Yurei Attack!: The Japanese Ghost Survival Guide

by Hiroko Yoda

  Date of Incident: Unknown. Early 17th century?

  Event that Caused Haunting: Murder of innocent woman

  Type of Spot: “Mystery Spot” (place where strange things happen)

  Type of Phenomenon: Audible manifestations

  Threat Level: Low

  Claim to Fame

  “Weeping rocks” are a surprisingly common phenomenon in Japan. The vast majority are stones that supposedly emit a wailing, keening, or crying sound as a direct result of having once been drenched in the blood of the victim of a crime. These include weeping rocks in Nagano prefecture, the city of Kyoto, and the suburbs of Osaka. The single most famous of these strange stones, however, is the weeping rock of Sayo no Nakayama, which is considered one of the Seven Wonders of Enshu.

  The Story

  Long ago, a very pregnant woman by the name of Oishi (a family name meaning “Stone”) was making the long journey back home through the mountains. She had reached Sayo no Nakayama mountain pass when her water broke unexpectedly early. Wracked by contractions, she collapsed, unable to go any further. A passer-by, a ronin named Todoroki Goemon, happened upon her. But when she offered to pay him to help her back to town, the greedy man unsheathed his sword, cut her down, took the purse, and ran.

  Although the sword had pierced her belly, in his haste Todoroki had clipped a large stone when he swung, causing him to just miss the fetus within. After his retreat, the baby emerged through the wound in the dying woman’s stomach. Having been born in such an unconventional manner, the infant hung on the cusp of life himself, unable even to muster the strength to cry. As she died, the woman’s spirit transferred into the stone that had stopped the blade. And astonishingly, inexplicably, the stone began to wail in an attempt to alert someone to the child’s presence.

  Fortunately, a monk returning to nearby Kyuenji Temple heard the cries. He discovered the crime scene, and found the rapidly fading baby. Lacking any milk or food, he gave the newborn a hard sugarcandy to suck on as he rushed back to the temple. (Similar to the Candy-Buying Ghost on p.76!)

  As it so happened, the baby boy eventually grew into a healthy teenager named Otohachi. Although surprisingly well adjusted, avenging the crime that had robbed him of his mother always remained at the back of his mind, for the rock upon which he had been found continued to weep nightly.

  One day while praying to Kannon (the Goddess of Mercy), Otohachi saw a vision telling him to become a sword-polisher. He left the temple, travelled the countryside, and eventually found a master with whom to apprentice. After many years of hard work, he became a master sword polisher himself and opened his own business.

  The manhole covers in the nearby town of Nissaka feature a rather upbeat portrayal of the famous stone.

  His very first customer arrived not long after he hung out his sign: an old ronin with a chipped blade. When Otohachi asked how it had been damaged, the ronin told him that he had chipped it close to twenty years earlier on a stone on the Sayo no Nakayama Pass. His eyes widening, Otohachi realized why he had seen the vision so many years before. Still holding the blade in his hands, he told the ronin just who he was.

  They say Todoroki didn’t even try to run when Otohachi cut him down with a single stroke of his own blade.

  The rock really exists. It is on display at Kyuenji Temple in Shizuoka Prefecture, a short bus ride from Kakegawa Station on the JR Tokaido Line.

  The Weeping Rock proved popular enough for master woodblock print artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi to create his own portrayal of the spooky stone. In his take on the legend, the woman’s spirit managed to attract the attention of her husband, and remains with him until he tracks her murderer down and avenges her death.

  Surviving an Encounter

  Invest in earplugs? You don’t have anything to worry about from weeping rocks, save the uncomfortable feeling of hair standing on end if you’re the sort who frightens easily.

  Rock Stars

  In Japan, strange rocks come in all shapes and sizes. In addition to the ones described above, these include:

  • Okayama’s Kosokoso-Iwa, or “Whisper Rock,” which whispers unintelligibly.

  • Kagawa’s Omanno-Iwa, or “O-man’s Rock,” which projects a phantom image of an elderly lady that claims “I’m O-man’s mother.”

