is a mountain god, spirit, and

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 ...

Japanese folklore Japanese folklore encompasses the informally learned folk traditions of Japan and the Japanese people as expressed in its oral traditions, customs, and material culture. In Japanese, the term is used to describe folklore. The academic study o ...

. Literally translated, "yamabiko" means "echo". It is the

responsible for the natural phenomenon in mountains or canyons. Living deep in the mountains, direct encounters with the yamabiko are rare. Often they are heard, but never seen. The small and elusive yokai wasn't officially classified until 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 characte ...

in Japan. Instead the bizarre noises coming from the mountain were attributed to a natural phenomenon, like birds, and not given any spiritual significance. It is usually depicted with gray fur, peach-colored belly, floppy ears, large grin, and arms outstretched as though it is caught mid-shrug.

Mythology

The yamabiko is a small creature that resembles a cross between a

dog The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is derived from the extinct Pleistocene wolf, and the modern wolf is the dog's nearest living relative. Do ...

and a monkey. The term "yamabiko" is also used to describe the phenomenon of a delayed echo in mountains and valleys, and is thought to be the spirit answering. In this case, it is written as 幽谷響. This anomaly is also sometimes called "kodama", when it is thought to be the answering voice of a

tree spirit A tree deity or tree spirit is a nature deity related to a tree. Such deities are present in many cultures. They are usually represented as a young woman, often connected to ancient fertility and tree worship lore.Heinrich Zimmer, ''Myths and Sym ...

(木霊 or 木魂).

Legends by area

In Tottori,

Tottori Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Tottori Prefecture is the least populous prefecture of Japan at 570,569 (2016) and has a geographic area of . Tottori Prefecture borders Shimane Prefecture to the west, Hiro ...

, a or a that lives in the mountain is thought to give out the yamabiko's voice. In Kusuyama of Hashikami village, Hata District,

Kōchi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Kōchi Prefecture has a population of 757,914 (1 December 2011) and has a geographic area of 7,103 km2 (2,742 sq mi). Kōchi Prefecture borders Ehime Prefecture to the northwest and ...

(now Sukumo), regardless of whether it was day or night, when a sudden dreadful voice is heard deep in the mountains, this strange phenomenon is called "yamahiko". They are sometimes seen to be the same as the yamawaro, spoken of in Western Japan, as well as the yamako in the

Wakan Sansai Zue The is an illustrated Japanese ''leishu'' encyclopedia published in 1712 in the Edo period. It consists of 105 volumes in 81 books. Its compiler was Terashima or Terajima (), a doctor from Osaka. It describes and illustrates various activiti ...

, and as it is thought that tree spirits would cause yamabiko to occur, they are also seen to be the same as the yōkai

penghou The Penghou (, pronounced ʰə̌ŋ.xǒʊ literally: "drumbeat marquis") is a tree spirit from Chinese mythology and folklore. Two Chinese classics record similar versions of the Penghou myth. The (c. 3rd century) ''Baize tu'' (白澤圖, "Diag ...

that lives in trees. In collections of yōkai depictions like the

Hyakkai Zukan is a picture scroll by Edo period Japanese artist Sawaki Suushi. Completed in 1737, this scroll is a supernatural bestiary, a collections of ghosts, spirits and monsters (Yōkai), which Suushi based on literature, folklore, other artwork. These ...

and the

Gazu Hyakki Yagyō is the first book of Japanese artist Toriyama Sekien's famous ''Gazu Hyakki Yagyō'' e-hon tetralogy, published in 1776. A version of the tetralogy translated and annotated in English was published in 2016. Although the title translates to "The ...

, the yamabiko that looks like a dog is thought to be based on the yamako or the penghou. The aforementioned yobukodori of Tottori is said to take on the appearance of a bird, and other than that, there is also a small rock mountain in Kitaazumi District, Nagano Prefecture called the "yamabiko rock" that return people's words, among other appearances of the word "yamabiko", and thus it can be seen that the yamabiko as yōkai are not uniform in either origin or what kind of yōkai they are.

References

{{Japanese folklore long Yōkai

Mythology

Legends by area

See also

References