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Topic: Footnote youkai (Read 6692 times) |
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kurent
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Footnote youkai
« on: 08/21/06 at 13:20:22 » |
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So I figured I'd open this thread for all those misrepresented youkai that get a line or two of information in all of the sources available. Not enough to get a thread of their own, but still interesting, I suppose.
(That, and I've been hellishly busy lately, so I don't really have time to do serious research, whereas I can spare the few minutes for these snipets...)
So here's the first one:
amazakebaba (甘酒婆)
Shows up on winter nights in Aomori and Nagano. In Aomori she asks around if anyone has any amazake (a kind of sake drunk in wintertime, warm) to spare. If you tell her you do, you get sick. (so much for gratitude...) Cedar branches will drive her away.
In Nagano she just simply sells amazake.
Links (all Japanese, no pics): 1, 2, 3.
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Mouryo
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Re: Footnote youkai
« Reply #1 on: 08/21/06 at 14:24:25 » |
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Thanks, there are so many youkai out there ( at least over 200) that it is impossible that everyone has a long history.
I think Aonyobou and oozatou belong to these youkai too.
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VilaJunkie
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Re: Footnote youkai
« Reply #2 on: 08/22/06 at 12:37:31 » |
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Who are aonyobou and oozatou?
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VilaJunkie
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Re: Footnote youkai
« Reply #4 on: 08/22/06 at 12:57:42 » |
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I should have known about aonyobou!*smacks forehead* Aww, oozatou sounds like such a cute lil bugger. Something to take home to mother. Funny that you mention two youkai that are involved in prostitution. Are there any youkai based on "sugar daddies" (men who own prostitutes) or male prostitutes?
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Mouryo
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Re: Footnote youkai
« Reply #5 on: 08/22/06 at 13:23:25 » |
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It`s just a coincidence that I have mentioned these two and what has Aonyobou to do prostitution?
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VilaJunkie
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Re: Footnote youkai
« Reply #6 on: 08/22/06 at 13:42:32 » |
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Quote:| In the ruins of an old imperial palace, one might encounter this female ghoul, who seems to be the ghost of an old-fashioned court lady with blackened teeth and shaved eyebrows. |
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I thought that "court lady" usually meant a courtesan, a woman of a noble house reserved as a second wife or for lovemaking. If I'm wrong, never mind then.
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Dread Blue
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Re: Footnote youkai
« Reply #7 on: 08/23/06 at 08:01:05 » |
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No, in this case court lady just means lady of the court. I've never heard "court lady" used to mean "courtesan" before...
Anyway, this Amazakebaba sounds really interesting. Yet another yokai associated with winter and snow (since most are associated with summer, heat, fire). This is the third I can think of (the other two being Oshiroi-baba and an alternate version of Yama-chichi I found in a folktale).
Speaking of which, Yama-chichi would probably count toward this category.
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kurent
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Re: Footnote youkai
« Reply #8 on: 08/23/06 at 08:05:46 » |
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My sentiments exactly - I felt like amazakebaba could well be oshiroibaba's cousin. Unfortunately, she's a footnote youkai - not much info available on the internet, and one would probably have to have access to some very regional japanese sources to gain anything more, beyond what I've already put down. I bet even Mouryo can't hunt down a picture of her... 
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kurent
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Re: Footnote youkai
« Reply #9 on: 08/23/06 at 08:26:11 » |
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Onwards:
Isogaki (イソガキ)
A youkai that shows up on the shore of Toshima Island, off coast south of Tokyo. Judging by the name and modus operandi, I would say this is a strange, folklorised version af a gaki.
Here's the info I found: appears on the shore, and if you see one, you suddenly feel starved. To avoid being annoyed by one, you should carry a potato with you. This potato should never be eaten.
Links (again, all Japanese, no pics): 1, 2
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| « Last Edit: 08/23/06 at 08:27:35 by kurent » |
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kurent
Bona-fide Bakemono
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Re: Footnote youkai
« Reply #10 on: 08/23/06 at 08:39:17 » |
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And another one. This one drew my interest because of it's incredibly long name.
Innufi-ku-teatchan (インヌフィークーテアッチャン)
A dog, walking around engulfed in flames. Appears in Okinawa.
linguistic sidenote: when the Okinawan dialect is classified as a separate language (which, personaly, i think it is), it is usually described as the only other language in the world that is directly linked to Japanese. For those of you who can speak Japanese - you'll probably recognise the words inu (dog) and hi (fire) in the name, as innu and fi- respectively. (Can't for the life of me figure out what the rest of the name is supposed to mean, though...)
Link: 1. This is the *only* site available. A google search will give two hits, but the other site is huge, and only says that no real information is available on this particular youkai.
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kurent
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Re: Footnote youkai
« Reply #11 on: 08/23/06 at 08:52:43 » |
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And since we've done Okinawa, let's go to the other extreme. An Ainu youkai.
Iwasarausu (イワサラウス)
The name in the Ainu language apparently means "a rock with tail[s]". This is a huge monster, means no good, has no hair on it's body and boasts six tails.
Links (Japanese)1, 2, 3(this one's a list of several Ainu gods, youkai and monsters, including such darlings as gigantic rabbit-like oni...); English: 4.
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Mouryo
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Re: Footnote youkai
« Reply #12 on: 08/23/06 at 14:18:17 » |
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on 08/23/06 at 08:05:46, kurent wrote:| . I bet even Mouryo can't hunt down a picture of her... |
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I`ll made a search in Kanji and one in romanji but I haven` found anything.