  • Nagano’s Mono-Iwa, “The Rock,” which shouts “You’ll be killed!” to passer-by whose lives are in danger;

  • And our personal favorite, Okayama’s Shakushi-Iwa, or “Rice-Scoop Rock,” which extends a phantom rice scoop and audibly demands miso paste from passer-by.

  These sorts of rocks are better described as exhibiting strange phenomena rather than being haunted per se, and as such are generally categorized as “yokai” rather than “yurei.”

  THE SEVEN WONDERS OF ENSHU: Similar to “urban legends” - although given the era and location, “rural legends” is more accurate - these supposedly true stories all hail from the Province of Enshu, an area that corresponds to part of modern-day Shizuoka Prefecture. In addition to the Weeping Rock, these include “The Great Serpent of Sakura-ga-ike,” “The Phantom Lake of Ike-no-daira,” “The Tengu - Fire of Omaezaki City,” and eight others. (Yes, that’s twelve in total. In Japanese, “seven” is often used in conjunction with the powerful and mysterious.)

  A Weeping Rock from the city of Takachiho, Kyushu. This particular one is said to have the ability to quiet any crying baby brought into contact with it!

  Haunted Places: 25

  JOMON TUNNEL

  Haunted Places: 25

  JOMON TUNNEL

  Name in Japanese: 常紋トンネル

  a.k.a. Hitobashira Tunnel (Human Sacrifice Tunnel)

  Location: Hokkaido

  Type of Tunnel: Railway

  Originally Opened: 1914

  Length: 1,660 feet (507m)

  Max depth: 980 feet (300m)

  Duration of construction: 3 years

  Event that Caused Haunting: Human sacrifice

  Type of Spot: “Yurei Spot”

  Type of Phenomena: Audible manifestations; Visible manifestations;Psychic trauma / illness for regular users

  Threat Level: Varies

  Claim to Fame

  Tunnels are classic sorts of places to run into yurei. Part of this is undoubtedly because they aren’t particularly pleasant places. They’re dark, they’re stuffy, they’re damp, they’re deep under the ground — kind of like a grave, when you think about it. But whatever trepidation you might feel in travelling through a tunnel is nothing in comparison to that of the people who actually have to make them.

  Japan’s mountainous terrain is a veritable Swiss cheese of tunnels, many of them dating back to ancient times. Even with modern techniques and powerful mechanical equipment, digging tunnels can be dangerous work. But conditions today pale in comparison to times of old, when tunnels had to be dug entirely by hand.

  More often than not, this involved forced labor of one sort or another — either prisoners, or people who for whatever reason had no better choice of work. In addition to long hours, low-to-absent pay, and generally appalling working conditions, these workers had another worry hanging over their heads: being turned into hitobashira — “human pillars.”

  Human pillars are human sacrifices, buried alive in the foundations of structures as offerings to the gods. They’re more frequently associated with castles and bridges (which we explore in more depth on p.132) But in at least one case, they seem to have been used in a tunnel as well: Jomon Tunnel in Hokkaido. Welcome to Japan’s single most haunted hole in the ground.

  Jomon Tunnel stretches just over a half kilometer — hardly long by the standards of tunnels. Yet it extends through some of the hardest, remotest terrain the far-flung island of Hokkaido had to offer. It is a region of dense forests and plunging valleys, a place where temperatures regularly hit thirty below during the winter.

  The Story

  At the turn of the Twentieth century, Japan raced to extend its railways to every cor
ner of its country. The demand for laborers far outstripped supply. Few skilled tradesmen wanted to work in the harsh environment of Hokkaido, Japan’s furthest, coldest frontier. So the government made up the difference with a captive labor pool: prisoners.

  The convicts worked in a chain gang style that came to be known as takobeya rodo: “octopus jar labor.” The name came from the traps laid by fishermen, designed so that once an octopus slithered in it would never get out. By day, the men worked constantly; by night, they suffered through subzero conditions in uninsulated huts, the entire gang shackled to a giant wooden bed-platform with a single log extending down one side as a “pillow.” (In lieu of an alarm clock, come morning the warden would give the log a couple of whacks with a hammer to set the prisoners’ heads ringing.)

