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Ubume

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the Chinese equivalent, see Guhuoniao.
Ubume うぶめ from Bakemono no e (化物之繪, c. 1700), Harry F. Bruning Collection of Japanese Books and Manuscripts, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.

Ubume (Japanese: 産女) are Japanese yōkai of pregnant women.[1] They can also be written as 憂婦女鳥. Throughout folk stories and literature the identity and appearance of ubume varies. However, she is most commonly depicted as the spirit of a woman who has died during childbirth. Passersby will see her as a normal-looking woman carrying a baby. She will typically try to give the passerby her child then disappear.[2] When the person goes to look at the child in their arms, they discover it is only a bundle of leaves or large rock.[3]

Etymology

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Some Japanese sources coopt the Chinese name 姑獲鳥 (pinyin: gu huo niao, lit. "lady capturing-bird", translated as "wench bird"[4])[a] and read it Japanese style as "ubume"[5] or "ubumedori".[6]

From Chinese sources (cf. § Bencao Gangmu below), Japanese learned men learned that this "wench bird" had the characteristic that "in front of their chest they have two breasts" (or rather "a pair of teats/mammaries"[b]).[4]

Thus the creature's name is also styled 乳母鳥 (ubame, "wetnurse bird"), with the explanation that the bird breastfeeds the child it kidnaps,[c] and because it is like a menoto/uba (乳母; "wetnurse, nursemaid") it is called a ubame (乳母女; "nursemaid-woman").[7]

An alternate kanji representation gives it another meaning of 産鳥 (ubume,[d] "birthing bird").[7]

The term ubume originally was the name for a kind of small sea fish, according to American missionary Hepburn's guesswork.[8]

Attestations

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An image of ubume as depicted by Toriyama Sekien.[5]

Konjaku Monogatarishū

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Stories about ubume have been told in Japan since at least the 12th century,[9] in the Konjaku Monogatarishū, where a samurai (Urabe no Suetake[3][e]) encounters a woman (ubume (産女)) at the riverbank who asks him to hold her child. She demands her child back and when the samurai refused, it turned into a bundle of leaves.[5][10]

Kokon hyakumonogatari hyōban

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They are also mentioned in the Hyakumonogatari Hyōban [ja]:[11] "When a woman loses her life in childbirth, her spiritual attachment[f] itself becomes this ghost. In form, it is soaked in blood from the waist down and wanders about crying, 'Be born! Be born!' (obareu, obareu; をばれう)".[10][2]

Kii Zōdan Shū

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The Kii Zōdan Shū[12] explains that "when a woman wanting a child (for a long time), gets pregnant by chance, but dies in difficult labor or delivery, her soul becomes so obsessed[g] it transforms into a bird, flies by night, and captures other people's children".[7]

Bencao Gangmu

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Main article: Guhuoniao

The Compendium of Materia Medica (Bencao gangmu) gives entry on the Chinese equivalent gu huo niao (姑獲鳥, "wench bird"),[4] which goes by various other names such as the ru mu niao (乳母鳥 "mother's milk bird").[h][4][14]

It is stated in this work that "they [the wench birds] are transformations of women who died giving birth"[15] which is also stated with slightly different phrasing[i] in the Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang from the Tang dynasty.[16] (Further information: Guhuoniao).

Wakan sansai zue

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Kokakuchō (姑獲鳥, or 夜行遊女, "night-going leisure woman") from the Wakan Sansai Zue by Terajima Ryōan [ja][6]

The Japanese encyclopedia Wakan Sansai Zue also has an entry on it (cf. § Wakan Sansai Zue below)[6][5]

The encyclopedia records that according to the local legend of the people of Kyushu, Japan, the ubume is a bird that resembles the gull in appearance and voice and it tends to show up on a pitch-black night of light rain. The spot where the bird appears, there is usually "phosphor fire" (eerie flame, like a will-o'-the-wisp). It is said to shapeshift into a human woman accompanied by a child, and whoever encounters this should beware of fleeing from fright, lest the creature will cause chill-shivers and high fever, which can even be fatal. However, if a stalwart man accepts the favor and carries the child, he will come to no harm.[6][17]

