Reporter | Chen Jiajing Edit | Yellow Moon
In Japanese legend, where yokai live and where humans live overlap spatially, it's just that humans are active during the day and yokai appear at night. Whenever night comes, many strangely shaped monsters are like the ranks of the temple fair, walking on the empty road with either vicious or kind faces, known as the "Hundred Ghosts Nocturnal Walk". In the Japanese animated film "Changeable Tanuki", Tanuki organizes a huge "Hundred Ghosts Nocturnal Walk" through illusion, which amazes pedestrians passing by in the city; in Miyazaki's masterpiece "Spirited Away", Chihiro also inadvertently breaks into the world of The Hidden, witnessing the yokai haunting the food street and hot spring town, living a lively life like humans.
Early fear of nature and uneasiness about the unknown were the source of monsters. In Japan, which believes in "eight million gods," the term "yokai" not only encompasses what we often call "gods," "ghosts," and "monsters," but also all supernatural attributes that humans have not yet been able to explain. Yanagida Kunio, the founder of Japanese folklore, believes that the biggest feature of Japanese yokai is that it has two sides, good and evil can be transformed into each other, and whether they bring good or bad to humans depends on human attitudes. Today, the Japanese people's interest in yokai has been integrated into daily life and has become part of Japanese folk culture, and the image and legends of yokai have become a source of inspiration for creators of literature, painting, film and television, and games.
It is worth mentioning that the image of the monster that is now known to people is no longer as awe-inspiring as it was in ancient times, but is becoming more and more entertaining - either with the help of modern high-tech to create a terrifying effect, or with the image of a pure and cute elf. How did this shift happen? Why did the ancient yokai culture continue to this day? Recently, the first exhibition in China with the theme of "Japanese Yokai Culture", "Ikusumi Ukiyo-no-Mitsui: YOKAI of Japan", opened in Beijing, starting with the ukiyo-e yokai paintings of the Edo period, leading the audience to trace the evolution of the Japanese yokai image. At the scene, the audience will enjoy the charm of many "famous demons" such as Tamamo-mae, Tengu, Sakata Boy, Ibaraki Boy, Kiyoshi, etc., and learn how the image and status of yokai have changed with the changes in Japanese social history. Interpreted by ukiyo-e masters such as Katsushika Hokusai, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, and Yoshinen Tsukioka, these yokai paintings not only promoted the popularity of yokai culture in Japan, but also became a unique landscape in ukiyo-e.
In ancient times, the Japanese people believed in the legend of "eight million gods". At that time, people were closely related to nature, and many unexplained events fermented in their hearts through horror emotions, becoming "monsters" or "gods" of word of mouth. The origin of Japanese yokai can be traced back to the Jomon period (about 5500-4500 years ago), when gods and yokai were one and the same, and those who were beneficial to people became gods, and those who were harmful to people became yokai. It was not until the Asuka period (592-710) that Japan introduced Chinese characters from China on a large scale and used Chinese characters as phonetic marks to express the Japanese language, and oral stories finally had original recorded texts.
At the beginning of the Nara period (710-794), the Nihon Shoki, compiled by Emperor Tenmu, for the first time appeared in the legends of gods and monsters such as the god Amaterasu, the great serpent of Yagi, and the earth spider. However, at that time, they were not called "monsters", but wrote "demons", "monsters" or "foreign objects". During this period, the records of Japanese yokai completed the transition from oral stories to texts, but their figurative records are still not specific. Writers often portray monsters as heroes, making them heroic legends.
By the Heian period (794-1192), natural and man-made disasters continued in Japan. The contradictions between the imperial court and the aristocratic forces intensified day by day, resulting in a huge gap between the rich and the poor in society, and the people at the bottom of the people were panicked and their lives were ruined. Under the political demands of all parties and the low-pressure psychology of the people, "monsters" have become the reason for the world to become darker and darker. Yokai are defined as beings in the same space as people, and people live carefully for fear of offending some taboo and provoking revenge on ghosts, and yokai are gradually transformed into a tangible belief in the hearts of the people.
In order to fight these monsters, the Heian period not only gave birth to an "official" demon removal team, the Yin-Yang Division, which was subordinate to the yin-yang liao under the jurisdiction of Emperor Tianmu's government, but also imported the ghost-catching master "Zhong Kui" from China. Zhong Kui is a Taoist immortal in Chinese folklore who specializes in fighting ghosts and exorcising evil spirits, in addition to the job of fighting ghosts and exorcising evil spirits, Zhong Kui, who crossed to Japan from the east, was also given the role of eliminating diseases and helping his studies. This atmosphere provided imagination and material for many literary creations at that time, such as "The Tale of Genji", "The Tale of Present and Past", and "The Tale of Japanese Spirits". Because of this, the Heian period was known as the flourishing period of Japanese yokai culture, and the term "yokai" first appeared in the "Continuation of the Nihon Chronicle" and the "Honjo Literature". Tengu, Wraith, Kiyohime, etc. were among the most widely known beings among the youkai of the Heian period.