  It took a mixed force of prisoners and laborers conscripted from other parts of Japan three years to build the tunnel, one of several along an isolated rail line that pushed the Hokkaido frontier even further north. Rumors of hauntings swirled from almost the moment Jomon Tunnel opened. Even though trains passed through it at high speed, conductors and riders reported all sorts of strange phenomena inside and just outside its openings.

  The stories claimed that the ghosts were those of the men who had built the tunnel. The conditions had been unbelievably harsh, more like gulags than work-camps. The captive labor pool consisted of everything from murderers to political criminals to simple debtors. Whatever they had been before arriving here, they were essentially human machines now, subject in equal parts to the brutality of nature and the brutality of the men who watched over them, worked until they could work no more — then discarded.

  Even if the wardens and guards had cared about the well-being of their prisoners, the nearest doctor was many, many miles away. Malnutrition was a fact of daily life for workers. Diseases such as beriberi (a chronic vitamin deficiency that is fatal if untreated) swept through the ranks. When guards encountered fallen prisoners, they would simply pile the bodies atop hand-trolleys for on-site burial in side-shafts and work-tunnels. And if they found someone still barely clinging to life? Too bad. No medicine anyway. Into the pit. The bodies are still there today! locals whispered. That’s why it’s haunted!

  For years, officials dismissed both the rumors of the prisoners’ treatment and the sightings as speculation and exaggeration. But in 1970, a repair crew entered the tunnel to patch a crack in the wall from an earthquake. Behind crumbling brick, the workers discovered several skeletons that had apparently been bricked up behind the wall in a standing position. Human sacrifice? None who had worked on the project were alive to tell the tale, but further excavations revealed a burial pit near the entrance filled with dozens and dozens of human bodies — some say hundreds.

  The stories were true.

  The Attack

  Reports from those passing through the tunnel included:

  • A general sense of unease

  • Unexplained sighing and moaning sounds

  • A voice calling “I’m hungry... Mama, feed me,” on several occasions

  • A higher than normal instance of illness, physical and mental, among those who worked on the train line and their families

  • In one case, the appearance of a blood-splattered individual staggering through the tunnel caused a conductor to apply emergency brakes, but when the area was searched no sign of a trespasser or body was found.

  Surviving an Encounter

  Hold on to your seat and make it through the tunnel. There have been no reports of injuries or fatalities to those who simply pass through. This is one of Japan’s more isolated train lines, so avoiding it shouldn’t be hard. But if you’re the thrill-seeking type, it’s the Sekihoku Main Line, which connects the cities of Asahikawa and Abashiri. The tunnel itself is near Kinka Station.

  Locals have played it safe by erecting a memorial to the fallen workers, just outside of the station, but reports of manifestations continue to this day.

  GREETINGS FROM ABASHIRI PRISON

  You can explore actual “octopus jar” work camps for yourself at the Abashiri Prison Museum, located in the city of the same name in northern Hokkaido. Once a source of labor for the taming of Hokkaido’s wild frontier, it was closed in the Sixties and re-opened as an educational facility in the Eighties. http://www.kangoku.jp/

  A Japanese-style chain gang, from the turn of the 20th century, recreated at the Abashiri Prison Museum.

  Haunted Places: 26

  OIRAN BUCHI

  Haunted Places: 26

  OIRAN BUCHI

  Name in Japanese: おいらん淵

  a.k.a. The Courtesans’ Abyss (Literal translation); Gojugonin Buchi (“The Abyss of the Fifty-Five”); Choshi-no-taki (Choshi Falls; official name);

  Terrain: Waterfall (river valley)

  Location: Yamanashi Prefecture

  Origin of Haunting: Mid-1570s

  Type of Spot: “Yurei Spot”

  Type of Phenomena: Audible Manifestations; Curses

  Existence: Historical Fact?