Other Japanese lore

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In Ibaraki Prefecture, there is a similar legend concerning a yōkai called the ubametori[19] which flies by night, and when it spots children's clothing hung dry, it imagines would think of the child as their own, and mark the clothes with its milk, which is said to be poisonous.[20][21][18]

This "ubametori" of Ibaraki bears close similarity with the kokakuchō i.e. guhuoniao the "wench bird" of China, and the folklore probably derives from Chinese scholarship, introduced by some Japanese person with learning.[22][23][24]

By other names

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Ubume in Hinoemata, Minamiaizu District and Kaneyama, Ōnuma District, Fukushima Prefecture were called "obo". It is said that when they encounter someone, they make that person hug a baby and then disappear in peace and the one hugging the baby will have their throat bitten by the baby. It is said that when one encounters an obo, one should throw a piece of cloth, such as a string with a billhook attached for men, or an okoso [zukin] (御高祖[頭巾]; type of headdress or hood), tenugui, or a yumaki (a type of waistcloth for women) at it, thus diverting the obo's attention for an opportunity to escape. It is also said that if one does end up hugging the baby, hugging the baby with its face turned the other way will prevent one from being bitten.[25][26] Also, the obo (like "ubu" in "ubume" ) is originally a dialect term referring to newborns.[25] In Yanaizu, Kawanuma District in the same Fukushima Prefecture, there is a legend concerning the obo daki kannnon (おぼ抱き観音; "obo hugging Kannon") who asked a man to hold her child (obo) while she did her hair, and after he complied, he received a stack of mochi made of gold as reward.[18]

In the Nishimatsuura District, Saga Prefecture and in Miyamachi Miyaji, Aso, Kumamoto Prefecture, they are called "ugume" and it is said that they appear at night and they would make people embrace a baby a night, but when dawn comes, they would generally be a rock, a stone tower, or a straw beater.[27][28] (A type of funayūrei ("ship ghost") called "ugume" is known on Goshoura Island [ja] in Kumamoto Prefecture,[29] as well as Ojika Island [ja], one of the Gotō Islands, in Nagasaki Prefecture[29]).

On Iki Island (Nagasaki Prefecture), they are called "unme" or "uume" and they occur when a young person dies or when a woman dies from difficult childbirth, and they would sway back and forth before disappearing, having the appearance of a creepy blue light.[30]

In Iwaki Province, now Fukushima Prefecture and Miyagi Prefecture, it is said that the ryūtō [ja] ("dragon lantern"; an atmospheric ghost light said to be lit by a dragon spirit) would appear at beaches and try to come up to land, but it is said that this is because an ubume is carrying a ryūtō to the shore.[31] In Kitaazumi District, Nagano Prefecture, ubume are called yagomedori, and they are said to stop at clothes drying at night, and it is said that putting on those clothes would result in dying before one's husband.[32]

Social and cultural influence

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The yokai ubume was conceived through various means of social and religious influence. During the late Medieval period of Japan, the attitudes surrounding motherhood started to change. Rather than the infant being considered a replication of the mother and an extension of her body, the fetus started to be seen as separate from the mother. This distancing of mother and fetus caused an emphasis on the paternal ownership of the child, reducing the mother to nothing more than a vessel for male reproduction. For a mother to die in childbirth or late pregnancy soon came to be considered a sin, the blame for the death of the unborn child being placed on the mother who in a sense was responsible for the infant's death.[33]

The idea that a pregnant woman who dies and get buried transforms into an ubume has existed since ancient times; which is why it has been said that when a pregnant woman dies prepartum, one ought to cut the fetus out the abdomen and put it on the mother in a hug as they are buried. In some regions, if the fetus cannot be cut out, a doll would be put beside her.[citation needed]

The ubume's blood-soaked appearance is thought to be because in feudal society, the continuation of the family was considered important, so pregnant women who died were believed to fall into a hell with a pond of blood.[17]

