Tsukumogami
Encyclopedia
Understood by many Western scholars as a type of Japanese
yōkai
, the Tsukumogami
was a concept popular in Japanese folklore as far back as the tenth century, used in the spread of Shingon Buddhism
. Today, the term is generally understood to be applied to virtually any object, “that has reached their 100th birthday and thus become alive and self-aware,” though this definition is not without it's controversy.
that Matsunaga Hisahide
used to bargain a peace with Oda Nobunaga
Like many concepts in Japanese
folklore
there are several layers of definition used when discussing Tsukumogami. For example, by the tenth century, the Tsukumogami myths were used in helping to spread the “doctrines of Shingon Esoteric Buddhism to a variety of audiences, ranging from the educated to the relatively unsophisticated, by capitalizing upon pre-existing spiritual beliefs in Tsukumogami.” These “pre-existing spiritual beliefs” were, as Reider explains:
By the twentieth century the Tsukumogami had entered into Japanese
Popular Culture
to such an extent that the Buddhist teachings had been “completely lost to most outsiders,” leaving critics to comment that, by and large, the Tsukumogami were harmless and at most tended to play occasional pranks , they did have the capacity for anger and would band together to take revenge upon those who were wasteful or threw them away thoughtlessly . To prevent this, to this day some jinja
ceremonies are performed to console broken and unusable items.
folklore
, there remains some confusion as to what the term actually means.
For example, literally, Tsukumogami is translated as “old woman hair,” though other scholars have defined it as “pasqueflower” as well. This comes from a tenth-century poem:
Momotose ni/ Hitotose taranu/ Tsukumogami/ Ware wo kourashi/ Omokage ni miyu.
All of this is pointed out in detail by Indiana University Professor Michael Dylan Foster who writes that this question “[of defining Tsukumogami] often elicits not even a definition at all, but simply a long list of examples.” In other words, modern Tsukumogami scholars have done Japanese
folklore
a disservice by including “vague, contradictory and often simply grossly inaccurate [information] ... that has nothing to do with ancient folklore, Buddhism or even Japan and everything to do with the 'modern mangaka' craze ... comic books produced in sweat-shops in Korea and marketed for American audiences ... that often have nothing to do with history or Japan.”
Kakehi, Mariko. Tsukumogami emaki no shohon ni tsuite. Hakubutsukan dayori 15 (1989): 5–7.
Keene, Donald. Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth
Century. New York: Henry Holt & Co. (1993)
Kyoto Daigaku Fuzoku Toshokan. Tsukumogami http://edb.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/exhibit/tsuroll
/indexA.html and http://edb.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/exhibit/tsuroll/indexB.html
Lillehoj, Elizabeth. Transfiguration : Man-made Objects as Demons in Japanese Scrolls. Asian Folklore Studies, Volume 54 (1995): 7–34.
National Geographic. National Geographic Essential Visual History of World Mythology. National Geographic Society (U.S.) (2008)
Shibata, Hōsei. Tsukumogami kaidai. In Kyoto Daigaku-zō Muromachi monogatari , ed. Kyoto Daigaku Kokugogaku Kokubungaku Kenkyūshitsu, vol. 10, 392–400. Kyoto: Rinsen Shoten. (2001)
Japanese
Japanese refers to anything that originates in Japan, an island country in East Asia. Used as a noun, it may also refer to:* Foreign-born Japanese, naturalized citizens of Japan...
yōkai
Yōkai
are a class of supernatural monsters in Japanese folklore. The word yōkai is made up of the kanji for "otherworldly" and "weird". Yōkai range eclectically from the malevolent to the mischievous, or occasionally bring good fortune to those who encounter them...
, the Tsukumogami
Tsukumogami
Understood by many Western scholars as a type of Japanese yōkai, the Tsukumogami was a concept popular in Japanese folklore as far back as the tenth century, used in the spread of Shingon Buddhism...
was a concept popular in Japanese folklore as far back as the tenth century, used in the spread of Shingon Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
. Today, the term is generally understood to be applied to virtually any object, “that has reached their 100th birthday and thus become alive and self-aware,” though this definition is not without it's controversy.
Tsukumogami in Japanese Folklore
According to Elison and Bardwell (1987), Tsukumogami was the name of an animated tea caddyTea caddy
A tea caddy is a box, jar, canister, or other receptacle used to store tea.The word is believed to be derived from catty, the Chinese pound, equal to about a pound and a third avoirdupois. The earliest examples that came to Europe were of Chinese porcelain, and approximated in shape to the...
that Matsunaga Hisahide
Matsunaga Hisahide
Matsunaga Hisahide was a daimyo of Japan following the Sengoku period of the 16th century.A companion of Miyoshi Chokei, he was a retainer of Miyoshi Masanaga from the 1540s. He directed the conquest of the province of Yamato in the 1560s and by 1564 had built a sufficient power-base to be...
used to bargain a peace with Oda Nobunaga
Oda Nobunaga
was the initiator of the unification of Japan under the shogunate in the late 16th century, which ruled Japan until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was also a major daimyo during the Sengoku period of Japanese history. His opus was continued, completed and finalized by his successors Toyotomi...