During the Kamakura period (1192-1333), Japan gradually resumed cultural exchanges with the Song Dynasty of China. Influenced by Buddhism in the Song Dynasty, religious scrolls have new contents and techniques, and "scrolls" with social backgrounds and storylines are born. There are only a few early paintings that are related to yokai, and the content mainly depicts the process of the yokai from appearance to surrender, and the god who surrenders the yokai is the protagonist of the scroll. During the Muromachi period (1333-1573), under the influence of Zen Buddhism and Song and Yuan culture, Japan's cultural climate was changing with each passing day, and the tendency of the people of culture and the spread of culture to the local area gradually became a trend, and a unique "culture of the people" was born. This period was also a key period in the development of Japanese yokai culture, and yokai appeared on a large scale in scrolls and picture books, and the distance between yokai and people became closer, and began to develop human-like postures, emotions and appeals.
The classic scroll "Hyakugo Nocturnal Scroll" (Daitokuji Makotoku-an version), which is known as "influencing Japanese yokai painting", was ordered to be painted by the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa Yoshimasa's fumito minister, Tosa Mitsunobu, and was extremely popular at the time. In this picture scroll, the yokai who are mainly "paying the god of mourning" travel in groups, and the momentum is huge, and the yokai are endowed with humanity and have more people's appearance characteristics, which has a great impact on the image drawing of later generations. Tosa Mitsunobu thus became the founding father of Japanese yokai painting. Later, the appearance of Miga Kusiko (a literary subject for the commoner class in the Muromachi period in Japan) more or less weakened the fear of yokai in people's hearts, and the entertainment of yokai accelerated. Famous characters such as Sakata, Ibaraki, Tamakimae, and Kintaro appeared one after another.
Although Japanese yokai had already "manifested" in paintings before the Edo period, they entered the public eye as independent identities of "names and surnames", but they spread through the form of ukiyo-e in the Edo period. The Edo period (1603-1868) was an era of conflict. On the one hand, the social and economic prosperity and development, the people's material and spiritual quality of life have improved; on the other hand, the people are caught in the turbulent political system under the strict rule of the shogunate and the impact of Western culture, and they have strong uncertainty about the future. The monster became the outlet for the people of this period to relieve their depression, and its positioning changed from an uncontrollable product of nature to a role that reflected the current state of the human world.
As the nature of horror is weakened, yokai become an entertaining existence created artificially to "enjoy horror", throughout the medium of literature, painting, drama, and artifacts. There is also a strange party game called "Hundred Things" in Japanese folklore: on summer nights, people will gather in the dark room to light a hundred candles, tell yokai stories in turn, tell a story to blow out a candle, and legend has it that blowing out the last candle will have a yokai appear. At the same time, the term "ukiyo- " also became popular during this period , to describe the glitzy but nibbly earthly world. As a form of painting depicting ukiyo-e life, stories and legends, ukiyo-e began to rise in the folk, and formed a boom in buying and collecting through the popularization of engraving and printing technology. Yokai, which represent the culture of the common people, are naturally combined with ukiyo-e and have become a highly regarded subject.
The first painter to integrate the story of "Hundred Things" into ukiyo-e was Katsushika Hokusai, who was good at visualizing ghosts, and his ghosts were both terrifying and funny, and there was a hint of sadness in his eyes. Yoshinen Tsukioka's "Wakhan Hundred Tales" is also a very representative ukiyo-e yokai painting, this set of works is based on the bizarre stories of Japan and China, and the yokai legends are outlined in bright lines. In addition, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, KazunaKusai, Toyohara Kunisei and other ukiyo-e masters have left wonderful yokai paintings, and the image and personality of yokai they have created have greatly expanded people's understanding of yokai.
