musubi have these seeds collected, the corpse is not merely a loss, but is transferred into a cultivatable future. Placed alongside Ukemochi-no-Kami, Ogetsuhime's outline becomes starker. Ukemochi in the *Nihon Shoki* is killed by Tsukuyomi, and Amaterasu incorporates what grew from her corpse into the order of agriculture and sericulture—the origin of the five grains and sericulture from Ukemochi. There, even the separation of day and night is narrated. In Ogetsuhime's case, the murderer is Susanoo, and the story is placed at the turning point where the narrative moves from Takamagahara to Izumo. Rather than in the silence of the moon god, the seeds of food are placed in the void just before the banished, violent god heads for the earth. Because of this difference, Ogetsuhime leans much more deeply toward the beginning of the land and agriculture than toward cosmology. As Kokugakuin's commentary points out, this story is difficult to connect directly with the surrounding context, leading to the theory that it was originally a separate tradition added episodically—the theory of episodic placement. However, this very "inserted" quality tells of the myth's function. After the Heavenly Rock Cave, and before Susanoo fully enters the Izumo story, the *Kojiki* places a small, dark story about the origin of food. Before entering the heroic tales of land-creation, a world where humans could eat was necessary first. In the crevices of the story, Ogetsuhime prepares the conditions for earthly life. Her figure appearing in the genealogy of O-toshi-no-Kami also cannot be overlooked. With Haya-mato-no-Kami, Ogetsuhime gives birth to Wakayamakui, Wakatoshi, Wakasaname, Mizumaki, Natsutakatsuhi, Akibime, Kukutoshi, and Kukiki-wakamuro-tsunane—her eight child deities with Haya-mato-no-Kami. This genealogy, lining up names associated with mountains, years, summer, autumn, and kuzu roots, prevents her from remaining merely a god killed once. Even after birthing the origin of grains, she supports the time of the food world as a mother goddess expanding into the seasons of the mountains, the cycle of crops, and year-round fertility. From the perspective of comparative mythology, Ogetsuhime has long been read as a Hainuwele-type myth. Kokugakuin introduces the typology where various crops generate from a corpse, and notes the similarities between the myth of the girl Hainuwele from Seram Island in Indonesia and the Kojiki/Nihon Shoki myths of Ogetsuhime and Ukemochi—a comparison with Hainuwele-type myths. However, this comparison does not mean "it's simple to equate because it's foreign." Kokugakuin cautions that limiting the origin to one region is difficult due to the reality of pre-Kiki traditions and the limitations of data. What is important is that the sensation of staple foods being born from a dead body became a powerful form to narrate the origin of agriculture across the world. The myth of Ogetsuhime does not narrate food solely as a bright blessing. Food is something to be grateful for, but it is also something that comes out of a body. Seeds open up the future, but they are also born from a corpse. The land feeds people, but it is carved with the name of the food goddess, Awa Province. Ogetsuhime is a deity who embraces all the defilement, death, dry fields, mountains, and seasons that lie behind eating. That is exactly why her fertility is not merely gentle. It is a strong fertility close to the soil, offered from the boundaries of the nose, mouth, and rectum, sprouting from a murdered body.

