Yurei Attack!: The Japanese Ghost Survival Guide
Page 9
Remote Tottori, located in Western Honshu, is the source of a great deal of folklore; even today, it retains an exotic, otherworldly sort of image as the country’s least-populated prefecture. It also happens to be the birthplace of a famed contributor to yokai lore: Mizuki Shigeru, the manga artist who created the hit “Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro” series. (The connection runs so deep, in fact, that in 2010 Tottori’s Yonago Airport officially changed its name to “Yonago Kitaro Airport.”)
The story “Futon of Tottori” is the region’s single most famous tale of terror. Ironically, most Japanese know it through the translation of Hearn’s English retelling, the first time that the story was ever put down in writing.
The Attack
Long ago one winter, a small Tottori inn opened its doors to receive its first guest. The inn was a new establishment with a none-too-wealthy proprietor, and it was furnished entirely with items purchased from the local pawnbroker. Everything from the pillows to the utensils customers used to eat their meals had once been owned by someone else. While this may sound shocking to those raised in a more wealthy (not to mention hygienic) era, it was far from uncommon in those days.
The first guest, a travelling merchant, arrived to much fanfare, pampering, and of course, plenty of warm saké. After the guest had had his fill, the proprietor saw him off to his room and bade the man good night.
No sooner had the weary merchant laid his head down to rest than the sound of children’s voices filled his ears. Faint but distinct, the refrain was repeated over and over again: “Are you cold, ani-san?” (the last bit being the way a younger addresses an older brother in Japanese.) “No, but you are, right?” came the reply. Again and again.
The merchant assumed the innkeeper had kids, and put up with the racket for a while before finally shouting for the tykes to pipe down. But just as he began drifting off to his long-awaited sleep...
“Are you cold, ani-san?” “No, but you are, right?” Again and again. The funny thing was, the more he scrunched under the pillows and covers, the louder the plaintive voices grew. In fact, they seemed to be coming from the very futonquilt itself! His hair practically standing on end, the man hurriedly gathered his things and headed for the innkeeper’s chambers, demanding to check out. The innkeeper, incensed at being awakened at such a late hour, not to mention having his first customer run out on him, tried to persuade the merchant that the voices were nothing but saké-fueled dreams. But the merchant paid his tab in full and disappeared into the chilly night. The innkeeper scratched his head, went back to bed, and promptly forgot about the incident.
Until the next night, when the inn’s second guest rushed out of his room, pounded on the innkeeper’s door, and announced he was checking out. In the middle of the night. In a snowstorm. And this guy hadn’t even touched the saké.
Now the innkeeper knew he had to investigate this for himself. Wrapping himself in the seemingly innocuous bedclothes that night, he lay and waited. Then it came. Quietly at first, almost too quiet to make out, then louder until unmistakable: “Are you cold, ani-san?” “No, but you are, right?”
The next morning, the innkeeper rushed to the pawnbroker from whom he’d bought the bedding. The pawnbroker said he’d purchased it from yet another. The innkeeper followed the trail to a tiny pawnshop in a ramshackle part of town, where he finally learned the sad story behind the haunted futon.
A young couple had arrived in the city that winter looking for work with their two young boys, just six and eight. The father died suddenly, followed quickly by the mother, leaving the two orphans on their own in a strange town. Remembering how their parents had made ends meet, the two began pawning their meager possessions for a day’s food here and there, but eventually ran out of everything save a lone futon-quilt. Their landlord was a brutal man who tossed them out on their ears when they couldn’t pay their rent. With nowhere to turn and a snowstorm blowing, the pair huddled together outside their former home, the falling snow providing a blanket for their final rest.
Surviving an Encounter
Suck it up or change rooms. Ghosts of this sort aren’t particularly common, and when they do appear you’re better off just rolling with it rather than getting upset. After all, the ghosts themselves had a pretty rough time to get where they are. C’mon, let ’em snuggle for a while. It’s the least you can do.
