Yurei - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Japanese folklore

The folklore of Japan is heavily influenced by both Shinto and Buddhism, the two primary religions in the country. It often involves humorous or bizarre characters and situations and also includes an assortment of supernatural beings, such as bodhisattva, kami , yōkai , yūrei ,...

, analogous to Western legends of ghost

Ghost

In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...

s. The name consists of two kanji

Kanji

Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...

, 幽 (yū), meaning "faint" or "dim" and 霊 (rei), meaning "soul" or "spirit." Alternative names include 亡霊 (Bōrei) meaning ruined or departed spirit, 死霊 (Shiryō) meaning dead spirit, or the more encompassing 妖怪 (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...

) or お化け (Obake

Obake

and are a class of yōkai, preternatural creatures in Japanese folklore. Literally, the terms mean a thing that changes, referring to a state of transformation or shapeshifting....

).

Like their Chinese

Chinese folklore

Chinese folklore includes songs, dances, puppetry, and tales. It often tells stories of human nature, historical or legendary events, love, and the supernatural, or stories explaining natural phenomena and distinctive landmarks.-Folktales:...

and Western counterparts, they are thought to be spirit

Soul

A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...

s kept from a peaceful afterlife

Afterlife

The afterlife is the belief that a part of, or essence of, or soul of an individual, which carries with it and confers personal identity, survives the death of the body of this world and this lifetime, by natural or supernatural means, in contrast to the belief in eternal...

Japanese afterlife

According to traditional Japanese beliefs, all humans have a spirit

Spirit

The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...

or soul

Soul

called a 霊魂 (reikon
Reikon
Reikon, in Shinto and Japanese Buddhism, is the equivalent to the soul or 'spirit' in western culture. When a person dies in an unexpected, violent or traumatic way, the Reikon...

). When a person dies, the reikon leaves the body and enters a form of purgatory

Purgatory

Purgatory is the condition or process of purification or temporary punishment in which, it is believed, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for Heaven...

, where it waits for the proper funeral

Funeral

A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...

and post-funeral rites to be performed, so that it may join its ancestors. If this is done correctly, the reikon is believed to be a protector of the living family and to return yearly in August during the Obon Festival

Obón

Obón is a municipality located in the province of Teruel, Aragon, Spain. According to the 2004 census , the municipality has a population of 75 inhabitants....

to receive thanks.

However, if the person dies in a sudden or violent manner such as murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

or suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

, if the proper rites have not been performed, or if they are influenced by powerful emotions such as a desire for revenge

Revenge

Revenge is a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. It is also called payback, retribution, retaliation or vengeance; it may be characterized, justly or unjustly, as a form of justice.-Function in society:Some societies believe that the...

, love

Love

Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...

, jealousy

Jealousy

Jealousy is a second emotion and typically refers to the negative thoughts and feelings of insecurity, fear, and anxiety over an anticipated loss of something that the person values, particularly in reference to a human connection. Jealousy often consists of a combination of presenting emotions...

, hatred

Hatred

Hatred is a deep and emotional extreme dislike, directed against a certain object or class of objects. The objects of such hatred can vary widely, from inanimate objects to animals, oneself or other people, entire groups of people, people in general, existence, or the whole world...

or sorrow

Sorrow (emotion)

Sorrow is an emotion, feeling, or sentiment. Sorrow 'is more "intense" than sadness...it implies a long term state'. At the same time 'sorrow - but not unhappiness - suggests a degree of resignation...which lends sorrow its peculiar air of dignity'....

, the reikon is thought to transform into a yūrei, which can then bridge the gap back to the physical world

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

.

The yūrei then exists on Earth until it can be laid to rest, either by performing the missing ritual

Ritual

A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....

s, or resolving the emotional conflict that still ties it to the physical plane

Plane (metaphysics)

In esoteric cosmology, a plane, other than the physical plane is conceived as a subtle state of consciousness that transcends the known physical universe....

. If the rituals are not completed or the conflict left unresolved, the yūrei will persist in its haunting.

Appearance

In the late 17th century, a game called Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai

Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai

was a popular parlour game during the Edo period in Japan.The game was a simple one. In a room, as night fell, one hundred candles were lit. Guests and players gathered around the candles, taking turns telling kaidan. After each kaidan, a single candle was extinguished, and the room slowly grew...

became popular, and kaidan

Kaidan

Kaidan is a Japanese word consisting of two kanji: 怪 meaning “strange, mysterious, rare or bewitching apparition" and 談 meaning “talk” or “recited narrative.”-Overall meaning and usage:...

increasingly became a subject for theater, literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

and other arts. At this time, they began to gain certain attributes to distinguish themselves from living humans, making it easier to spot yūrei characters.

