A Brief History of Yokai

Yokai are strange creatures that originate from Japan. They have been passed down for centuries. Yokai are called many names including monsters, demons, and spirits. In Japan female yokai are called yurei. There are many types and some can even be evil while others are nothing more than mischievous. Here we will go into detail for a few of their stories.

The first of these creatures we are going to cover is the Futakuchi Onna. This Yokai's name translates simply to the two-mouthed woman.

In some tales, these creatures are the result of curses as punishment for wrongdoing or wickedness. While these Yokai are not dangerous per se, they do eat a tremendous amount of food. They look just like normal women who don't eat very much but when they let their thick hair down a ravenous second mouth is revealed on the back of their skull. There are many stories covering this topic and one such tale describes a wicked stepmother who always gave plenty of food to her own daughter but starved her stepdaughter to death.

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After forty-nine days the stepmother got a terrible headache that split into a second mouth that shrieked in the voice of the dead girl and from then the stepmother always felt the hunger pains of murdered stepdaughter.

The Hari onago is a creature that is also hard to distinguish from a human female. They wander the streets at night searching for young, single men walking alone. She will smile at him and if it is returned she will attack.

Her disheveled hair is equipped with barbed hooks that she uses to grab her victim before ripping apart his flesh and eating the remains. Her name translates to hook woman.

Hone Onna are skeleton ghosts who retain an undying love for their living partner. She visits her lover in the night and leaves in the early morning. Neither ghost nor mate is aware of her condition so she continues to visit draining his life force little by little until eventual death occurs. If someone warns the living man of the situation the spirit can be warded off but as she decays further she grows more powerful. Usually, the men give in and let her back in sealing their death. She appears as a skeleton to everyone except her lover to which she appears as she did in life. Her name translates to the bone woman.

Iyaya are creatures that appear as attractive young women but when they turn around they are hideous. Their name translates to a slang term meaning no way. They enjoy scaring humans. They prefer to wander at night to surprise lone travelers. Though they do not cause particular harm, they do cause quite a fright.

Often spirits manifest due to violent deaths. This is true to the Kuchisake Onna or split mouth woman. This is a very well known spirit in Japan. She covers the lower half of her face with a mask of some sort. This spirit is said to approach their victim and ask them if they think she is beautiful. If they say no, she slaughters them immediately. If they say yes, she removes the mask revealing the gory blood dripping mouth that has been split from ear to ear and asks again. If they say no, she kills them. If they say yes, she walks away only to kill them later at night.

Another popular story in Japan is one of Otsuyu. This ghost is the spirit of a woman. Every night for twenty days she would visit her lover. One night his neighbor checked on him and was shocked to see that Otsuyu was nothing but a skeleton. When the jaw would open a voice would emit. The next morning he told the lover of what he had seen and gave him a charm to protect him. He missed Otsuyu dearly. One night, he got drunk and visited the temple where she was buried and she appeared before him. After the man had been missing for a while they dug up Otsuyu's coffin and found his dead body wrapped around Otsuyu's skeleton.

Okiku is the name of a servant girl who was beaten to death over a missing plate. There were ten priceless plates of display in the castle and one had gone missing. Okiku was blamed for its disappearance. The high ranking members in the castle tried to get Okiku to tell them where the plate was or what she had done with it. Okiku could not tell them for she was not the one who took it. They did not believe her denials of any involvement with the disappearance of the plate. She was beaten and tortured to death. Soon after, her ghost would appear in the castle and she would begin to count the plates. After the ninth plate, she would let out a piercing scream. Anyone unlucky enough to hear her count all nine died soon after. This caused great terror for the people in the castle. One night a priest waited in the garden to hear her count the plates. As soon as she counted the ninth dish, the priest shouted ten. The ghost was relieved and never seen again.

Some Yokai are spirits that simply cannot rest. The Ubume is a prime example of this. These spirits originate from a woman who has died during, before, or shortly after pregnancy. Often these spirits appear carrying an infant and crying out desperately for help. Other times, they appear in shops late at night to purchase toys and sweets for their child. They pay with what appears to be money, but after she is gone the shopkeeper will have nothing but dead leaves in his pocket. Sometimes, these spirits can be malevolent in nature. They will ask humans for help and give them their baby before disappearing. Afterward, the baby grows heavier and heavier until the person is crushed under the weight and is killed.