Ubasute
As Ubasute ( Japanese. 姥 捨 て , dt. Literally "to leave an old woman behind"), also Obasute or Oyasute ( Japanese. 親 捨 , dt. Literally . " To leave a parent behind"), an alleged Japanese tradition , which in the late 18th and 19th centuries is said to have been practiced. During this time, impoverished families are said to have abandoned small children and elderly people in need of care in particularly dense forests and / or inaccessible mountain regions during famine and left them to die. The fact that this practice ever really existed has neither been historically nor archaeologically proven, but it is handed down as an urban legend to this day and is even taken up and discussed in plays and drama films (for example in Narayama Bushikō ). Certain locations in Japan, such as Ubasute-yama Mountain in Nagano Prefecture and the infamous Aokigahara Forest in Yamanashi Prefecture , are said to be home to the spirits of Ubasute victims.
literature
- Alfred G. Killilea, Dylan D. Lynch: Confronting Death: College Students on the Community of Mortals . iUniverse, Bloomington 2013, ISBN 1475969783 , pages 187 & 188.
- Noriko Reider: Seven Demon Stories from Medieval Japan . University Press of Colorado, Boulder / Logan 2016, ISBN 1607324903 , page 203.