Folkloristics

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In Japanese folklore the ubume is the ghost of a woman who had died in childbirth, or "birthing woman ghost".[34]

Typically, the ubume asks a passerby to hold her child for just a moment and disappears when her victim takes the swaddled baby.[2] The baby then becomes increasingly heavy until it is impossible to hold. It is then revealed not to be a human child at all, but a boulder[3] or a stone image of Jizō.[35]

Many scholars have associated the ubume with the legend of the hitobashira ('human pillar'),[36] where a sacrificial mother and child "are buried under one of the supporting pillars of a new bridge".[34]

The Shōshin'in Temple (正信院)[37] in Shizuoka Prefecture, according to scholars, is where local women come to pray to conceive a child or to have a successful pregnancy.[9][38] According to Stone and Walter (2008), the origins of the temple's legend, set in the mid-16th century, concern:

a modern statue of Ubume, displayed once a year in July. At this festival, candy that has been offered to the image is distributed, and women pray for safe delivery and for abundant milk. The statue, which is clothed in white robes, has only a head, torso, and arms; it has no lower half.[39]

In art

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Tokugawa-era artists[j] produced many images of ubume, usually represented as "naked from the waist up, wearing a red skirt and carrying a small baby,"[9] or rather, wearing a blood-soaked koshimaki loincloth.[41]

Another illustration of ubume comes e from Toriyama Sekien's late-18th-century encyclopedia of ghosts, goblins, and ghouls, Gazu Hyakki Yagyō.[5][39]

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Natsuhiko Kyogoku's best-selling detective novel, The Summer of the Ubume, uses the ubume legend as its central motif, creating something of an ubume 'craze'[42] at the time of its publication and was made into a major motion picture in 2005.[42]

See also

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  • kenas-unarpe - Ainu mountain hag or monstrous bird
  • harpy
  • strix (mythology) - Roman mythical owl that drizzles milk on an infant's lip, or blood-sucks and devours it.
  • strigoi - etymologically related to strix
  • konaki-jiji, a childlike yōkai that, like the ubume's bundled 'infant', grows heavier when carried and ultimately takes the form of a boulder.
  • myling, an example of a similar motif in Scandinavian folklore.
  • pontianak
  • sankai, yōkai that emerge from pregnant women

Explanatory notes

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  1. ^ Chinese pronunciation transliterated kūfūniao (クウフウニャウ) in Wakan Sansai Zue
  2. ^ The Chinese text gives "兩乳", the latter character meaning "milk", "milk gland", etc.
  3. ^ As per the Chinese source explains the bird has "breasts/teats"
  4. ^ Although 産 is typically pronounced umu, it can also be ubu as in the compound ubu goe ("baby's cry at birth").
  5. ^ Given as "Taira-no-Suetake" during the time when Minamoto no Raikō was lord governor of Mino Province, in the Japanese text.
  6. ^ Given as shūjaku, now normally 執着 is read shūchaku. Cf. "obsessed" in the quote from Kii Zōdan Shū below.
  7. ^ The 執心, read shūshin for "attachment, obsession"; the phraseology is similar to shūjaku "attachment" in the quote from Hyakumonogatari Hyōban above.
  8. ^ Cf. guhuoniao for more extensive list.
  9. ^ Chinese: 或言産死者所化.
  10. ^ Joly offers as example the "Nissaka-shuku" by Kuniyoshi in Tōkaidō gojūsantsui [ja],[40] however, the inscription does not explicitly mention ubume. A woman is killed by a bandit, but she being devout in prayer, the Kwannon goddess assumes the guise of a monk and keeps the baby alive by feeding it ame (probably mizuame, or malt syrup), and the woman is able to appear before her husband to tell the story and entrust the baby at a yonaki ishi [ja] (somewhere near the Nissaka station).

