Teketeke

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Teketeke attacks (artistic interpretation)

Teketeke ( Japanese テ ケ テ ケ ) is the name of a fictional being from Japanese metropolitan legends . It is said to be a spirit of revenge ( Onryō ) or a monster ( Yōkai ); the being is described as a young woman with no abdomen and as malicious.

description

The teketeke is said to have the shape of a young woman without a abdomen. She is said to only move on her elbows , or she props herself up on her forearms and crawls forward as her torso drags on the floor. Despite this type of locomotion, it should be very fast and nimble. The noise it makes is called "teke-teke" in Japanese , so its name is an onomatopoeia . Mostly it is said that she carries a big sickle with her and that she ambushes her victims at night in abandoned train stations or in other deserted places.

Legend

The most widespread and most frequently quoted legend about the origin of the Teketeke is that of a schoolgirl who either accidentally fell in front of an approaching train, attempted suicide , or was pushed onto the railroad tracks by a reviled lover. The passing train severed the girl's abdomen, the girl died and her disappointed or vengeful soul was transformed into an onryō (or yōkai). Since then, she has been lying in wait at night in abandoned train stations or in deserted courtyards and back alleys of unsuspecting pedestrians. Allegedly she prefers young men whom she tirelessly pursues as soon as they approach the Teketeke or even pay attention to her. And when she catches up with her victim, cut it in half at waist level.

A matching and popular legend tells of a young student who walks past a school for boys on his way home late at night and sees a pretty girl in a window on the ground floor who appears to be leaning out of the window. The boy wonders what a girl is doing in a boys' school at such a late hour. He wants to address her politely, but then the girl leaps out of the window and the boy finds out that she has no abdomen. Frozen with shock, the boy is unable to run away and the Teketeke crawls up to him in no time and catches up with him. The next morning, his body is discovered and his legs are gone.

backgrounds

The legend of the Teketeke is still very popular in Japanese schools and universities. It is probably one of those urban legends that is preferably told to children and young schoolchildren so that they don't carelessly roam the city alone at night. Or it is told in order to encourage children not to speak to strangers just like that and not to let strangers speak to them themselves. The popularity of the legend of the Teketeke is reflected in horror films , among other things , in Teketeke and Teketeke 2 , both by Japanese director Kōji Shiraishi and both from 2009.

See also

  • Kashima Reiko , another big city legend in the form of a woman without a belly.

literature

  • John Berra: Directory of World Cinema: Japan, Volume 2 . Intellect Books, Bristol 2012, ISBN 184150551X , 196.
  • Robert B. Durham: Modern Folklore. Lulu Press Inc., Raleigh (North Carolina) 2015, ISBN 9781312909694 , page 406.
  • Salvador Jimenez Murguía: The Encyclopedia of Japanese Horror Films , Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham 2016, ISBN 1442261676 , pages 317 & 318.
  • Bintarō Yamaguchi: 世界 の 妖怪 大 百科 (Sekai no yōkai daihyakka, German World Encyclopedia of Yōkai) . Gakken Kyōiku Verlag, Tokyo 2014, ISBN 4052040538 , page 82.

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