  Threat Level: Varies

  Claim to Fame:

  Waterfalls are commonplace in Japan. Many of them are venerated as holy spots and places of spiritual purification. Reciting sutras beneath the ceaseless hammer of a frigid waterfall is a classic sort of training in the religions of Buddhism and Shugendo.

  Other waterfalls have darker stories. At first glance, this particular waterfall seems like a little slice of heaven on earth. But on a summer day some five hundred years ago, fifty-five courtesans were unwittingly led to their deaths here. Now known as the Courtesans’ Abyss, it is considered one of the country’s most haunted spots.

  The Story:

  Many centuries ago, in the Era of Warring States, the warlords of Japan clashed for supremacy in an attempt to take control of the country for themselves. Just as with modern military campaigns, these affairs required vast sums of money. Intelligence needed to be procured, alliances with potential allies forged, and of course soldiers trained, housed, and fed. This was all on top of the usual operating costs of running a fiefdom.

  There were many ways to get these funds. You could invade a rival’s territory and plunder their assets. You could find financial backing by partnering with the enemies of a common enemy. Or you could make it yourself.

  One particular clan of warlords, the Takeda, funded their exploits with gold excavated from a secret mine in the foothills of Mount Kurokawa Kinzan. This was a huge operation, involving many overseers, workers, and assorted other types of individuals, including a stable of female entertainers who kept the men occupied in the off-hours.

  This funding wasn’t used purely for making war. Quantities of it were cached in buried vaults of sorts. Still more was buried in the hills and mountains as offerings to the gods in religious rituals intended to give the Takeda an edge in battle. Some believe that the buried treasure lies in the hills and mountains of Yamanashi Prefecture even today. We don’t recommend going on a treasure hunt, though. While the gold stashed for savings purposes would be a literal treasure trove, the gold used as offerings was buried as part of arcane religious rites. Any who disturb the carefully chosen resting places of these hoards risks breaking the elaborate spells incanted by the Takeda and bringing curse and ruin upon themselves. Or so they say.

  Ladies Night

  Partly because of declining yields and partly because the clan was rapidly losing ground to other warlords, the Takedas were forced to close the mining operation. In an effort to prevent information about the mine’s existence and location falling into enemy hands, clan leaders made a decision to dispose of what they saw as a key potential intelligence leak: the women who had entertained the miners. The Takedas knew well the power of pillow talk; many of the workers could have let slip the location of gold caches or other important information during a fit of passion. And while the men would remain as labor for other future projects, the women would need to be set free. Or would they?

  The Takedas cons
tructed a massive platform suspended over a river gorge near the mine. The fifty-five courtesans were led to this makeshift stage and ordered to perform, ostensibly as practice for a lavish “thank you” party to be held later that night. But just when the ladies’ song and dance routine reached full swing, Takeda men hacked away at the rope supports with their swords, sending the screaming women plunging to the sharp rocks far below. The few who survived the fall into the gorge were swept off a waterfall to certain death.

  A Ninja Nightmare

  The above represents the conventional wisdom as to what happened at Courtesans’ Abyss. But it leaves two big questions unanswered. Why go to all the effort of protecting a played-out gold mine? And if the warlords had simply wanted the women dead, why the need for such an elaborate trick? In that day and age, women were essentially second-class citizens, all but owned by men.

  But we have a theory. What if neither the courtesans nor the story about protecting the secrecy of the mine were what they seemed to be?

  The Takeda’s gold mining — and influence — peaked under the leadership of warlord Takeda Shingen, a strategic genius who also used the funds to establish an elaborate spy organization. He is particularly known for his adept use of female spies — known euphemistically as “walking maidens,” but essentially ninja — to gather intelligence. Posing as everything from holy women to servants to prostitutes, they used feminine wiles to strip secrets from Takeda’s rivals. (For more info, see Ninja Attack!) After Shingen died in 1573, his rivals wasted no time in eating away at his holdings — and his son Katsuyori wasn’t able to stop them.