Citations

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  1. ^ Bush (2001), p. 188
  2. ^ a b c Stone & Walter (2008), p. 191.
  3. ^ a b c Joly (1908), p. 16.
  4. ^ a b c d e Li Shizhen (2021b). "49-28 Gu huo niao fire rat/mouse" 姑獲鳥. Ben Cao Gang Mu, Volume IX: Fowls, Domestic and Wild Animals, Human Substances. Translated by Paul U. Unschuld. Univ of California Press. pp. 340–341. ISBN 9780520976993.
  5. ^ a b c d e Toriyama, Sekien (2017), "Ubume" 姑獲鳥, Japandemonium Illustrated: The Yokai Encyclopedias of Toriyama Sekien, translated by Hiroko Yoda; Matt Alt, Courier Dover Publications, p. 37, ISBN 9780486818757
  6. ^ a b c d Terajima Ryōan [in Japanese] (n.d.) [1712]. "42-kan. Genkin-rui Musasabi/Momi/Nobusuma/Momoka" 四十四巻 山禽類 姑獲鳥（うぶめどり） [Book 44. Mountain bird category. (ubumedori)]. Wakan Sansai zue 和漢三才図会 (in Japanese). Vol. 29 of 81. fol. 15a–15b. (Ubumedori in edition of Chūkindō, 1885. 44: 243–244), 1906 . p. 503-->
  7. ^ a b c "唐に姑獲（こくわく）といふは、日本の產女なり、姑獲は鳥なり..[quote from Bencao Gangmu].. 是は、人の子を、とつて、我子として、乳を、のませてやしなふ事、人の乳母（めのと）に似たるゆへに、乳母鳥と、いふなり是ハ、婦人、子なふ（無く）して、子をほしがるもの、たま〳 〵くはいにん（懐妊）す、と、いへども、産することを、えず、難産に死するときんバ（時は）、その執心魂魄、変化して、鳥となりて、夜とびまはりて人の小子を、とる.." (in Japanese)[13]
  8. ^ Hepburn (1887), p. 705.
  9. ^ a b c Glassman (2001), p. 160.
  10. ^ a b Mozume (1922), pp. 647–648.
  11. ^ Foster, Michael Dylan (2024) [2015]. The Book of Yokai, Expanded Second Edition: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore. University of California Press. pp. 253–356. ISBN 9780520389564.
  12. ^ Stone & Walter (2008), p. 194.
  13. ^ Asakura, Haruhiko [in Japanese]; Ōkubo, Junko, eds. (1998). Kana zōshi shūsei 假名草子集成 (in Japanese). Tokyodo Shuppan. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/12455939.
  14. ^ Guo Pu. Xuán zhōng jì 玄中記 [Record of the Mysterious Center] (in Chinese) – via Wikisource.
  15. ^ Chinese: 云是産婦死後化作[4]
  16. ^ Duan Chengshi. "卷十六" . Lingbiao luyi 酉陽雜俎 [Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang] (in Chinese) – via Wikisource.
  17. ^ a b Kyogoku, Natsuhiko; Tada, Katsumi [in Japanese], eds. (2000). Yōkai zukan 妖怪図巻 (in Japanese). Kokusho Kankōkai. pp. 151–152. ISBN 978-4-336-04187-6.
  18. ^ a b c Aramata, Hiroshi; Ōya, Yasunori (2021). "Ubume, ubume[reijin], kokakuchō" うぶめ、産女[霊神]、姑獲鳥. Aramata Hiroshi no Nihon zenkoku yōkai mappu アラマタヒロシの日本全国妖怪マップ (in Japanese). [Shuwa System. p. 48. ISBN 9784798065076.
  19. ^ Whiles some sources only give ubametori phonetically in kana as "ウバメトリ", Aramata assigns the kanji "姑獲鳥 (ウバメトリ)"[18]
  20. ^ Minzokugaku Kenkyujo (Folkloristic Research Institute) (1955). Yanagita, Kunio (ed.). Sōgō nihon minzoku goi 綜合日本民俗語彙. Vol. 1. Heibonsha. pp. 136–137.