Ukiyo-e

Ukiyo-e

' is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters...

artist Maruyama Ōkyo

Maruyama Okyo

, born Maruyama Masataka, was a Japanese artist active in the late 18th century. He moved to Kyoto, during which he studied artworks from Chinese, Japanese and Western sources. A personal style of Western naturalism mixed with Eastern decorative design emerged, and Ōkyo founded the Maruyama school...

created the first known example of the now-traditional
yūrei, in his painting The Ghost of Oyuki
The Ghost of Oyuki
The Ghost of Oyuki is a painting of a female yūrei, , by Maruyama Okyo , founder of the Maruyama-Shijô school of painting....

.

Today, the appearance of yūrei is somewhat uniform, instantly signalling the ghostly nature of the figure, and assuring that it is culturally authentic.

White clothing: Yūrei are usually dressed in white, signifying the white burial kimono
Kimono
The is a Japanese traditional garment worn by men, women and children. The word "kimono", which literally means a "thing to wear" , has come to denote these full-length robes...

used in Edo period
Edo period
The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....

funeral rituals. In Shinto
Shinto
or Shintoism, also kami-no-michi, is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is a set of practices, to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...

, white is a color of ritual purity
Virtue
Virtue is moral excellence. A virtue is a positive trait or quality subjectively deemed to be morally excellent and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being....

, traditionally reserved for priests and the dead. This kimono can either be a katabira (a plain, white, unlined kimono) or a kyokatabira (a white katabira inscribed with Buddhist sutras). They sometimes have a hitaikakushi
Hitaikakushi
is a white piece of triangular paper or cloth worn on the head by Yūrei in Japanese folklore....

(lit., "forehead cover"), which is a small white triangular piece of cloth tied around the head.
Black hair: Hair of a yūrei is often long, black and disheveled, which some believe to be a trademark carried over from kabuki theater
Kabuki
is classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.The individual kanji characters, from left to right, mean sing , dance , and skill...

, where wigs are used for all actors. This is a misconception: Japanese women traditionally grew their hair long and wore it pinned up, and it was let down for the funeral and burial.
Hands and feet: A yūrei's hands dangle lifelessly from the wrists, which are held outstretched with the elbows near the body. They typically lack legs and feet, floating in the air. These features originated in Edo period ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e
' is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters...

prints, and were quickly copied over to kabuki. In kabuki, this lack of legs and feet is often represented by using a very long kimono or even hoisting the actor into the air by a series of ropes and pulleys.
Hitodama: Yūrei are frequently depicted as being accompanied by a pair of floating flames or will o' the wisp
Will o' the wisp
A will-o'-the-wisp or ignis fatuus , also called a "will-o'-wisp", "jack-o'-lantern" , "hinkypunk", "corpse candle", "ghost-light", "spook-light", "fairy light", "friar's lantern", "hobby lantern", "ghost orb", or simply "wisp", is a ghostly light or lights sometimes seen at night or twilight over...

s (hitodama
Hitodama
are believed in Japanese folklore to be the souls of the newly dead taking form as mysterious fiery apparitions. The word hitodama is a combination of the Japanese words hito, meaning "human", and tama , meaning "soul"...

in Japanese) in eerie colors such as blue, green, or purple. These ghostly flames are separate parts of the ghost rather than independent spirits.

Yūrei

While all Japanese ghosts are called yūrei, within that category there are several specific types of phantom, classified mainly by the manner they died or their reason for returning to Earth.

Onryō: Vengeful ghosts who come back from purgatory
Purgatory
Purgatory is the condition or process of purification or temporary punishment in which, it is believed, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for Heaven...

for a wrong done to them during their lifetime.
Ubume
Ubume
Ubume, a Japanese yōkai, appears in folk stories and literature as an old woman or Crone, with a child in her arms, imploring the passerby to hold her infant, only to then disappear. As legend has it, the weight of the child increases by degrees,until the bewitched “child” is revealed to be nothing...

: A mother ghost who died in childbirth
Childbirth
Childbirth is the culmination of a human pregnancy or gestation period with the birth of one or more newborn infants from a woman's uterus...

