Recently in Japanese Folklore Category

This article was originally published in Otaku Magazine, volume 4, July 2008.

Fans of contemporary Japanese horror, whether in film or manga, have likely run across the term Kaidan or Kwaidan describing certain tales within many volumes of translated works available. The term refers to century-old, traditional ghost tales reflecting core superstitions of pre-Westernized Japan. The term is used sparingly in book and film titles, usually only by authors and directors who wanted to create the atmosphere of an old-time ghost story. But in many recent Japanese horror films, the influence of Kaidan comes through very strongly.

One of the most notorious animals in the Shinto pantheon is the fox (kitsune). Throughout a millennia of japanese folklore, the fox is depicted as the epitome of deception, able to transform into any shape or form it strategically desires.

Due to its ancient mystique, the fox figures prominently, not only in popular folk lore, but also in formal Shinto mythology. Thus, should you walk through the rural forests of contemporary Japan, you will no doubt encounter shrines wholly dedicated to this semi-divine animal.

The following tale encapsulates this Shinto sensibility, depicting the species as wholly possessing (humanly) noble qualities and giving an account of the continued (spiritual) relevance of the primary (Shinto) Fox deity, Inari-sama (whose picture you see here).

Alot of what you read on SaruDama deals with Japanese notions of religion or superstition, particularly in terms of what you would call the "supernatural". This is probably due to the fact that my years in Japan were permeated with the realization (and sense) that the entire island-Nation is blanketed with a palpable, ancient spirituality. No matter where I went, from the heart of Tokyo to snowy Tohoku, I found shrines, weather-worn idols, holy places and ancient markers.

Much of what you see on SaruDama actually stems from my own exploration and fascination of very real facets of daily Japanese superstition. A prominent clergy from the Asian community in Chicago once smilingly told me that via SaruDama I had become an "evangelist" of the Japanese occult. I think that's a bit too simplistic, but I understand how it might appear to some to be true.

But there is much more to the picture here than merely meets the eye. Lest you think I am romanticizing things or merely seeing what I wish to see, let me share with you the following.

The Story of Aoyagi is an ancient folk tale taking place in 15th century Japan. It has popular appeal on several levels.

First, the hero of the tale, Hatakeyama Yoshimune is given an incredible amount of biographical information, making him a nearly touchable historic figure. We are told of his position, his home town, his devotion to his parents, and his samurai valour.

Second, this is an animistic tale which demands reverence for Nature. Here, Japan's highly utilitarian bamboo is the source for something both beautiful and wonderful. The tragic end of the story involves human consumption/destruction of this god-given plant.

After reading this, give intentional consideration to the possible intent of this 600 year old tale. Ponder the meaning of this sad and wonderful tale.

One persistent element of Japanese superstition which reemerges continuously is the notion that the final thought or emotion of a dying person determines his or her eternal fate. While this seems in some ways tied to buddhist principles of Karma, in Japanese tales it most often involves Shinto notions of lingering ghosts whose last breath in anguish results in terrorized hauntings. This notion, for example, is the backbone of the JU-ON (??)?tales of a dreadful curse caused by a sudden, malicious death.

The following tale as told by Lafcadio Hearn in his 1904 Kwaidan provides an early example of the reliability of this superstition.

Mizuki Shigeru (????? - b. 1924) is a household name in Japan predominantly due to his long-running and widely popular animation series Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro which followed the humanitarian and educational adventures of Kitaro, a young boy born and raised amidst a community of obakemono (monsters). Over the years Mizuki has distinguished himself as perhaps the foremost authority on traditional Japanese monsters, ghouls and ghosts and has published countless books filled with his entertaining and good-natured drawings.

My order of several of his latest publications just came in and I hope to soon pass along some of what they contain.

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Here's a sad yet hauntingly beautiful Japanese folk tale which centers on the profound admiration and appreciation of the beauty and value of Nature itself, depicted here in the form of an elderly man's aged cherry (sakura) tree. Intermingled with this are core spiritual intuitions involving Shinto animism (which regards all animate and inanimate objects as possessing a soul/spirit) and traditional Japanese beliefs regarding the inherent value of noble suicide.

Read this carefully and ponder. You may not look at a aged, lone-standing cherry tree in full bloom the same way again.

