Onihitokuchi (鬼一口) refers to a Japanese in which eat humans in one mouthful. This in turn refers to something extremely dangerous and difficult, as well as the quick and easy handling of things.

Summary

As an example of a representative story, in the beginning of the

Heian Era The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

, in the

uta monogatari is a literary subgenre of the ''monogatari''. It is characterized by an emphasis on '' waka'' poetry, with prose sections interspersed. While most other ''monogatari'' of the Heian period and later contain ''waka'', the ''uta monogatari'' featu ...

The Tales of Ise is a Japanese '' uta monogatari'', or collection of '' waka'' poems and associated narratives, dating from the Heian period. The current version collects 125 sections, with each combining poems and prose, giving a total of 209 poems in most vers ...

," there is the sixth part, "." A certain man visited a woman for several years, but due to their difference in social status, they were not able to get together. One time, the man finally stole that woman, but while he was fleeing, as the night grew late, a thunderstorm came, so he found a cellar that did not fasten its doors and made the woman go in, and with a bow and arrow in his own possession, stood guard in front of the cellar, and waited for dawn. Before long, dawn came and when he peeped into the cellar, there was no figure of any woman. The woman was killed and eaten in one mouthful by an oni that lived in the cellar, and the shriek that she made when she died was erased by the sound of lightning. This story was depicted in the collection of

yōkai are a class of supernatural entities and Spirit (supernatural entity) , spirits in Japanese folklore. The kanji representation of the word comprises two characters that both mean "suspicious, doubtful", and while the Japanese name is simply ...

depictions, the

Konjaku Hyakki Shūi is the third book of Japanese artist Toriyama Sekien's ''Gazu Hyakki Yagyō'' tetralogy, published c. 1781. These books are supernatural bestiaries, collections of ghosts, spirits, spooks and monsters, many of which Toriyama based on literature ...

Sekien Toriyama 200px, A , specifically a Miage-nyūdō, as portrayed by Toriyama , real name Sano Toyofusa, was a scholar, '' kyōka'' poet, and ''ukiyo-e'' artist of Japanese folklore. Early life Born to a family of high-ranking servants to the Tokugawa sh ...

under the title "onihitokuchi," and in the explanatory text, the man was

Ariwara no Narihira was a Japanese courtier and '' waka'' poet of the early Heian period. He was named one of both the Six Poetic Geniuses and the Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses, and one of his poems was included in the '' Ogura Hyakunin Isshu'' collection. He ...

, and the woman was

Fujiwara no Takaiko Fujiwara (, written: 藤原 lit. "''Wisteria'' field") is a Japanese surname. (In English conversation it is likely to be rendered as .) Notable people with the surname include: ; Families * The Fujiwara clan and its members ** Fujiwara no Kamatari ...

, but in actuality their names were not specified in "The Tales of Ise," and the view that it was a tale of Ariwara no Narihira was an explanation in common language. Other than that, in the collection of setsuwa, the

Nihon Ryōiki The is an early Heian period setsuwa collection. Written by Kyōkai between 787 and 824, it is Japan's oldest collection of Buddhist setsuwa. It is three volumes in length. Title Commonly abbreviated as ''Nihon Ryōiki'', which means "Record ...

from the beginning of the Heian era, there was a story where a man and woman made their vows to each other one night, but in reality the man was an oni who ate the woman, and in the collection of setsuwa, the

Konjaku Monogatarishū , also known as the , is a Japanese collection of over one thousand tales written during the late Heian period (794–1185). The entire collection was originally contained in 31 volumes, of which 28 remain today. The volumes cover various tales f ...

from the end of the Heian era, there was a story where women who walked outside at night would be suddenly taken away by a man, and as the man was actually an oni, the women would be eaten in one mouthful. There is the theory that the reason why stories of "onihitokuchi" were common is that wars, disasters, and famines where people lose their lives or go missing were interpreted as oni from another world appearing in the present world who take away humans.

References

{{Japanese folklore long Oni Japanese folklore