BUt I have found a picture of iso-gaki
http://www10.ocn.ne.jp/~hiko/isogaki.htm.
Maybe Hiko will make a picture of her someday.
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| « Last Edit: 08/23/06 at 14:18:37 by Mouryo » |
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kurent
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Re: Footnote youkai
« Reply #13 on: 08/23/06 at 14:27:24 » |
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Mouryo strikes again...
Dang, I checked hiko's site but somehow managed to miss the isogaki pic. It also has some additional info - it says isogaki is a person who died in a shipwreck.
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VilaJunkie
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Re: Footnote youkai
« Reply #14 on: 08/23/06 at 15:13:36 » |
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on 08/23/06 at 14:27:24, kurent wrote:| Dang, I checked hiko's site but somehow managed to miss the isogaki pic. |
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Mouryo must have what my mom calls "shiny eyes". He can find anything! Sometimes I wonder who knows more about youkai, Mouryo or Tengu. 
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Mouryo
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Re: Footnote youkai
« Reply #15 on: 08/23/06 at 15:25:17 » |
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Tengu of course, I can`t speak or read japanese.
Internet surfing is just one of my hobbies and so I have earned some skills in finding stuff over the years
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VilaJunkie
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Re: Footnote youkai
« Reply #16 on: 08/23/06 at 15:50:31 » |
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I can't read Japanese either. I can recognize a few characters in katakana and hiragana, and know a few spoken words, but that's it. If I had to translate Spanish websites though, no problem.
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kurent
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Re: Footnote youkai
« Reply #17 on: 08/24/06 at 13:48:24 » |
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Ok, not technicaly a footnote youkai - plenty of sources on this one, but it's hilarious, and I've never heard of this youkai before.
Oitekehori (置いてけ堀) alt. Oitekebori
So the meaning of this... erm, let's leave it at youkai, is literally "the leave it there ditch". That's right, it's a ditch youkai (or would the expression youkai ditch be better??). Popular during the Edo period in the Tokyo and Saitama area, this... ditch has variations for practicaly every part of Tokio and every town city and village in Saitama. The basical story goes like this: a guy is getting ready to return home after a long day of fishing, when he suddenly hears a voice behind him, saying "Oiteke!", meaning "Leave it there!" or more appropriately "Leave those there!", as it's the poor guys fish it's after. This is where things get different in different geographic locations - in most parts, the guy gets freaked and starts running, and most of the time, all of his fish will disappear while he's running. Or, he may be left with just three of the fish he was carrying. Or, if he throws three of the fish he caught back into the ditch, he'll be left alone.
A different version comes from Taito-ku in Tokyo. In this version, the fisherman catches and lifts from the water a kappa's head-dish. The dumbfounded kappa then demands the dish back with the same phrase.
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kurent
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Re: Footnote youkai
« Reply #18 on: 08/26/06 at 14:43:56 » |
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Here's an interesting find. I haven't heard of this one before, but I'm pretty sure at least some of the rest of you have.
Ubumedori (姑獲鳥)
This one show's up all over the place and has almost as many name variations as the kappa. It's the spirit of a woman that died giving birth, and she caries around with her the baby as well. She will ask passers-by to hold on to her baby for a sec, and the baby suddenly grows heavier and heavier in the poor victims hands, until it's so heavy the victim dies. In some cases, the baby will also turn into leaves or a rock. She is most often associated with birds or fire.
There's plenty of info on this one, so I'll just put down the different names for the ubumedori I found. If there is interest, I can provide some additional info, as much as I can find.
So here goes: In Nagasaki, she's know as uume (ウーメ), unmedori (ウンメドリ) or ugume (ウグメ). This last one goes for the entire island of Kyushu. In Yamaguchi, she's known as ubame (ウバメ) and in Ibaraki as ubamedori (ウバメドリ). In Kyoto, she goes by the name ogome (オゴメ). Hiko's site says she's known in Yamagata as ubume (written with different kanji:産女).
Here's the link this info is from: 1. Here's hiko's pics of ubume and ubamedori. (Interestingly enough, the explanation that goes with hiko's ubamedori says she steals babies...)
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Dread Blue
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Re: Footnote youkai
« Reply #19 on: 08/27/06 at 08:54:16 » |
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Oh yes, ubume (it looks like ubumedori is just an ubume with wings?). Very fascinating, another example of where ghosts overlap with yokai. Although, to be fair I wouldn't place ubume (unless you're specifically talking about the ubumedori) in the footnote category. She represents a couple of quite significant cultural concerns in Japan (or at least traditional Japan):
(1) the obligation the mother has to its newly born child and her inability to fulfil this obligation because she's dead, and (2) the fear of unritualized children (because she died giving birth to it, it's possible that no one knows where the child is, which is one explanation for ubume's motives).
Ubume are also said to go to sweetshops during the evening and buy certain types of candy that babies like, and pay with coins that later turn into leaves. Of course the Japanese audience of these stories know that the shopkeeper should have known better; any woman wearing white clothes with unbound hair is obviously a ghost.
There's quite a few stories and quite a bit of information on ubume in the excellent book Ghosts and the Japanese by Iwasaka and Toelken.
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| « Last Edit: 08/27/06 at 08:54:53 by Dread Blue » |
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