' is a Japanese ''

yōkai are a class of supernatural entities and spirits in Japanese folklore. The word is composed of the kanji for "attractive; calamity" and "apparition; mystery; suspicious." are also referred to as , or . Despite often being translated as suc ...

'' of ''

chōchin The traditional lighting equipment of Japan includes the , the , the , and the . The is a lamp consisting of paper stretched over a frame of bamboo, wood or metal. The paper protected the flame from the wind. Burning oil in a stone, metal, ...

'' (a type of lantern), ''" helantern-spook (chochinobake) ... a stock character in the pantheon of ghouls and earned mention in the definitive demonology of 1784."'' They can also be called simply ''chōchin'', ''bake-chōchin'', ''obake-chōchin'', and ''chōchin-kozō''. They appear in the ''

kusazōshi is a term that covers various genres of popular woodblock-printed illustrated literature during the Japanese Edo period (1600–1868) and early Meiji period. These works were published in the city of Edo (modern Tokyo). In its widest sense, th ...

'', '' omocha-e'', and ''

karuta are Japanese playing cards. Playing cards were introduced to Japan by Portuguese traders during the mid-16th century. These early decks were used for trick-taking games. The earliest indigenous ''karuta'' was invented in the town of Miike in C ...

'' card games like '' obake karuta'' starting from the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

to the early 20th century (and still in use today), as well as in Meiji and Taishō toys, children's books, and haunted house attractions.

Description

An old ''chōchin'' would split upwards and downwards, and the part that got split would become a mouth and stick out a long tongue, and the ''chōchin obake'' is commonly considered not to have one eye in its upper half, but two. Sometimes, the ''chōchin'' would also grow a face, hands, a torso, and wings. In pictures from the Edo Period, both bucket-shaped and cylindrical ''chōchin'' were depicted. In the ''

Gazu Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro is the fourth book in Japanese artist Toriyama Sekien's famous ''Gazu Hyakki Yagyō'' tetralogy. A version of the tetralogy translated and annotated in English was published in 2016. The title is a pun; "hyakki", normally written with the characte ...

'' by ''

Sekien Toriyama 200px, A Mikoshi-nyūdō, specifically a Miage-nyūdō, as portrayed by Toriyama">Miage-nyūdō.html" ;"title="Mikoshi-nyūdō, specifically a Miage-nyūdō">Mikoshi-nyūdō, specifically a Miage-nyūdō, as portrayed by Toriyama , real name Sano ...

'', a lantern-shaped ''yōkai'' under the name of " bura-bura" was depicted. They are also known from ''ukiyo-e'' such as

Katsushika Hokusai , known simply as Hokusai, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. He is best known for the woodblock print series '' Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji'', which includes the iconic print ''The Great W ...

's "Oiwa-san" from the ''

One Hundred Ghost Stories ''One Hundred Ghost Stories'' (, ''Hyaku monogatari'') is a series of ukiyo-e woodblock prints made by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) in the Yūrei-zu genre circa 1830. He created this series around the same time he was creating his most famous wo ...

'', and

Utagawa Kuniyoshi Utagawa Kuniyoshi ( ja, 歌川国芳, ; January 1, 1798 – April 14, 1861) was one of the last great masters of the Japanese ukiyo-e style of woodblock prints and painting.Nussbaum, Louis Frédéric ''et al'' (2005). "Kuniyoshi" in He was a ...

's "Kamiya Iemon Oiwa no Bōkon" from the Edo Period and beyond. These were inspired by the ''kabuki'', the '' Tōkaidō Yotsuya Kaidan'' (1825), in which the spirit of Oiwa, who was killed by Kamiya Iemon, was performed displaying itself from a ''chōchin'' (which was called ''chōchin-nuke''), and as well as another performance in which a ''chōchin'' had a human face, the ''Kasane ga Fuchi Satemo Sono Nochi'' () (in 1825, at the Nakamura-za among other places), so these were called ''chōchin-oiwa''. Among ''emakimono'' that depict many ''yōkai'' of tools, there is the '' Hyakki Yagyō Emaki'', but there have been no ''chōchin'' found in older works before the Edo Period. Examples of works after the Edo Period include the ''Hyakki Yagyō no Zu'' () by Kanō Jōshin. 湯本豪一『百鬼夜行絵巻―妖怪たちが騒ぎだす』

小学館 is a Japanese publisher of dictionaries, literature, comics (manga), non-fiction, DVDs, and other media in Japan. Shogakukan founded Shueisha, which also founded Hakusensha. These are three separate companies, but are together called the Hitot ...

2005年 The Chōchin-obake in particular was created from a

lantern composed of ''"bamboo and paper or silk"''.Bakechochin, 57. They are portrayed with ''"one eye, and a long tongue protruding from an open mouth"''.

Oral legends

Although they are a famous yōkai, it is said that there are almost no legends in any area that are about this, so in yōkai-related literature they are classified as a "yōkai that exist only in pictures." It is also commonly believed that they were created as a story for entertaining children. The yōkai comic artist

Mizuki Shigeru was a Japanese manga artist and historian, best known for his manga series ''GeGeGe no Kitarō''. Born in a hospital in Osaka and raised in the city of Sakaiminato, Tottori, he later moved to Chōfu, Tokyo where he remained until his death ...

published a story about how a chōchin-obake would surprise people and suck out their souls, but it did not cite any primary sources. Also, Yōkai considered to be chōchin in the legends are often described as atmospheric ghost lights like

chōchinbi Chōchinbi (提灯火) is a type of onibi, told in legends in each area of Japan. Overview It is said to appear in footpaths between rice fields, floating about one meter above the ground, disappearing when humans get close to it.多田克己『� ...

rather than as the tool itself. In an old story from the

Yamagata Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Yamagata Prefecture has a population of 1,079,950 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 9,325 km² (3,600 sq mi). Yamagata Prefecture borders Akita Prefecture to the north, ...

: at a shrine with an aged chōchin, a chōchin-obake would appear and frighten humans. The obake would no longer appear after the chōchin was put away.

Description

Oral legends

See also

Notes

Further reading