In the case of the Futon from Tottori, the innkeeper gave the bedding to the monks at the temple at which the two young boys had been buried. They prayed for the souls of the children, whereupon the cries ceased and were never heard again.
CHAPTER FOUR
Haunted Places
TABARUZAKA
HAKKODA-SAN
THE SEA OF TREES
HACHIOJI CASTLE
THE WEEPING ROCK
JOMON TUNNEL
OIRAN BUCHI
SUNSHINE 60 BUILDING
OSOREZAN
THE GUIDING JIZO
MATSUE OHASHI BRIDGE
In a country with as many ghosts as Japan, is it any surprise there are so many haunted spots? Here’s an overview of some of the most famous.
Haunted Places: 20
TABARUZAKA
Haunted Places: 20
TABARUZAKA
Name in Japanese: 田原坂
a.k.a: Tabaru Hill; Tabaru Slope “The Last Samurai Battlefield”
Location: Kyushu, Japan
Nearest Station: JR Tabaruzaka (Kagosh ima Main Line)
Length of path: 1 mile (1.5km)
Altitude: 197 feet (60m)
Key Figure: Saigo Takamori (1828 - 1877)
Event that Caused Haunting: The Battle of Tabaruzaka, March 4, 1877
Type of Spot: Yurei-zaka (“Haunted hill”)
Type of Phenomenon: Manifestations of fallen soldiers; Strange sounds; Strange odors
Threat Level: Variable
Claim to Fame
In a country as mountainous as Japan, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that a great many hills and slopes are believed to be haunted for one reason or another. But the great-granddaddy of haunted hills is Tabaruzaka, just outside of the city of Kumamoto on the island of Kyushu. It paid for its reputation the old-fashioned way: with plenty of blood and guts. Tabaruzaka is the hill upon which Saigo Takamori, the real-life “Last Samurai,” made an epic stand against the Japanese military during an attempted coup d’etat called the Satsuma Rebellion.
The Story
Saigo lived in turbulent times. For centuries, the samurai made their livings through fiefdoms called han. A han was ruled by a feudal lord called a daimyo, whose entire fortune rested upon taxes paid in rice by the many peasants who farmed the han’s land. The Meiji Restoration of 1868 put an end to all of that.
In a successful attempt to modernize the country, the Emperor established a centralized government that confiscated all of the han from the daimyo. This was easier said than done, and often required a great deal of negotiating. Sometimes it required the threat of force.
As you might expect, being stripped of their ancestral holdings didn’t sit well with this legendarily well-armed group of warriors. Tensions ran high, and less than a decade later, they flared into the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, led by a former government bureaucrat turned revolutionary, Saigo Takamori.
Ironically, Saigo had played a key role in convincing (and on occasion forcing) key daimyo to hand over their domains. But he had a falling out with his fellow bureaucrats. He resigned his post and moved back south to his hometown of Kagoshima, where he founded a series of training academies. His only intention had been to give disaffected young samurai who had been stripped of their raison d’etre a place to go. But in traditional fashion his schools focused on martial as well as scholarly arts, and before long he had assembled what amounted to a highly trained private army.
The passage of a controversial law in 1876 that banned both the wearing of swords and topknot hairstyles further inflamed the former samurai. When rumors of a government plan to assassinate Sai
go surfaced, he could no longer reign in his troops and led them on a long march to the capital. The Satsuma Rebellion was on.
Yoshitoshi’s woodblock print capturing the fighting around Kumamoto Castle (in the background).
The Battle of Tabaruzaka (Tabaru Hill) was one of four major skirmishes during the rebellion. The narrow road leading up the hill was a key supply route for Kumamoto Castle, which Saigo’s men had surrounded, trapping a contingent of Imperial Army troops inside. Saigo placed a great number of his men on Tabaruzaka in an effort to block the reinforcements he knew would attempt to retake the castle. Imperial troops arrived on March 4, 1877, fully armed with modern rifles and cannon; many of Saigo’s troops carried only swords or spears, but had the advantage of having occupied the hilly terrain first.
