Even today it is not too uncommon to see impious Buddhist priests hanging around seedy areas of town. They go bar-hopping, drive expensive luxury cars, pick up women, smoke and curse, and do other very un-priestly things. Of course, since they live off of the donations of the faithful, this causes a lot of ill-will. During the height of the Edo period, Edo was full of vices, and priests like this were no exception. Toriyama Sekien despised this hypocrisy, which is why he created so many different priest yokai. I wonder what he would have to say about today’s priests and religious leaders…

Noderabō (野寺坊, のでらぼう)

Noderabō is a mysterious ghost, owing to the fact that it is an invention of Toriyama Sekien, and that Toriyama Sekien didn’t even write a single sentence describing it. You may recall from my post on Te-no-me that there were three things Sekien disliked above all else, and frequently used as the butts of his jokes in his yokai books: prostitutes, gamblers, and priests. This is one of those.

There is one other legend about its origin… In Saitama there is a place called Nodera. According to legend, long ago, a prankster decided to steal the large bronze bell from the town’s temple. However, he was spotted by one of the locals and had to flee, dropping the bell into a pond, where it got stuck. (Those things are big and heavy! It would be nearly impossible to drag it out of a body of water.) The pond became known as Kane-ga-ike (Bell Pond). Some time later a lazy monk-boy was given a job by the high priest of the temple, but spend the day playing with other neighborhood children instead of doing what he was bid. When it came time for him to face the high priest, he was so ashamed that he grew depressed, and threw himself into Kane-ga-ike and drowned. After that, it is said, every night the villagers could hear the sound of crying echoing off of the great bronze bell, coming from deep within Kane-ga-ike pond…

The name noderabō translates literally into “field temple priest,” but would be more accurately described as the ghost of a priest who haunts old, run down temples. The 野 part of the name, meaning field, often indicates a wild state, overgrown and uncivilized. Toriyama Sekien depicts this creature as a somewhat lonley, grotesque-looking priest dressed in tattered rags, wandering around an abandoned temple. It is thought by folklorists to be the ghost of a priest who, having falling to vices forbidden to priests, such as the love of women or money, eventually run out of cash and/or honor, and are driven out of town. They flee to abandoned, ruined temples located out in depressed rural areas, and transform into yokai. There they spend every night forlornly haunting these empty temples and ringing their bells.

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Have you ever seen photos of those charming Japanese monkeys bathing together in steamy mountain hot springs? They’re so cute, but at the same time any tourist will tell you they can be a real menace too, stealing bags, food, and even attacking children and small dogs. Today’s yokai is based on a monkey, and that was the image I had in mind when I first read about this awesome character and its amazing capabilities.

Satori (覚, さとり)

Satori are strange, intelligent ape-men found in the mountains of Gifu prefecture. They appear to travelers on mountain roads, or folks living in mountain huts far from civilization. If the opportunity presents itself, they will gladly dine on anyone they can get their hands on. Satori have the uncanny ability to read people’s minds and speak their thoughts faster than the people can get the words out themselves, making them all the more spooky and dangerous. However, should they be unexpectedly hit by an object, or should something else unforeseen happen to them, they become incredibly frightened and run away. Of course, due to their telepathic abilities, that doesn’t happen too often. It is said that the only way to avoid being eaten by one of these yokai is to completely empty one’s mind, thus boring the satori and causing it to leave.

The name satori literally translates as “enlightenment,” as in the Buddhist-Nirvana kind. The uncanny ability of the satori to read thoughts might certainly come across as a kind of enlightened being to a scared traveler. This also creates an interesting connection with the way to avoid being killed by a satori; true enlightenment comes from emptying one’s mind of distracting, worldly thoughts, just as salvation from the hungry satori comes from an empty, zen-like mindset.

Satori are documented the Wakan Sansai Zue, an illustrated dictionary of Chinese and Japanese life published in 1712. This book, as well as Toriyama Sekien’s Gazu Hyakki Yagyō relates satori with kakuen, a kind of ape that lived in western China (they are also sometimes referred to as yamako or kuronbo) and captures women to rape or to eat. Japanese folklorist Yanagita Kunio suggested that the satori is a cousin of the yamabiko, an adorable little yokai which echoes peoples words. According to Yanagita, the ability to read peoples’ minds and repeat their words have a folkloric connected. Takada Mamoru, a renowned folklore research of Tokyo Metropolitan University, has also posited that satori are fallen mountain gods of the ancient proto-Shinto religion which have been corrupted into a yokai over the millennia (similar claims have been made of yamawarō, hitotsumekozō, and a few other yokai as well).

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The full moon is this week, and it made me think of the old Japanese myth of the rabbit in the moon. I think a lot of people probably know that while in the West we see a man in the moon, in East Asian countries the usual story is that there is a rabbit in the moon who pounds mochi. While that’s true in Japan as well, what many people don’t know is that there is also a myth about a man in the moon in old Japanese folklore too. It’s not very long or detailed, but it’s a good story for those of you who might be out moongazing this weekend.