In terms of strength, Tamamo Mae (nine-tailed fox) can be regarded as the first of the Japanese demons. In Japanese legend, she not only had the ability to seduce Emperor Toba and seek power step by step, but also successfully escaped after being recognized by the yin-yang master Abe, and single-handedly destroyed the Japanese emperor's 100,000-strong army, almost destroying Japan. In Japan, the earliest records of Tamamo mae date back to the early Muromachi period, when Tamamae was not yet a nine-tailed demon fox, only two tails, but appeared as the image of the legendary fox spirit, which has nothing to do with the Chinese "nine-tailed demon fox" Daiji. It was not until the Edo period when Takai Ranzan's "The Legend of the Three Kingdoms Demon Woman" and Okada Tamasa's "Picture Book Tamamo Tan" were released, that Japan began to combine Tamamo mae with Chinese and Indian historical mythological figures, and gradually formed a more comprehensive identity setting about Tamamo Mae.
In addition to Tamamo mae, the Great Tengu and The Sake Boy are also well-known demons in Japan, and they are listed together as the "Three Evil Monsters of Japan". According to the Tengu Sutra of the mid-Edo period, there were as many as 125,500 tengu in Japan, of which 48 were tengu with outstanding abilities and names, and eight were higher-ranking tengu, collectively known as the Great Tengu. The Great Tengu is regarded as a god-like being and is sacrificed by people. Most of them are tall, with a long nose, dressed in monk's robes, high-toothed clogs, armed with lupines and gavels, and live in the mountains.
Yoshinori Tsukioka's painting "Within the Snow Moon Flower" shows the scene of a man and a tengu together. The painting is based on the theme of "The Legend of the Encounter between Uwahamaru and Benkei on the Gojo Bridge", the young name of the legendary Japanese hero Genyō, who is said to have been sent to Kurama-ji Temple to study when he was 7 years old, and one night he sneaked out of the temple and met one of the great tengu of martial arts, "Kuramayama Monk Shobo", after which Uwamaru often traveled to the Great Tengu at night to learn martial arts. One day, on his way back to the temple, he was passing through the Gojo Bridge when he met a martial monk who called himself Banqing of Musashifang, and the two engaged in a fierce competition. Yoshinori Tsukioka depicts the two fighting, surrounded by eight large tengu with names.
The Sake Swallow Boy is a very popular yokai in Japan. Legend has it that when he was a child, the drunken boy was extremely intelligent, had extraordinary strength, and had a rough temper, and was regarded as a "ghost child" by the people around him. When he grows up, the drunken boy has a handsome appearance, so he is favored by many women and jealous of many men. These infatuations and jealousies turned into resentment that surrounded him for a long time, turning him into an evil ghost. After traveling from place to place to commit evil, he settled in Dajiangshan and became the leader of a group of evil spirits, among whom was the famous Ibaraki Boy. This group of evil spirits went around plundering treasures and killing women, alarming the emperor at that time. In the end, the drunken boy was poured with poisonous wine by the "Four Heavenly Kings of Lai Guang" and beheaded. This famous scene of "killing the sake swallowing the boy" is also the classic theme of various miga kusanagi and ukiyo-e, in Utagawa Yoshihito's "Oyasaku Sake Swallowing Retreat", the picture is strongly colored, and the painter depicts the faded human form and vicious face of the sake swallowing boy into three points, which increases the form of killing.
It can be said that the widespread popularity of Japanese yokai culture is largely due to the large number of ukiyo-e and engraved copies. Since then, cute yokai that have been characterized have also appeared in double six and cards, and this "not terrible yokai" has continued into modern times and has been applied to everyday objects such as kimonos, belts, pendants and other folk-related designs. Nowadays, yokai have become one of the elements of Japanese culture that cannot be ignored. Legends of yokai still circulate in the urban countryside, and the temples and temples that can be seen everywhere in Japan always show that in addition to the rational world of man, there are also incredible spaces in parallel. In Himeji Castle, a World Heritage Site in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, you can still find the ancient well where the ghost "Aju" who committed suicide by jumping into the well in "Hundred Stories" committed suicide, and there is also a "Kiku Shrine" in Himeji City that worships Aju; another famous wraith "A-am" in "Hyakuto" who was poisoned by her husband is also considered to be a de facto figure, and the Yuwa Inarida Shrine in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, is one of the shrines dedicated to A-am.
Before the birth of the human imagination, were there really monsters? This question may be insoluble after all, but the metaphors and charms of the monsters undoubtedly continue in the human world, inspiring human imagination of mysterious things.
Resources:
"Japan Monster Museum I.", by Hiroichi Yumoto, translated by Pan Li, Tianjin People's Publishing House, 2019-08.
"Monster Nation" Japan: How to Educate the Soul in the World of the Gods Retreating? Shanghai Review of Books, https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/6ccV4RKx_nPthmkRBSjazA
The Japanese monster exhibition "Light of the Living and The Ukiyo: YOKAI of Japan" will be held at the 798 Art Factory in beijing's 798 Art District and will last until August 31.