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This TRUE samurai tale is by far the best known in Japan and has for centuries exemplified the ideal of Bushido spirit. After only a few decades of its occurrence it became immortalized in Japanese stage drama and later appeared numerous times in cinema. It is a tale of hierarchical injustice resulting in the forced death of a just leader followed by the very patient and calculated revenge by his 47 samurai subordinates. The core of this tale is the fact that these 47 ronin (ie, "masterless samurai") fully realize that their plan of revenge will certainly result in their death. Thus the preeminent sense of honor and sacrifice of self in order to achieve a higher end has been the enduring value.

For an excellent cinematic retelling of this tale, please check out the (Region 1, subtitled) 1962 Chushingura by director Inagaki Hiroshi and starring Mifune Toshiro.

Even in the West we imagine that objects particularly beloved by a person prior to their death might somehow wield a supernatural quality -- as if the intensity of the departed soul's affection for the object becomes a part of the object itself. Stories to this effect abound in traditional Japanese folk tales.

The following tale is of a sorrowful young woman's most beloved possession, an ornamented purple robe like the one her only true yet fleeting love had worn. By confessing and dedicating to the Buddha her unrequited love for the young man, not even the power of priests and temples would be able to protect themselves from the robe's strange power upon her passing. ,/p>

In his book entitled "In Ghostly Japan" (1898) Lafcadio Hearn writes:

I once knew a fortune-teller who really believed in the science that he professed. He had learned, as a student of the old Chinese philosophy, to believe in divination long before he thought of practising it. During his youth he had been in the service of a wealthy daimyo, but subsequently, like thousands of other samurai, found himself reduced to desperate straits by the social and political changes of Meiji.

It was then that he became a fortune-teller,--an itinerant uranaiya,--travelling on foot from town to town, and returning to his home rarely more than once a year with the proceeds of his journey. As a fortune-teller he was tolerably successful,--chiefly, I think, because of his perfect sincerity, and because of a peculiar gentle manner that invited confidence. His system was the old scholarly one: he used the book known to English readers as the Yi-King, (aka I-Ching) --also a set of ebony blocks which could be so arranged as to form any of the Chinese hexagrams;--and he always began his divination with an earnest prayer to the gods.

Some folk tales of the Japanese point toward a particular event or ghoulish monster which the reader, if lucky, shall never truly encounter. There are other tales, however, which are aimed at explaining phenomena that we mortals cannot possibly escape, and the following tale is precisely of this sort.

Perhaps more theological than superstitious this tale was contained in a "fragment" of a text happened upon by Lafcadio Hearn. The force of the tale is undeniable even to contemporary readers who are indebted to him for preserving it for Western audiences in his 1898 collection entitled In Ghostly Japan.

Here's a rather creepy tale involving entrenched folk superstition, Buddhist theology and Karmic principles of retribution for evil deeds.

The notion of a Jiki Ninki or Flesh-eating Goblin appears in several forms within Japanese folk tales. The story below is a very old and original version which conjures skin-tingles at the thought of encountering delapitated shrine hermitages along darakened mountainous passages. Here's why...

The influence of one's uttermost passion in life may very well become a driving obsession even after you have died, or so A Dead Secret strongly suggest. This sad amd mysterious ghost story strikes several chords with traditional Japanese views of love, death and the stoic concealment of one's innermost desires, even following death.

Taking place in the ancient province of Tamba (contemporary Kyoto), the life of the beautiful maiden O-Sono seemed one of joy and hope. Only after death does her ghost betray any evidence that her truest heart had been elsewhere.

When I first saw the film Haunted Lantern I did not realize that it so faithfully followed a century-old tale entitled Botan Dourou (Flower Lantern). Performed initially by a theatre group in Tokyo during the Meiji-Era, the tale slowly made its way to the West through the writings of Lafcadio Hearn. In his In Ghostly Japan written in 1898, Hearn provides a translation the theatrical version which he himself attended.

The tale itself is said to tap into core Japanese intuitions and superstitions regarding karmic love, fated destinies, and the afterlife. Though slightly different from the original, director Yamamato Satsuo's 1968 film Haunted Lantern retains a wide range of Botan Dourou's original elements from character names and ranks to the golden statue of Buddha.

Below is Lafcadio Hearn's retelling of the tale as told in his In Ghostly Japan.