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Snake-Bone Hag

jah-KOHTS-bah-bah

Snake-Bone Hag

Snake-Bone Hag

Their soul is listening — speak, and they will answer.

Basic Description

The yokai name of an old-woman figure appearing in the Edo-period artist Toriyama Sekien’s Konjaku Hyakki Shūi. In the illustration she is a crone draped with a giant serpent. Sekien references a tale from the Chinese Classic of Mountains and Seas about people of the Wu Xian country who bear a blue snake in the right hand and a red snake in the left, yet he notes the origin of this yokai as “unknown.” In early modern Japan, the term also circulated as a derogatory word for “old woman,” which Sekien likely reimagined and visualized as a yokai.

Folklore & Legends

No fixed local tradition is confirmed; the core source is Sekien’s illustration and caption. In early modern literature, “jakotsubabā” appears as a slur for an old woman, inviting associations with the demon-hag archetype. Later retellings embellished details—such as her living deep in the mountains and holding a blue snake in the right hand and a red snake in the left—but these derive from associations in Sekien’s note rather than any verifiable locale or tale.

Detailed Analysis

Jakotsubā is a name based on the image and brief note in Toriyama Sekien’s Konjaku Hyakki Shūi (late 18th century), without any specific oral tradition attached. The picture shows an old woman wreathed in snakes. The note mentions the Shanhai Jing’s account of the Wuxian people in the Overseas West Classic, citing those who hold a blue snake in the right hand and a red snake in the left, yet it stops short of directly identifying this old woman. The term itself appears in early modern chapbooks and theater as a derogatory label for an old woman, which Sekien likely molded into a yokai. Later encyclopedias claim she is the wife of “Snake Goemon,” that the blue snake freezes and the red snake burns, but these are embellishments inspired by Sekien’s wording, not grounded in cited tradition. Folklorically it visually aligns with the lineages of “oni-baba” and “snake bride,” but because no rites, taboos, or place-names unique to Jakotsubā are identified, academic treatments handle it as source-undetermined.

Character Profile

This section is our own creative profile for storytelling. It is not historical fact or scholarship.

Rarity
Epic
Personality
unknown
Compatibility
unknown
Abilities
commanding snakes (iconographic), associative motif of holding a blue snake in the right hand and a red snake in the left
Weaknesses
unknown
Habitat
unknown

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