Like many concepts in Japanese
Japanese
Japanese refers to anything that originates in Japan, an island country in East Asia. Used as a noun, it may also refer to:* Foreign-born Japanese, naturalized citizens of Japan...
folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
there are several layers of definition used when discussing Tsukumogami. For example, by the tenth century, the Tsukumogami myths were used in helping to spread the “doctrines of Shingon Esoteric Buddhism to a variety of audiences, ranging from the educated to the relatively unsophisticated, by capitalizing upon pre-existing spiritual beliefs in Tsukumogami.” These “pre-existing spiritual beliefs” were, as Reider explains:
- Tsukumogami are animate household objects. An otogizōshi (“companion tale”) titled Tsukumogami ki (“Record of tool specters”; Muromachi period) explains that after a service life of nearly one hundred years, utsuwamono or kibutsu (containers, tools, and instruments) receive souls. While many references are made to this work as a major source for the definition of tsukumogami, insufficient attention has been paid to the actual text of Tsukumogami ki.
Japanese
Japanese refers to anything that originates in Japan, an island country in East Asia. Used as a noun, it may also refer to:* Foreign-born Japanese, naturalized citizens of Japan...
Popular Culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
to such an extent that the Buddhist teachings had been “completely lost to most outsiders,” leaving critics to comment that, by and large, the Tsukumogami were harmless and at most tended to play occasional pranks , they did have the capacity for anger and would band together to take revenge upon those who were wasteful or threw them away thoughtlessly . To prevent this, to this day some jinja
Jinja
Jinja may be:* Jinja, Uganda, a city in eastern Uganda close to the source of the Nile River* Jinja District, the district in Uganda named after the above city* Jinja, a Shinto shrine* Jinja , a template engine...
ceremonies are performed to console broken and unusable items.
Difficulty in Finding a Definition
Because the term has been applied to several different concepts in JapaneseJapanese
Japanese refers to anything that originates in Japan, an island country in East Asia. Used as a noun, it may also refer to:* Foreign-born Japanese, naturalized citizens of Japan...
folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
, there remains some confusion as to what the term actually means.
For example, literally, Tsukumogami is translated as “old woman hair,” though other scholars have defined it as “pasqueflower” as well. This comes from a tenth-century poem:
Momotose ni/ Hitotose taranu/ Tsukumogami/ Ware wo kourashi/ Omokage ni miyu.
All of this is pointed out in detail by Indiana University Professor Michael Dylan Foster who writes that this question “[of defining Tsukumogami] often elicits not even a definition at all, but simply a long list of examples.” In other words, modern Tsukumogami scholars have done Japanese
Japanese
Japanese refers to anything that originates in Japan, an island country in East Asia. Used as a noun, it may also refer to:* Foreign-born Japanese, naturalized citizens of Japan...
folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
a disservice by including “vague, contradictory and often simply grossly inaccurate [information] ... that has nothing to do with ancient folklore, Buddhism or even Japan and everything to do with the 'modern mangaka' craze ... comic books produced in sweat-shops in Korea and marketed for American audiences ... that often have nothing to do with history or Japan.”
Suggested Reading
Kabat, Adam. “Mono” no obake: Kinsei no tsukumogami sekai. IS 84 (2000): 10–14.Kakehi, Mariko. Tsukumogami emaki no shohon ni tsuite. Hakubutsukan dayori 15 (1989): 5–7.
Keene, Donald. Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth
Century. New York: Henry Holt & Co. (1993)
Kyoto Daigaku Fuzoku Toshokan. Tsukumogami http://edb.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/exhibit/tsuroll
/indexA.html and http://edb.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/exhibit/tsuroll/indexB.html
Lillehoj, Elizabeth. Transfiguration : Man-made Objects as Demons in Japanese Scrolls. Asian Folklore Studies, Volume 54 (1995): 7–34.
National Geographic. National Geographic Essential Visual History of World Mythology. National Geographic Society (U.S.) (2008)
Shibata, Hōsei. Tsukumogami kaidai. In Kyoto Daigaku-zō Muromachi monogatari , ed. Kyoto Daigaku Kokugogaku Kokubungaku Kenkyūshitsu, vol. 10, 392–400. Kyoto: Rinsen Shoten. (2001)
See also
- Bakezōri, possessed straw sandals.
- ChōchinobakeChochinobake' are a type of Tsukumogami, a form of Japanese spirit that originate from objects reaching their 100th year of existence, thus becoming animate. Chōchin'obake in particular are created from the chōchin lantern, composed of bamboo and paper or silk...
, animated lantern. - DokkaebiDokkaebiDokkaebi is a common word for a type of spirit in Korean folklore or fairy tales.The Dokkaebi is a mythical being that appears in many old Korean folktales. Although usually frightening, it could also represent a humorous, grotesque-looking sprite or goblin. These creatures loved mischief and...
, a similar creature in Korean folklore. - Ittan-momenIttan-momenis a ghostly phenomenon from the folklore of Kagoshima Prefecture in Japan, which flies through the air at night and attacks humans, often by wrapping around their faces to smother them....
, a roll of cotton. - Kasa-obakeKasa-obake, or Karakasa Obake or Karakasa Kozo, are a type of Tsukumogami, a folk legend about a form of Japanese spirit that originate from objects reaching their 100th year of existence, thus becoming animate. Karakasa in particular are Spirits of Parasols that reach the century milestone...
, animated umbrella.