HEE-mah-moo-shee nyoo-DOH
Their soul is listening — speak, and they will answer.
HEE-mah-moo-shee nyoo-DOH
A yokai depicted by Edo-period artist Toriyama Sekien in Konjaku Hyakki Shūi. It rises from beneath the floorboards, licking the oil of an andon lamp and disrupting night work. Sekien notes it as the spirit of someone who shirked duties in life, becoming a “Himamushi Night Nyūdō” after death to lick lamp oil and hinder late-night tasks. The name is linked to a visual wordplay on “Hemamushi-nyūdō,” commonly read as a moral against laziness and sloth.
Later怪談 collections and yokai encyclopedias follow Sekien: a lazy person, after death, becomes this yokai that extinguishes lights or licks lamp oil. It appears suddenly around kitchens, hearths, and underfloor spaces, disturbing flames and startling people. Scholar Tada Katsumi suggests “hima” may point to hearths and kilns, overlapping with the image of insects scavenging lamp oil or leftovers—perhaps even evoking cockroaches—tying the legend to everyday living conditions.
A multitude of phantom fires with various origins that illuminate nocturnal fields, shores, graveyards, and eaves. From the Uba-ga-bi of an old woman who stole oil, the flames igniting on straw raincoats on rainy nights, and the Shiranui lining the sea, to hitodama representing the souls of the dead—an illustrated catalog of fire-related fears compiled by artists like Toriyama Sekien.
This yokai is included in the following collections:
Konjaku Hyakki Shūi (Later Gleanings of a Hundred Ghosts)
A 1781 yokai picture book by Toriyama Sekien in the Hyakki series, pairing each yokai with brief notes.
Fiery Yokai
A collection of fiery yokai—Furari-bi, Kosenjō-bi, Shiranui, Aosagabi—exploring Japan’s eerie lights and flames.
This section is our own creative profile for storytelling. It is not historical fact or scholarship.
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