Futakuchi-onna

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Illustration of a Futakuchi-onna in the Ehon Hyaku Monogatari (around 1841).

The Futakuchi-onna ( Japanese 二 口 女 , literally: "two-mouthed woman") is a fictional being of Japanese folk belief . She belongs to the group of yōkai and is considered to be malicious. The closest to her are the rokurokubi and the kuchisake-onna .

description

The Futakuchi-onna appears as a woman with long, black hair that moves like a snake and hides a second mouth under its density at the back of the woman's head. The woman herself is noticeable at first because she hardly ever eats, but her hair forms two or more black snakes that snap after the meal and feed the otherwise hidden second mouth. Another feature is the second mouth itself (the actual demon ), which continuously utters obscene murmurs and cries loudly for food. If his demands are ignored, the second mouth gives deafening and shrill screams and torments the woman until he gets what he wants.

Lore

According to a popular legend , a futakuchi-onna is created when a bad mother (usually an evil stepmother) lets her stepchild starve to death while pampering her biological child. The starving child curses his stepmother before he dies. Or the vindictive spirit of the child takes possession of the stepmother and forces her to feed only her second mouth until she has starved herself. According to another tradition, it is a woman who is so obsessed with the desire to stay slim that she grows a demonic second mouth. Another version tells of a lumberjack who accidentally injured his affectionate wife in the back of the head with his ax, whereupon the wound does not heal but turns into a second mouth.

literature

  • Michaela Haustein: Mythologies of the World: Japan, Ainu, Korea . ePubli, Berlin 2011, ISBN 3844214070 , p. 13.
  • Corina Caduff, Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka: Rituals today: theories, controversies, drafts . Reimer, Berlin 1999 (2nd edition), ISBN 3496026669 , p. 221.
  • Stephen Addiss , Helen Foresman, Spencer Museum of Art: Japanese ghosts and demons: art of the supernatural . George Braziller, Incorporated, New York 1985, ISBN 0807611263 , p. 108.

Web links