Katsura-otoko (桂男, かつらおとこ)

Katsura-otoko literally translates as “katsura man,” katsura being the loanword for Cercidiphyllum japonicum, a type of tree. This name goes way back to an ancient Chinese legend in which katsura trees grow on the moon. In this legend, there is a beautiful man who lives on the moon and who works every night pruning a giant katsura tree there. As he trims, the tree gradually gets smaller and smaller, which explains the shrinking shape of the moon as it wanes.

Katsura-otoko is supposed to be an incomparably beautiful man. He lives in the moon and gazes back down at those who gaze up at him. If you gaze long enough, it is said that the katsura-otoko will extend his hand and beckon, calling you towards him. With each shake of his hand as he beckons you, your lifespan shrinks. If you stare long enough at katsura-otoko, you may drop dead right on the spot!

It may seem strange that something so lovely as the moon is a life-sucking vampiric mimbo. Aside from the Chinese legends this originates in, there are some possible connections, too, in Japanese mythology. We in the West view the moon as feminine (thanks to Greek mythology, where Artemis is the goddess of the moon), but in Japan, the sun is feminine and represented by the Shinto goddess Amaterasu, while the moon is masculine and represented by Tsukuyomi. In one legend, Tsukuyomi murders the goddess of food, Ukemochi, and so there is a strong connection between the moon and death. Katsura-otoko isn’t related to Tsukuyomi in any way, but the connection is there, and may explain why this moon yokai sucks your life away for seemingly no reason.

That’s a real shame for those of us, myself included, who love moongazing… I know I have spent many nights gazing for hours at the bright moon, particularly in rural Fukui prefecture where you can clearly see the Milky Way streaking across the sky too. I wonder how many years the katsura-otoko has taken from me…

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What says “Halloween” more than an evil cat, right? Well, if you thought witches’ black cats were scary, you haven’t seen anything! Japanese cats are far scarier than anything the West has cooked up, and today’s is a perfect example. I also think it’s a good counterbalance to all of the bird yokai we’ve looked at recently…

Kasha (火車, かしゃ)

Kasha is a kind of bake-neko, or monster cat. It’s name translates into “fire cart,” which is a more than little confusing… not only is there no cart made of fire, there are a number of other yokai who seem to be much more deserving of the name “fire cart;” wanyuudou, for one, and its cousin the katawaguruma come to mind, as well as a yokai not yet featured on this blog called hi-no-kuruma, which actually translates into “fire cart” as well, and is even written with the exact same kanji as kasha!

Nevertheless, the yokai most commonly referred to as kasha is this one. It is a large, roughly man-sized demonic cat who preys on newly deceased corpses, stealing them and dragging them to… somewhere. To hell? To the land of the dead? Or do they just eat them up? Similar yokai like the ones I mentioned above take their victims back to hell… while other bake-neko like to eat humans. Some stories refer to them as messengers of hell, or as messengers of gods, others imply that they are acting on their own… So it could be any of those reasons. Kasha generally tend to target people who were wicked in life and thus perhaps deserve whatever that fate is, but there are always exceptions to any rule…

Kasha are found all over in Japan. They are fast and strong, and can leap from rooftop to rooftop with their snatched corpses. They can appear in the middle of a thunderstorm, and vanish with the corpse in a flash of lightning. It is pretty much impossible to retrieve one’s remains after they have been taken by a kasha; the best defense against them is to be prepared. As such, temples all over Japan in areas where kasha are said to prowl have devised their own ways of defending against these monster cats:

In Yamagata prefecture, clever priests have taken to holding two funeral ceremonies for the deceased. The first ceremony is a fake: the casket is filled only with rocks, so if a kasha comes for the body it will end up with nothing. In Ehime prefecture, a head shaver is placed on top of the coffin as a ward to keep kasha away. In Miyazaki prefecture, the funeral procession chants “Baku ni wa kuwasen” and “Kasha ni wa kuwasen” (“Don’t be eaten by a baku, don’t be eaten by a kasha”) two times in front of the coffin, which supposedly keeps kasha away. (I don’t know why baku, who eat bad dreams, would be included in this chant…) In Okayama prefecture, the priests play myohachi, a type of cymbal used in religious ceremonies, in order to keep the kasha away.

Whatever their true nature, it is pretty undeniable that kasha are bad. Cats, in fact, have long been considered evil beings in Japan. Since ancient times, folk wisdom tells us, “Don’t let cats near dead bodies,” and, “If a cat jumps over the coffin, the corpse inside the coffin will rise!” If a simple house cat is evil enough to raise the dead, just imagine what a giant monster cat like the kasha could potentially do…

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Now, on to today’s yokai:

Ubagabi (姥ヶ火, うばがび)

Ubagabi is another kind of hi-no-tama, or fireball yokai, a topic we’ve seen quite a few of on this blog. The name literally means “old hag fire.” Ubagabi is found on rainy nights in Osaka, and appears as a 1 foot diameter ball of flame with, just as the name suggests, the face of an old woman in it. There are a couple of stories connected to it:

According to one account from Osaka, a man was walking the road late at night when an Ubagabi flew out of the darkness and hit him in the face. Afterwards, when he got a closer look at the thing that hit him, it turned out to be a chicken… However, while he was inspecting the chicken closer, it turned back into an ubagabi and flew away.