Futodama, holding the *gohei* (ritual wand) before the Heavenly Rock Cave, is the deity in myth who transforms the objects prepared by the gods into the active power of ritual. When Amaterasu-Omikami hides within the cave, the world sinks into darkness. Following Omoikane's plan, the gods make the long-singing birds cry out, gather hard iron, forge a mirror, craft curved jewels, perform divination with deer bone and *hahaka* wood, and hang jewels, a mirror, and cloth upon a *Sasaki* tree. At the conclusion of these preparations, the *Kojiki* (Ama-no-Iwato II) records: Futodama, holding the grand *gohei*. In this moment, Futodama transitions the completed ritual tools into active divine service. The power of this deity lies in the very act of "holding." The *gohei* is not merely paper or cloth; it is a marker directed toward the divine, a pathway for prayer, and a medium to purify the space. When Futodama takes it in his hands, the jewels, mirror, cloth, and divination are no longer disparate materials, but a singular, unified ritual offered to Amaterasu. If Ame-no-Koyane's prayers form the center of voice, Futodama's *gohei* is the center of physical matter. Voice alone lacks form, and objects alone remain silent. Only when both are present is a space established before the cave to welcome the deity. Kokugakuin University's commentary highlights how the myth is densely layered with elements of ancient ritual. The mirror reflects Amaterasu, the jewels bear sacred adornment and spiritual power, the cloth is an offering, and the oracle bones seek divine will. Within this material worship, Futodama stands at the juncture where ordinary objects are transformed into "sacred offerings." Therefore, viewing him merely as a keeper of props is entirely insufficient. Futodama is the deity who presides over the exact moment when objects enter the sacred order. During the Descent of the Heavenly Grandson, this role is brought down to earth. In the *Kojiki* (Tenson Korin II), Futodama descends as one of the Five Attendant Deities and is named the ancestor of the Inbe clan. The Five Attendant Deities each carry functions such as ritual, dance, mirror-making, and jewel-crafting, demonstrating that the heavenly grandson's rule over the earth relies on more than just military might or lineage. It requires the techniques of worship, creation, and offering. Futodama is the deity who connects heavenly ritual tools to earthly vocations. The official deity description of Awa Shrine makes this connection remarkably concrete. The Upper Shrine's main deity, Ame-no-Futodama, served closely by Amaterasu and is revered as the ancestral god of the Inbe clan. The shrine further explains that because he led the Inbe deities in overseeing the creation of mirrors, jewels, textiles, weapons, and shrine construction, he is worshipped as the founding deity of all industries in Japan. Here, the hands that held the *gohei* before the cave have expanded to encompass crafts, architecture, textiles, and weaponry. The history of Oasahiko Shrine in Awa paints him as the "ancestral god who founds industry" in that region. During Emperor Jimmu's reign, his grandson Ame-no-Tomino-Mikoto is said to have arrived in Awa Province to sow hemp and paper mulberry seeds, producing cloth to establish the region's industry, while enshrining Futodama as a guardian deity. Materials like hemp, paper mulberry, and cloth resonate deeply with Futodama's nature as a deity of ritual implements. The cloth draped before the gods is the same cloth that pioneers new lands and builds industries. Here, we witness an ancient mindset where ritual and production were inseparable. Awa Shrine's traditions continue this narrative, stating that Ame-no-Tomino-Mikoto later led a branch of the Inbe clan from Awa across the sea to the Boso Peninsula, planting hemp and grain, and enshrining Futodama and his consort at Mera Beach. This migration story connects Futodama's divinity to tales of movement and pioneering. The deity who holds ritual tools appears not only before the gods but also at the sites where land is cleared, crops are planted, and shrines are built. Treating physical objects with sacred respect was, in itself, the act of laying the foundation for human life. Read in a modern context, Futodama may be a "behind-the-scenes" deity, but he is by no means a minor one. The preparation of ceremonies, the setting of stages, the management of sacred tools, architecture, paper-making, textiles, metalwork, crafting tools, and the passing down of family trades—to support the voices and dances on stage, one needs the technical skill to gather materials, arrange procedures, and maintain the integrity of the space. Futodama grants divine grace to these very skills. When praying, creating, or inheriting, one must never treat the materials at hand with disrespect. This quiet, steadfast ethic is the true power of Futodama.

A consolidated image of the bakeneko based on Edo-period woodblock prints, printed books, and oral tradition. An aged house cat, or one abused by humans, becomes a yokai imbued with vengeful spirit. Portents include licking lamp oil, standing on two legs, and taking human form to slip into a home. Its curses typically target owners or abusers, manifesting as illness, strange deaths, or household decline. Interfering with funerary rites and desecrating corpses are recurring motifs, and tales often end with pacification by monks or ritual prayers. Early modern folk beliefs feared long-tailed cats as gaining occult power, leading to taboos about tail length. Boundaries with the nekomata are blurry, and when the forked tail is not emphasized, the creature is commonly called bakeneko. Urban entertainment refined the monster-cat image, even linking it with courtesan motifs, yet at its core lies awe of a familiar animal and a worldview of gratitude and retribution.

Inugami are feared as hereditary possessing spirits tied to certain lineages, bringing wealth and prosperity yet shunned as curse gods. Rites and keeping methods vary by region, with offerings made in storerooms, under floorboards, or at water jars. Their form is not fixed: accounts describe a mottled mouse-like creature, a black-and-white weasel-like shape, a long-mouthed rat, or something bat-like. Houses said to keep inugami were believed to have as many spirits as family members, and the spirits were rumored to run to other homes to obtain desired goods. The possessed might bark, tremble in the shoulders, or gorge themselves, and even cattle, horses, and tools were said to be possessed. Exorcism was performed through prayers and esoteric rites, with shrines in Tokushima particularly noted. Origins are variously traced to sorcery, legal taboos, and rites that turn a dog’s head into a fetish, differing by locale.