, or died leaving young children behind. This yūrei returns to care for her children, often bringing them sweets.
Goryō
Goryo
are Japanese ghosts. The name consists of two kanji, 御 meaning honorable and 霊 meaning soul or spirit.Traditionally, Goryō are vengeance ghosts from the aristocratic classes, especially those who have been martyred....

: Vengeful ghosts of the aristocratic class
Aristocracy (class)
The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...

, especially those who were martyred.
Funayūrei
Funayurei
are spirits found in Japanese mythology. They are the ghosts of people who have died at sea. They approach people on boats and ask to borrow a Hishaku , a utensil for scooping up water. If they are given a ladle, they will pour sea water into the boat until it sinks.-References:* Translated...

: The ghosts of those who died at sea. These ghosts are sometimes depicted as scaly fish-like humanoids and some may even have a form similar to that of a mermaid
Mermaid
A mermaid is a mythological aquatic creature with a female human head, arms, and torso and the tail of a fish. A male version of a mermaid is known as a "merman" and in general both males and females are known as "merfolk"...

or merman
Merman
Mermen are mythical male equivalents of mermaids – legendary creatures who have the form of a human from the waist up and are fish-like from the waist down.-Mythology:...

.
Zashiki-warashi
Zashiki-warashi
, sometimes also called , is a Japanese yōkai, stemming from Iwate Prefecture, similar to a domovoi.The name breaks down to zashiki, a tatami floored room, and warashi, an archaic regional term for a child. The appearance of this spirit is that of a 5 or 6 year child with bobbed hair and a red face...

: The ghosts of children, often mischievous rather than dangerous.
Samurai
Samurai
is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...

Ghosts: Veterans of the Genpei War
Genpei War
The was a conflict between the Taira and Minamoto clans during the late-Heian period of Japan. It resulted in the fall of the Taira clan and the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate under Minamoto Yoritomo in 1192....

who fell in battle. Warrior Ghosts almost exclusively appear in Noh Theater
Noh
, or - derived from the Sino-Japanese word for "skill" or "talent" - is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Many characters are masked, with men playing male and female roles. Traditionally, a Noh "performance day" lasts all day and...

. Unlike most other yūrei, these ghosts are usually shown with legs.
Seductress Ghosts: The ghost of a woman or man who initiates a post-death love affair with a living human, as seen in Botan Dōrō
Botan Doro
Botan Dōrō is a Japanese ghost story that is both romantic and horrific. It involves sex with the dead and the consequences of loving a ghost.It is sometimes known as Kaidan Botan Dōrō, based on the kabuki version of the story...

.

Buddhist Ghosts

There are two types of ghosts specific to 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...

, both being examples of unfullfilled earthly hungers being carried on after death. They are different from other classifications of yūrei due to their wholly religious nature.

Gaki
Jikininki
Jikininki
In Japanese Buddhism, jikininki are the spirits of greedy, selfish or impious individuals who are cursed after death to seek out and eat human corpses. They do this at night, scavenging for newly dead bodies and food offerings left for the dead...

Ikiryō

In Japanese folklore, not only the dead are able to manifest their reikon for a haunting. Living creatures possessed by extraordinary jealousy or rage can release their spirit as an ikiryō

Ikiryo

In Japanese mythology, an is a manifestation of the soul of a living person separately from their body....

生き霊, a living ghost that can enact its will while still alive.

The most famous example of an ikiryo is Rokujo no Miyasundokoro, from the novel The Tale of Genji
The Tale of Genji
is a classic work of Japanese literature attributed to the Japanese noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11th century, around the peak of the Heian period. It is sometimes called the world's first novel, the first modern novel, the first psychological novel or the first novel still to be...

.

Obake

Yūrei often fall under the general umbrella term of obake

Obake

and are a class of yōkai, preternatural creatures in Japanese folklore. Literally, the terms mean a thing that changes, referring to a state of transformation or shapeshifting....

, derived from the verb bakeru, meaning "to change"; thus obake are preternatural beings who have undergone some sort of change, from the natural realm to the supernatural.

However, Kunio Yanagita

Kunio Yanagita

was a Japanese scholar who is often known as the father of Japanese native folkloristics, or minzokugaku.He was born in Fukusaki, Hyōgo Prefecture. After graduating with a degree in law from Tokyo Imperial University, he became employed as a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce...