The story ends there, but while it may seem that the man got away safely, he probably didn’t. According to legend, ubagabi have the uncanny ability to fly up to 4 kilometers in the blink of an eye, bounce off of someone’s shoulder, and then carry on into the darkness. However, anyone they bounce off of like that ends up dying within three years. However, if you are quick, and you shout “Abura-sashi!” (oil thief) just as she comes flying at you, she will vanish. The reason for that follows:

Long ago there was an old woman in Osaka who stole the precious lamp oil from the Hiraoka shrine. (You’ll remember from Sōgenbi the other day how terrible a crime it is to steal oil!) She was caught by the shrine’s priest and her crime was exposed, and after that the people of her village shunned her for being an oil thief. So great was her shame that she went to the pond behind Hiraoka shrine and committed suicide, after which she turned into an ubagabi. To this day, the pond behind Hiraoka shrine is called “Ubagabi-ike” (the pond of the Ubagabi). And that is why if you see an ubagabi and accuse it of being an oil thief, it will vanish out of shame and embarrassment.

Today’s yokai is another bird-like one. I kind of want one as a pet… except for the whole flames and vengeful curse thing…

Furaribi (ふらり火, ふらりび)

Furaribi appears in a number of old yokai picture scrolls as well as in Toriyama Sekien’s Gazu Hyakki Yagyō. It appears as a bird-like creature wreathed in flame, floating about aimlessly in the night sky. While it has the body of a bird, its face resembles a mix between a dog and the Hindu god Garuda. It is a type of hi-no-tama, or fireball yokai, and is said to be born from the remains of a soul which has not properly passed on to the next life, most likely due to not receiving the proper ceremonial services after dying. In Japan you don’t just get a funeral, you have a number of services commemorating your death and praying for your soul which repeat on certain days, months, and years after your death — missing even one of these could spell doom for your soul (so the priests tell us…).

One legend about Furaribi comes from Toyama city in Toyama prefecture. In the late 16th century, this area was ruled by a samurai named Sassa Narimasa. Narimasa had very beautiful concubine named Sayuri, who was not well liked by the other female servants in Narimasa’s innermost circle. One day, these women conspired against Sayuri and started a rumor that she had cheated on Narimasa with one of his men. Narimasa, in a fit of jealous rage, murdered Sayuri, then took her down to the Jinzū river, hung her corpse from a tree, then proceeded to carve it into pieces with his sword. On top of that, he captured Sayuri’s entire extended family, 18 people in all, and executed them in the same manner. Afterwards, their tortured souls aimlessly wandered the riverbanks every night as furaribi.

It is said if you go down to the riverside and call out “Sayuri, Sayuri!” late at night, the floating, severed head of a woman will appear, pulling and tearing at her hair in a vengeful fury. As for Sassa Narimasa, he was later defeated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Some have attributed his defeat by Hideyoshi to the vengeful curse of Sayuri’s ghost.

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Today’s yokai is so wonderfully silly that it speaks for itself. There is no wonder it is counted among the most beloved yokai in Japan…

Shirime (尻目, しりめ)

Literally, “butt eye,” this yokai is practically self explanatory.

It first appeared in a picture scroll by Yosa no Buson, an Edo period poet. Most likely it was made up by him, as no other folklore exists. It’s one of those yokai that literally has two sentences to its name, and yet those two sentences seems to be enough:

京、かたびらが辻ぬっぽり坊主のばけもの。 めはなもなく、一ツの眼、尻の穴に有りて、 光ることいなづまのごとし。

“In Kyoto, at the Katabira crossroads, there is a monster called nuppori-bōzu. It has no eyes or nose, but a single eyeball, located in its butthole, which shines like lightning.”

There you have it folks, the making of a legend! The passage refers to it as the “nupperi-bōzu,” so this yokai is certainly a kind of noppera-bō, a kind of faceless yokai which is a popular form taken by mujina (shapeshifting badgers).

Mizuki Shigeru expanded upon the story a little bit in his yokai anthology Mujara, and has this to say:

Long ago, a samurai was traveling on the road to Kyoto, and a man in a kimono stepped out in front of him and blocked his path.

“Who goes there!” cried the samurai.

“Excuse me, sir, do you have a moment?” replied to man.

Before the samurai could reply, the man shed his kimono and bent over. His butt opened wide, revealing a huge, glowing eye which shone with a strange light.

The samurai screamed and fled…

You can’t make this stuff up, folks!

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