The Folkloric Cliché of the "Crying Baby on a Mountain Path". While the basic overview outlines the structure of the Konaki-jiji legend, this deep dive probes the dark undercurrents of the "crying baby on a mountain path" cliché. Historically, in Japan's rugged mountainous regions, practices like infanticide (mabiki), child abandonment, and high infant mortality rates cast a long, daily shadow over village life. Experiencing auditory hallucinations of a baby crying on a lonely mountain road was a universally shared psychological trauma among these communities. This is exactly why legends of the *Ubume* (the ghost of a woman who died in childbirth) are distributed so widely across the country. Hearing an infant's cry at liminal spaces—mountain passes, riverbanks, or forest paths—serves as the foundational, deep-rooted material for ghost stories across Japan. The Konaki-jiji is Shikoku's unique, composite yokai, created by welding this primal auditory fear to the "form of an old man" and the "crushing weight" motif. Kunio Yanagita's Structural Methodology. The methodological genius of Kunio Yanagita's *Yokai Dangi* (1956) lies not in treating a yokai in isolation, but in reading it structurally alongside its relatives. By aligning the Konaki-jiji's "getting heavier" mechanic with the *Obariyon* and the *Ubume*, Yanagita illuminated a developmental history: the fusion of the primal "crying baby" archetype with the later addition of the "crushing weight" narrative. This comparative approach became the gold standard for post-war folkloristics, heavily influencing later yokai scholars like Kazuhiko Komatsu and Noboru Miyata. The Gogya-naki and the Shikoku Folklore Sphere. The fact that "Gogya-naki"—a cousin of the Konaki-jiji—is distributed entirely across Shikoku highlights the uniqueness of the island's folkloric sphere. In Mima District, Tokushima, records detail a Gogya-naki that hops through the mountains on one leg, its cries powerful enough to trigger earthquakes; Yanagita rightly identified this as identical to the Konaki-jiji. Shikoku's mountain folklore possesses traits distinct from Honshu (the central highlands) and Kyushu (sacred mountain cults). It forms a highly complex religious ecosystem where Shugendo (mountain asceticism), the 88-Temple Pilgrimage, and indigenous Shinto are stacked in multiple layers. The Konaki-jiji is a direct product of this intense Shikoku mountain folklore. The "Real-Life Old Man" Theory and the Mechanics of Monsterification. The local account recorded by historian Masahiro Takita—suggesting that a real, eccentric old man used to mimic baby cries—is highly suggestive when analyzing how yokai are born. The phenomenon where a marginalized villager with abnormal behavior (due to mental illness, isolation, or dementia) is sublimated into a yokai legend over several generations is seen throughout Japan. "Yokai" often function as social devices used to process and mythologize a community's memory of its peripheral members (the elderly, beggars, foreigners, or the disabled). The local Konaki-jiji lore is a rare case that brings this folkloric mechanism to the surface, offering prime material for reading yokai studies through the lens of social history. Shigeru Mizuki's Post-War Yokai Revival Movement. Shigeru Mizuki (1922-2015) was the driving force behind the revival of yokai culture in post-war Japan. Through *GeGeGe no Kitaro* (serialized prominently in Weekly Shonen Magazine from 1968), he elevated half-forgotten, hyper-local folklore into household names across the nation. Within the Kitaro family, the Konaki-jiji was reconstructed as a "good-natured yokai from Tokushima," gaining massive popularity as a bearded, staff-wielding elder in a monk's robe. The transformation of the Konaki-jiji from a malicious, crushing murderer in local folklore to an agent of justice in modern pop culture is a subject of intense academic debate, serving as a prime example of how an author's intervention can fundamentally alter the DNA of a traditional legend. Regional Revitalization and Applied Yokai Studies. In 2001, Yamashiro Town in Tokushima (the legend's birthplace) erected a stone statue of the Konaki-jiji, kickstarting its regional branding as a "Yokai Village." Through initiatives like yokai haunted houses, mascots, and stamp rallies, post-war folkloristics successfully transitioned from an academic discipline into an engine for regional economic growth and tourism. This represents a classic structural model: local yokai (like Ittan-momen in Kagoshima, Sunakake-baba in Nara, and Nurikabe) gain national fame via *Kitaro*, only to be re-imported back to their hometowns as cultural capital for regional revitalization. The Modern History: From Local Lore → Kitaro Fame → Regional Tourism. The modern history of the Konaki-jiji perfectly maps the typical trajectory of Japanese yokai culture. It traces a three-stage cultural metamorphosis: an entity that was merely oral folklore in one specific region before the war, achieves national celebrity through Mizuki's manga in the post-war era, and finally flows back into its birthplace to be monetized as a tourism asset. This exact path is shared by several core members of the Kitaro family. It proves that the Konaki-jiji is not merely a "fairy tale from the past," but a yokai that actively embodies the ongoing, modern processes of cultural production and regional identity building.

A rendition based on records and oral tales of the shape-shifting otter. It mimics human speech, but its intonation and sentence endings sound off, and when pressed with questions it gives nonsensical replies. Its guises range from a beautiful woman to a child or a monk, distracting passersby and misleading them with tricks such as snuffing lanterns, inviting people to wrestle, or making stones and tree roots appear human. In some regions it overlaps with kappa lore, possessing great strength in water and luring victims to look upward to gain advantage. In the context of spirit possession, it is feared for sapping a person’s vitality and inducing lethargy. While violent episodes are recorded, most encounters amount to threats or pranks.