The going proved rough for both sides. Temperatures hovered near freezing, while an incessant cold rain turned the steep terrain into a morass of mud and rock. For seventeen days and nights the Imperial Army and the Satsuma rebels traded fire and engaged in hand-to-hand combat. By the end of it the slopes ran red with the blood of the fallen from both sides. Some two thousand men lay dead with an equal number wounded, and neither side able to declare victory. Even today the name Tabaruzaka carries connotations of a drawn-out war of attrition, similar to the American Civil War’s Battle of Antietam.
Although neither side truly “lost,” the stalemate signaled the beginning of the end for Saigo’s revolution. Choosing to retreat, Saigo led several other major skirmishes but was felled by enemy gunfire in the Battle of Shiroyama, just outside of Kagoshima, on September 24, 1877. And the Satsuma Rebellion died with him.
Although the samurai never regained their former place in society, Saigo’s fighting spirit and refusal to compromise his ideals made him a folk hero. Public sentiment forced the government to issue a posthumous pardon in 1889.
The Attack
Tabaruzaka’s hills remain a popular place for local youth to test their mettle in midnight visits to the former battlegrounds. The most “active” spots are said to be the area around a life-sized bronze statue of a mounted soldier, around which the spectres of foot-soldiers are said to rally, and the Nanamoto Military Cemetery, home to the remains of 300 soldiers from both sides. Strange smells and ominous phantoms have been reported in the area, particularly around the graves.
How to Survive
Tabaruzaka’s ghosts have never been implicated in any deaths. But if you’re the sort who doesn’t want a close encounter, try to visit on a sunny day. According to local lore, ghosts are far more likely to appear on Tabaruzaka when it rains. And whatever you do, stay out of the phone booth in front of the visitor’s center at night. You’ve been warned.
Getting There
Tabaruzaka is located just outside of the city of Kumamoto in Kyushu. The park is a twenty-minute drive from JR Tabaruzaka Station on the Kagoshima Main Line. The park itself is open 24 hours; the visitor’s center is open from 9am-5pm daily (closed Mondays).
THE SLIPPERY SLOPE OF HAUNTED HILLS
Tabaruzaka is but the most famous of a wide variety of “yurei zaka” (haunted hills) throughout Japan. But it’s important to make a distinction among those truly believed to be haunted, those where weird phenomena take place, and those that are essentially place names.
A good example of the latter is the “Yurei Zaka” located in the Mita ward of Tokyo. Found amidst a great number of Buddhist temples and graveyards and clearly marked as a haunted slope, a pedestrian there might be forgiven for worrying about chance encounters with the undead. But in reality, the name is just a play on words; it was formerly written with characters that are a homonym for ghost: 有礼坂. There are actually nine “Yurei Zaka” in Tokyo, the vast majority so called because they are dark sorts of places that aren’t particularly fun to walk at night.
The second type of supposedly haunted slope is the sort of place called a “magnetic hill” or “gravity hill” in English. These are places where the topography and an obscured horizon conspire to create the illusion that a slight downward slope is actually an uphill one. A ball, or car left in neutral, will thus appear to roll up rather than down. Hills of this sort include the “Yurei Zaka” of Fukuoka, the “Obake Zaka” of Gun ma, and the “Mystery Zaka” of Iwate Prefecture.
And that brings us to our third and final category: haunted slopes that are what their name implies. Tabaruzaka is the most famous of this type, but there are many others as well. Our personal favorite is the Kiinokuni Zaka (Kii Slope) in downtown Tokyo, upon which faceless yokai called the Nopperabo were once believed to dwell. (See Yokai Attack!)
