A yokai depicted by Toriyama Sekien in Gazu Hyakki Yagyo: a blind monk-like figure whose eyes are set in the palms of his hands rather than on his face. Sekien gives no commentary, and its origins are unknown. Similar images appear in a Tenpo-era Hyakki Yagyo scroll as “Teme-bozu” and in Bakemono-zukushi. Often shown in desolate fields under the moon, it is symbolically portrayed as a being that watches its surroundings through the eyes on its palms.
Folklore & Legends
Shokoku Hyakumonogatari (1677) tells of an old monster with eyes in its palms who attacked a man at Kyoto’s Shichijo Riverbed; the victim fled to a temple but was found with his bones removed, only skin remaining. In folklore collected in Iwate, the grudge of a murdered blind man became a “Te no Me,” appearing on night roads. The moon-and-susuki backgrounds in Sekien’s art and the name itself invite wordplay and auspicious interpretations, but the figure is best understood as a patchwork of tale fragments and painterly motifs.
An interpretation grounded in the imagery found in Sekien’s Gazu Hyakki Yagyō and night-parade picture scrolls from the Tenpō era onward. It is depicted as a shaven-headed figure like a blind monk, with large eyeballs set in both palms, standing in a moonlit wasteland. Narrative explanations are sparse, but linked to the illustration and tale in Shokoku Hyaku Monogatari, it is assumed to locate targets in darkness with the eyes in its hands and to sniff out those who have fled and hidden. In collected folklore it sometimes connects to vengeful spirits of the blind, and is often read as a symbol of exchanged sight and touch, witnessing and exposure. Etymological wordplay has been suggested (raising a hand-eye, bald monk), but none is definitive.
Character Profile
This section is our own creative profile for storytelling. It is not historical fact or scholarship.
The diagram below is a diagnostic evaluation chart for Traditional Picture-Scroll Reference Edition. The higher the value of each item, the stronger that characteristic is expressed.
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