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.

This is Kincho, the guardian deity of Yamatoya and the tanuki commander of Hikaino. Originally a highly loyal tanuki saved by Moemon, he strove to bring prosperity to the dye shop in return for his life. He later went to train under Rokuemon, the supreme commander of Shikoku's tanuki, but despite his extraordinary talents being recognized, he incurred Rokuemon's wrath by refusing a marriage proposal. After his friend was murdered, Kincho led the Hikaino tanuki army in the epic three-day "Awa Tanuki War" against Rokuemon. Though he ultimately vanquished his arch-nemesis in a one-on-one duel, he too succumbed to his wounds. Revered in death as Kincho Myojin, his name lives on today as a god of business prosperity and victory.

This is Rokuemon, the supreme commander of the Awa tanuki residing in Tsuda-ura. Ruling as the grand general over all tanuki in Shikoku, he stands as the veteran leader at the pinnacle of the tanuki hierarchy, where they fiercely compete for the title of "Senior First Rank." He once took in Kincho as his disciple and attempted to have him inherit his legacy through a marriage to his daughter. However, after Kincho fled, Rokuemon eventually faced him as a mortal enemy on the banks of the Katsuura River. Following a massive three-day and three-night battle involving over six hundred tanuki, it is said he fell in a final one-on-one duel. Yet his name has been passed down through storytelling, films, and animation, and he remains vividly remembered today as the indispensable co-protagonist of the Awa Tanuki War.

A classic example of illusion craft attributed to the tanuki of Awa. It presents indoor furnishings incongruously outdoors and compels the target to keep “lifting” or “peeking,” eroding their sense of direction and time. The number thirty-six is sometimes linked to shugendō numerology, but local tales give no strict rationale, instead advising a practical countermeasure: stay calm and brace the belly. It causes no harm, and at dawn the spell breaks and the path appears as if nothing happened.

Based on records from Horie Village in Awa Province, this version organizes the image of the Itobiki-Musume as a young woman operating a spinning wheel by the roadside. The moment someone looks her way, she transforms into an old crone and bursts into loud laughter. No harm beyond revealing her true form is reported, and she neither touches nor pursues people. Stories most often place her from dusk to midnight in spots where foot traffic thins—village outskirts, field paths, and crossroads. Folklorically she belongs to roadside怪異 tales, told as a warning not to be deceived by looks and not to dawdle off one’s route. The trigger for the change is acts like “staring” or “approaching,” and the silent switch to an old-woman figure is the core of the fright. The spinning wheel is an everyday tool, and her realistic working motions heighten the uncanny shock of a chance encounter. Parallels exist outside the region, but the named example from Awa is the best known.

A waterside bake-danuki tale tied to the Aoiishise shallows of the Yoshino River in Awa Province. At midnight, when a boat moors, a colossal pipe is offered and an enormous amount of shredded tobacco is demanded. The motif of a shape that begs tobacco, found across Japan, merges here with Awa’s tanuki beliefs, forming a folk pattern in which lack of offerings brings curse or calamity. The quantity is said to reach ten forty-momme bags—impossible to carry—serving as a practical warning against overnight mooring at the rapids. If the pipe is fully packed, it departs without harm, reflecting a folk sense of boundaries, bargains, and payment. Its form is rarely described, often only a giant hand and pipe are perceived. Boats are threatened by sounds and waves, sometimes said to sink, turning fear of careless conduct aboard and the night waters into story. It warns against excessive curiosity and negligence while transmitting the geographic dangers of the shallows.

The cat-girl refers to accounts of human oddities in early modern urban sideshows and reportage, describing feline tastes (fondness for fish entrails, chasing rats), movements (traversing walls and rooftops), and mannerisms (likened to a rough, tongue-like texture). In the Horyaku and Meiwa eras, she was occasionally billed in Asakusa and similar venues, but her fame was short-lived, and even amid the An’ei and Tenmei vogue she never became a major headline act. In yomihon and kyoka collections she appears as a curiosity under labels like “cat-girl” or “licking woman,” not as a transforming yokai. Late Edo miscellanies include an anecdote of a girl near Ushigome praised for catching rats, material that reflects community responses to rodent damage, a taste for spectacle, and the gaze cast upon the strange.

Based on an old Awa record. Hair kept in a hemp bucket acts as part of the deity’s body or a manifestation of divine power, restraining anyone who disrupts shrine order. It is understood to activate within the shrine precincts rather than roaming independently. The core image is hair that quietly elongates, splits into strands, and entangles targets one by one, reacting to acts like defilement or theft rather than attacking onlookers indiscriminately. Shigeru Mizuki depicted it as a massive hair mass under the name “Asaokege,” but the actual tradition emphasizes function over appearance. Often read as a symbol of in-shrine norms encouraging observance of faith and taboos.