  21. ^ Akagi, Takehiko, ed. (1991). Ibarki hōgen minzokugo jiten 茨城方言民俗語辞典 (in Japanese). Tokyodo Shuppan. p. 103. ISBN 9784490102963.
  22. ^ Kyogoku, Natsuhiko; Tada, Katsumi [in Japanese], eds. (2008). Yōkaigahon. Kyōka hyakumonogatari 妖怪画本 狂歌百物語 (in Japanese). Kokusho Kankōkai. pp. 275–276. ISBN 978-4-3360-5055-7.
  23. ^ Murakami (2005), pp. 46–47.
  24. ^ Foster (2024b).
  25. ^ a b Murakami, Kenji [in Japanese], ed. (2005). "Ubume". Nihon yōkai daijiten 日本妖怪大事典. Kwai books (in Japanese). Kadokawa Shoten. pp. 74–75. ISBN 978-4-04-883926-6.
  26. ^ Chuo University Minzoku Kenkyūkai (February 1990). "Fukushima-ken Ōnuma-gun chōsa hōkokusho" 福島県大沼郡金山町 調査報告書. Jōmin 常民 (in Japanese) (26): 162. (Informants: Yūki Kakuta/Sumida/Tsunoda/[?] et al. 角田勇喜，角田正子，角田ヤス) via File 1070507, Kaii-Yōkai Denshō Database @International Research Center for Japanese Studies
  27. ^ Chiba, Mikio [in Japanese], ed. (1991). Yōkai obake zatsugaku jiten 妖怪お化け雑学事典 (in Japanese). Kodansha. pp. 69–70. ISBN 978-4-06-205172-9.
  28. ^ "Aso Digital Hakubutsukan minkan denshō" 阿蘇デジタル博物館民間伝承. Aso Virtual Experience Land www.e-aso.com あそバーチャル体験ランド]. Aso Telework Center. Archived from the original on 2006-07-12. Retrieved 2008-12-08.
  29. ^ a b Sakurada, Katsunori (1980). Gyoson minzokushi 漁村民俗誌 (in Japanese). Meicho shuppan. pp. 139, 142, 143.
  30. ^ Murakami (2005), p. 42.
  31. ^ Jinbunsha editorial Dept. (2005). Shokoku kaidan kidan shūsei. Higashi-Nihon hen 諸国怪談奇談集成 江戸諸国百物語 東日本編. Jinbunsha. pp. 20頁. ISBN 978-4-7959-1955-6.
  32. ^ Shimura, Kunihiro (supervising ed.) [in Japanese], ed. (2008). Zusetsu: Chizu to arasuji de yomu Nihon no yōkai densetsu 図説 地図とあらすじで読む 日本の妖怪伝説 (in Japanese). Seishun shuppan sha. p. 77. ISBN 978-4-413-00965-2.
  33. ^ Stone & Walter (2008), p. 176.
  34. ^ a b Stone & Walter (2008), p. 204.
  35. ^ Takahashi, Masahide [in Japanese] (1962). Koten to minzokugaku 古典と民俗學 (in Japanese). Hanawa Shobō. p. 132.
  36. ^ Glassman (2001), p. 171.
  37. ^ Glassman (2001), p. 270.
  38. ^ Stone & Walter (2008), pp. 191–192.
  39. ^ a b Stone & Walter (2008), p. 192.
  40. ^ Joly (1908), p. 24.
  41. ^ Komatsu, Kazuhiko [in Japanese], ed. (2003). Nihon yōkaigaku taizen 日本妖学大全 (in Japanese). Shogakukan. pp. 74–75. ISBN 9784096262085.
  42. ^ a b Foster (2009), p. 230

References

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Further reading

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  • Iwasaka, Michiko and Barre Toelken. Ghosts And The Japanese: Cultural Experience in Japanese Death Legends. (1994)
  • Kyogoku, Natsuhiko. The Summer of the Ubume. San Francisco: Viz Media. (2009)
  • Wakita, Haruko. Women in medieval Japan: motherhood, household management and sexuality. Monash Asia Institute. (2006)
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