, one of Japan's earliest and foremost folklorists, made a clear distinction between yūrei and obake in his seminal Yokaidangi (妖怪談義; Lectures on Monsters). He claimed that yūrei haunt a particular person, while obake haunt a particular place.

When looking at typical kaidan

Kaidan

, this does not appear to be true. Yūrei such as Okiku

Bancho Sarayashiki

is a Japanese ghost story of love separated by social class, broken trust and broken promises, leading to a dismal fate.The story of Okiku and the Nine Plates is one of the most famous in Japanese folklore, and continues to resonate with audiences today....

haunt a particular place — in Okiku's case, the well where she died — and continue to do so long after the person who killed them has died.

Hauntings

Yūrei do not wander at random, but generally stay near a specific location, such as where they were killed or where their body lies, or follow a specific person, such as their murderer, or a beloved. They usually appear between 2 and 3 a.m, the witching hour

Witching hour

The witching hour is a the time of day when supernatural creatures such as witches, demons and ghosts are thought to appear and be at their most powerful, and black magic at its most effective...

for Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, when the veils between the world of the dead and the world of the living are at their thinnest.

Yūrei will continue to haunt that particular person or place until their purpose is fulfilled, and they can move on to the afterlife

Afterlife

. However, some particularly strong yūrei, specifically onryō who are consumed by vengeance, continue to haunt long after their killers have been brought to justice.

Famous hauntings

Some famous locations that are said to be haunted by yūrei are the well of Himeji Castle

Himeji Castle

When the han feudal system was abolished in 1871, Himeji Castle was put up for auction. The castle was purchased by a Himeji resident for 23 Japanese yen...

, haunted by the ghost of Okiku

Bancho Sarayashiki

, and Aokigahara

Aokigahara

, also known as the , is a 35 km2 forest that lies at the north west base of Mount Fuji in Japan. The forest contains a number of rocky, icy caverns, a few of which are popular tourist destinations....

, the forest at the bottom of Mt. Fuji, which is a popular location for suicide. A particularly powerful onryō, Oiwa

Yotsuya Kaidan

Yotsuya Kaidan , the story of Oiwa and Tamiya Iemon, is a tale of betrayal, murder and ghostly revenge. Arguably the most famous Japanese ghost story of all time, it has been adapted for film over 30 times, and continues to be an influence on Japanese horror today.Written in 1825 by Tsuruya Nanboku...

, is said to be able to bring vengeance on any actress portraying her part in a theater or film adaptation.

Exorcism

The easiest way to exorcise a yūrei is to help it fulfill its purpose. When the reason for the strong emotion binding the spirit to Earth is gone, the yūrei is satisfied and can move on. Traditionally, this is accomplished by family members enacting revenge upon the yūrei's slayer, or when the ghost consummates its passion/love with its intended lover, or when its remains are discovered and given a proper burial with all rites performed.

The emotions of the onryō are particularly strong, and they are the least likely to be pacified by these methods.

On occasion, Buddhist priests and mountain ascetics

Yamabushi

' are Japanese mountain ascetic hermits with a long tradition as mighty warriors endowed with supernatural powers. They follow the Shugendō doctrine, an integration of mainly esoteric Buddhism of the Shingon sect, with Tendai and Shinto elements...

were hired to perform services on those whose unusual or unfortunate deaths could result in their transition into a vengeful ghost, a practice similar to exorcism

Exorcism

Exorcism is the religious practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed...

. Sometimes these ghosts would be deified

Tenjin (kami)

In Japanese mythology and folklore, is the Shinto kami of scholarship, the deification of a scholar, poet, and politician named Sugawara no Michizane. Ten means sky and jin means god or deity...

in order to placate their spirits.

Like many monsters of Japanese folklore

Japanese folklore

, malicious yūrei are repelled by , holy Shinto writings containing the name of a kami

Kami

is the Japanese word for the spirits, natural forces, or essence in the Shinto faith. Although the word is sometimes translated as "god" or "deity", some Shinto scholars argue that such a translation can cause a misunderstanding of the term...

. The ofuda must generally be placed on the yūrei's forehead to banish the spirit, although they can be attached to a house's entry ways to prevent the yūrei from entering.

Japanese afterlife

Appearance

Yūrei

Buddhist Ghosts

Ikiryō

Obake

Hauntings

Famous hauntings

Exorcism

See also