Haunted Places: 21
HAKKODA-SAN
Haunted Places: 21
HAKKODA-SAN
Name in Japanese: 八甲田山
a.k.a. Mount Hakkoda; The Hakkoda Mountains
Location: Aomori, Japan
Terrain: Volcanic (dormant)
Nearest Station: Aomori
Highest Peak: Mt Odake: 5,200 ft (1,585 m)
Cataloged in: 100 Famous Japanese Mountains
Key Figures: Japan’s Imperial Army Fifth Infantry Group
Event that Caused Haunting: “The Hakkoda Exercise” of January 23, 1902
Type of Location: “Yurei spot” (Haunted area)
Type of Phenomenon: Visible/Audible manifestations
Threat Level: Variable
Claim to Fame
You’re caught in a blizzard. Wearing nothing but thin cotton clothes. With no food. No way to start a fire. No one to turn to for help. Zero visibility. Zero idea how to get back home. All you can do is walk in circles as the relentless cold slowly eats away your limbs and your sanity.
Sounds like a nightmare — only it’s reality. This was the harsh fate awaiting the Imperial Army’s 5th Infantry Group on a winter day in 1902. 210 healthy young men climbed Mount Hakkoda on a routine training mission. Within a few days, one hundred and ninety-nine of them would be dead. And that is why Hakkoda is widely considered to be Japan’s single most haunted natural spot.
Although it’s actually a range and not a single peak, the area is commonly referred to as “Mount Hakkoda” in Japanese and English.
The Story
The Hakkoda range has long been renowned for its treacherous weather. Paths disappear in sudden white-outs that last for days, while temperatures regularly plunge to some of the lowest in the country.
After the 1868 Meiji Restoration (see p.92) Japan modernized at a breakneck pace. Within just two decades, it had transformed from an isolated feudal backwater into an aggressive regional power with designs on creating an empire in East Asia. Their chief rival in this enterprise was Russia, which had even managed to establish a naval base just north of the Korean peninsula. In the event of a war between the two powers, the Japanese military theorized that the Russians might attack from the north, shelling rail lines and roadways in an attempt to launch an invasion from the port city of Aomori¶. If the Russians succeeded, the only way to get troops to the hot zone would be through the mountain passes of Hakkoda. During the warmer months, this would merely be a pain in the neck. But what if the attack came in mid-winter?
The commanding officers of the Imperial Japanese Army’s 8th Division decided to settle the question by conducting a “test-run.”
The objective of the mission was to gather data about dealing with extreme conditions. But none of the commanders had any experience living or working in extreme cold. The soldiers were issued standard gear and rations, and given no training in mountaineering or survival techniques. Even worse was the muddled command structure. Although the group’s Captain had planned out the entire mission, his superior officer, the Major, made a last-minute decision to tag along as well. While the Captain had some sense of just how arduous of a trek this would be, his Major firmly believed that Imperial Fighting Spirit would trump the effects of snow and ice.
The expeditionary force left on January 23, 1902. As the 5th made its way into the mountains, the we
ather showed obvious signs of storm and local villagers attempted to talk them out of making the climb. But the Major’s arrogance prevailed, and the company pushed on without even bothering to hire a local guide. The next day a blizzard descended, the likes of which had never been seen in Japan then or since. The path disappeared in white out conditions as the temperature plunged to the lowest ever recorded in Japan**.
The weather trapped the soldiers on the mountain. They struggled through waist-deep snow in cotton uniforms that soaked with the sweat of exertion and then turned to ice. Their rations froze so solid that it took a hit from a bayonet to shatter them. They couldn’t even manage to start a fire. The Captain ordered the troops to dig trenches in an effort to wait out the gale, but at two in the morning the Major had had enough and ordered a perilous night descent. The Captain led the way for several hours, only to be relieved midway by the Major, who took the company in the completely wrong direction. By morning more than forty men were missing and presumed dead in the wind-whipped snow.
The devastating cold rendered even the most mundane of tasks impossible. The simple act of urination proved deadly for the men; stricken by frostbite, many were unable to re-button their pants after relieving themselves, hastening heat loss and thus their demise. Those who saw this and chose to wet themselves instead wound up with frozen pants and an equally fast death.
Frostbite and exhaustion set in. The men of the company began losing their minds. Stands of trees were mistaken for rescue teams. Some removed their clothes and attempted to “swim” back through the chest-deep drifts. On day three, command totally disintegrated.