Toyamaとやま

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.

As a "white apparition," the Yuki-onna is told of as a white figure that suddenly stands in one's path on a blizzard night, leaving no footprints. Before she draws near, the air first turns cold and one's breath freezes white; then, in the glow of the snow, a woman with a long trailing hem floats dimly into view. This sense that "the cold announces her before she comes" is the shared core of encounter-tales across the regions. Her face alone is translucently pale, her eyes glint from within, and she either gives no answer when addressed or asks one's name in a low voice. In many versions the taboo runs thus: answer her question and your life-force is drained; stay silent and you are spared. The tale of Minokichi and O-Yuki that Lafcadio Hearn set down in Kwaidan conveys this white-apparition image most vividly. Having frozen the old woodcutter Mosaku to death in a storm-bound hut, the snow woman leaves the young Minokichi with a single command: tell no one what you have seen tonight. Later Minokichi weds a traveling woman named O-Yuki, fathers children, and lives happily — until one snowy night, watching his wife's pale profile as she sews by lamplight, he sees in her the face of the snow woman of long ago and lets the words slip. O-Yuki reveals herself, declares that she spares him only for the love of their children, and vanishes through the smoke-hole as a white mist. A bond sealed by a single forbidden word comes undone: the sorrow of parting, and the otherworldly woman who longs for a human, crystallize here. In pictorial tradition she is usually painted as a tall woman in white in pale washes, her outline never drawn too firmly, dissolved into a white scarcely distinguishable from the snow. Her feet are blurred into haze and she casts no shadow, lending the air of something not of this world. Less a spirit who sings and dances than a still apparition who stands without sound and vanishes without sound — that is the true nature of the Yuki-onna as a "white apparition."

In the lineage attributed to Toriyama Sekien’s Konjaku Hyakki Shūi, the shink—an enormous clam—exhales a vapor at the shore, which fills the sky and forms images of towers and palace gates. The imagery depicts inverted or elongated castles and gatehouses drifting above the sea, sometimes shown alongside the shink itself or a dragon. In the late Edo period the motif was repeated in surimono and ukiyo-e and became a popular topic among spectators. The tradition is not fixed to a single locale, with sightings told from coasts and tidal flats such as Etchū. As a yokai it lacks a stable body, appearing and vanishing to beguile onlookers while causing little harm.

This version adheres to Toriyama Sekien’s image and brief note, centering on a one-eyed, three-fingered figure rising upper-body first from a muddy paddy. It avoids expanding later folkloric claims and emphasizes allegory. It appears as a voice rebuking impiety and neglect of farming after fields are sold off, standing by the paddy ridge at night and repeating in a low voice, “Return the fields.” Given the scant early modern corroboration, this is a reconstruction mindful that Sekien may have intended wordplay and social satire, without asserting ties to specific places or people. Visual traits include a mud-smeared monk-like upper body, a single eye, a wide mouth, and three-fingered hands.

Based on Edo-period records and regional folktales. An aged char trout appears in the guise of a Buddhist monk and speaks to anglers. It often urges moderation, citing the temple’s domain or the pool’s lord, and departs quietly if given alms. Later it may be caught as a great char, where rice or rice cakes given as alms are found in its belly, revealing its identity. The motif reflects reverence for river and pool guardians and ideas akin to eel and other water deities. Depending on region, it appears as a harmless, didactic type, a warning type bearing deadly poison, or a salvific type that sacrifices itself to stop a levee breach, yet all embody folk norms that safeguard the boundary between waters and livelihoods.

A figure based on local lore in which death-spirits amassed at a burial ground (zammai) congeal and manifest as a single monster. In Toyama it appears as a humanlike specter that performs ominous signs, while in Ishikawa it is feared as a giant priest-like ogre. It is bound to human life, death, and the order of funerary practice, often marked by nighttime sounds and prescribed etiquette. Widely said to be unable to cross running water, a belief linked to folk practices of digging trenches around the zammai. Its form and stature are not fixed and vary with the density of gathered spirits. Folklore records note collections from the early Showa era, with regional spellings such as “Zammai” and “Zanmai.”

Based on images from illustrated Edo-period strange tales. It hides in northern mountains and fields and moves from twilight into early night. It appears as a small beast like a badger or a giant flying squirrel, and when attacking it blinds a person to sow confusion. Sources describe two modes: one covers the victim’s face with its whole body, the other spits a bat-like thing that clings to the face. Some accounts say it drinks blood, while later interpretations suggest it steals carried food while the victim’s sight is blocked. Historical conflation with badgers, tanuki, nobusuma, and bats led to shifting names and traits. A simple defense recorded is to keep rolled ear-shaped leaves in one’s bosom, though details vary by region and era. Avoids modern embellishment and follows classical picture compendia.