Greetings yokai lovers!
Meet nando baba, the storeroom hag. It sounds a bit strange to have an old woman living in a closet, but thinking about the way Edo Period houses were constructed it makes a bit more sense. This is not just some side closet in your bedroom where you would store your shirts and winter clothing. It’s far bigger than that. This is much more like an attached garage that only opens up into the house. It would be full of tools, containers, furniture and all sorts of other things that were not currently in used in other rooms.
When I was a kid I used to love exploring our attic. It was stacked floor to ceiling full of furniture, tools, instruments, and all sorts of things, some covered in dusty tarps. It also felt like the kind of place where goblins or ghosts might live, isolated from the rest of the family. That’s probably the same feeling a kid living 200 years ago would have felt, exploring the nando in his or her house. Especially without electric lights, and in a dark, creaky wooden house, it’s easy to see how someone might imagine there was a spirit living in a room like this.
http://yokai.com/nandobabaa/
納戸婆
なんどばばあ
TRANSLATION: storeroom hag
HABITAT: storerooms, closets
DIET: whatever they can find
APPEARANCE: Nando babā is an old hag who haunts storerooms and closets, especially in western Japan. They look like short, ugly, balding old women in ragged clothing.
BEHAVIOR: Nando babā make their homes in storerooms, sheds, and closets. The darker and dirtier the better. They are shy and jumpy, so they prefer storerooms which remain closed during the day and are only rarely opened.
INTERACTIONS: Nando babā are not violent and don’t do anything particularly harmful to humans. When someone opens the storeroom door, they quickly scurry away and hide, and so they are rarely encountered. If the door is opened suddenly and they are taken by surprise, they will leap out of the storeroom screaming, and chase people around the house. If you strike them on the head with a broom, they will become disoriented. Then they will run away and hide under the floorboards.
In some areas, nando babā are believed to steal newborn infants. However, this is due to confusion between nando babā and the much more dangerous yama uba.
ORIGIN: Nando babā were once protector spirits, a kind of house god which inhabited storerooms. In old Japanese folklore, there were tutelary deities for many parts of the house. As ancient traditions were replaced by newer ones, old customs died away, leaving yōkai in place of gods. Tana babā, the silkworm rack hag, is a similar god-turned-yōkai found in homes that once produced silk.