Mikaribaba (箕借り婆) is a

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 a one-eyed old woman in stories and customs of the

Kantō region The is a geographical area of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. In a common definition, the region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures: Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba and Kanagawa. Slight ...

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Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...

and Kawasaki,

Kanagawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kana ...

, the

Chiba Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Chiba Prefecture has a population of 6,278,060 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Chiba Prefecture borders Ibaraki Prefecture to the north, Saitama Prefecture to the ...

, and

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

etc., they would visit people's homes on the eighth day of the 12th month and the eighth day of the second month on the lunisolar calendar, and they are said to borrow sieves and human's eyes. They are said to visit people's home together with a

hitotsume-kozō ''Hitotsume-kozō'' (一つ目小僧) are a ''Yōkai'' (supernatural apparition) of Japan that take on the appearance of a bald-headed child with one eye in the center of its forehead similar to a cyclops. Summary They generally do not cause any ...

.。 In order to avoid a mikaribaba, one would leave a

basket A basket is a container that is traditionally constructed from stiff fibers and can be made from a range of materials, including wood splints, runners, and cane. While most baskets are made from plant materials, other materials such as horsehai ...

zaru A is generally a flat or shallow basket made from bamboo used in the preparation and presentation of Japanese cuisine. It also has variations made of plastic or metal similar to a strainer, sieve or colander. ''Zaru'' are air dried after use ...

at the entrance of the home, and it is said to be effective to put the tip of a rod into the bamboo basket and make it stand on the ridge of the house's roof. It is said that this is in order to make the one-eyed mikaribaba make it seem like as if there were plenty of eyes (stitches). At the Ura no Yato, Toriyama town, Kōhoku-ku,

, an avaricious mikaribaba would even come to collect grains of rice that have fallen on the ground, and would cause fires due to the fire in its mouth. In order to avoid this, there is the custom of making a dango called the "tsujoo dango" made from the rice left over from the garden, and put it in the doorway, as a means of saying that there is no more rice to collect. On the eighth day of the 12th month and the eighth day of the second month on the lunisolar calendar, there is a folk practice called Kotoyōka, and in the past, there were many regions where people would not do any work and confine themselves in their homes. In the southern part of Chiba Prefecture, on the 26th day of the 11th month of the lunisolar calendar, as a period of about 10 days of seclusion in the home called "mikawari" or "mikari," when it would be taboo to go outside at night or enter the mountains and spend the time in the home quickly avoiding any big noise, lights, hairdressing, or entering bath. Outside of the Kantō region, at Nishinomiya Shrine in the

Hyōgo Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Hyōgo Prefecture has a population of 5,469,762 () and has a geographic area of . Hyōgo Prefecture borders Kyoto Prefecture to the east, Osaka Prefecture to the southeast, an ...

and Kito,

Tokushima Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Tokushima Prefecture has a population of 728,633 (1 October 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,146 km2 (1,601 sq mi). Tokushima Prefecture borders Kagawa Prefecture to the north, E ...

(now Naka), there is a practice of confinement to the house before the festival called "mikari." Rituals like these of secluding oneself in the home have been interpreted as seclusion at home due the appearance of a monster, and it is thought that those monsters are the mikaribaba and the hitotsume-kozō. It is also said that "mikari" comes from "mikawari" (身変わり), indicating a time different from usual when one observes the practice of confinement at home.

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