Ubume

are Japanese yōkai of pregnant women. They can also be written as '. Throughout folk stories and literature the identity and appearance of ubume varies. However, she is most commonly depicted as the spirit of a woman who has died during childbirth. Passersby will see her as a normal-looking woman carrying a baby. She will typically try to give the passerby her child then disappear. When the person goes to look at the child in their arms, they discover it is only a bundle of leaves or large rock.

Etymology

Some Japanese sources coopt the Chinese name (pinyin: , "lady capturing-bird", translated as "wench bird") and read it Japanese style as "ubume" or "ubumedori".

From Chinese sources (cf. below), Japanese learned men learned that this "wench bird" had the characteristic that "in front of their chest they have two breasts" (or rather "a pair of teats/mammaries").

Thus the creature's name is also styled (''ubame'', "wetnurse bird"), with the explanation that the bird breastfeeds the child it kidnaps, and because it is like a it is called a .

An alternate ''kanji'' representation gives it another meaning of (''ubume'', "birthing bird").

The term ''ubume'' originally was the name for a kind of small sea fish, according to American missionary Hepburn's guesswork.

Attestations

''Konjaku Monogatarishū''

Stories about ubume have been told in Japan since at least the 12th century, in the ''Konjaku Monogatarishū'', where a samurai (Urabe no Suetake) encounters a woman () at the riverbank who asks him to hold her child. She demands her child back and when the samurai refused, it turned into a bundle of leaves.

''Kokon hyakumonogatari hyōban''

They are also mentioned in the : "When a woman loses her life in childbirth, her spiritual attachment itself becomes this ghost. In form, it is soaked in blood from the waist down and wanders about crying, ''Be born! Be born!'' (; )".

''Kii Zōdan Shū''

The '' Kii Zōdan Shū'' explains that "when a woman wanting a child (for a long time), gets pregnant by chance, but dies in difficult labor or delivery, her soul becomes so obsessed it transforms into a bird, flies by night, and captures other people's children".

''Bencao Gangmu''

The ''Compendium of Materia Medica'' (''Bencao gangmu'') gives entry on the Chinese equivalent ''gu huo niao '' (, "wench bird"), which goes by various other names such as the ( "mother's milk bird").

It is stated in this work that "they he wench birdsare transformations of women who died giving birth" which is also stated with slightly different phrasing in the ''Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang'' from the Tang dynasty. (Further information: ''Guhuoniao'').

''Wakan sansai zue''

The Japanese encyclopedia ''Wakan Sansai Zue'' also has an entry on it (cf. below)

The encyclopedia records that according to the local legend of the people of Kyushu, Japan, the ''ubume'' is a bird that resembles the gull in appearance and voice and it tends to show up on a pitch-black night of light rain. The spot where the bird appears, there is usually "phosphor fire" (eerie flame, like a will-o'-the-wisp). It is said to shapeshift into a human woman accompanied by a child, and whoever encounters this should beware of fleeing from fright, lest the creature will cause chill-shivers and high fever, which can even be fatal. However, if a stalwart man accepts the favor and carries the child, he will come to no harm.

Other Japanese lore

In Ibaraki Prefecture, there is a similar legend concerning a yōkai called the ''ubametori'' which flies by night, and when it spots children's clothing hung dry, it imagines would think of the child as their own, and mark the clothes with its milk, which is said to be poisonous.

This "ubametori" of Ibaraki bears close similarity with the ''kokakuchō'' i.e. ''guhuoniao'' the "wench bird" of China, and the folklore probably derives from Chinese scholarship, introduced by some Japanese person with learning.

By other names

Ubume in Hinoemata, Minamiaizu District and Kaneyama, Ōnuma District, Fukushima Prefecture were called "''obo''". It is said that when they encounter someone, they make that person hug a baby and then disappear in peace and the one hugging the baby will have their throat bitten by the baby. It is said that when one encounters an ''obo'', one should throw a piece of cloth, such as a string with a billhook attached for men, or an , ''tenugui'', or a ''yumaki'' (a type of waistcloth for women) at it, thus diverting the ''obo''s attention for an opportunity to escape. It is also said that if one does end up hugging the baby, hugging the baby with its face turned the other way will prevent one from being bitten. Also, the ''obo'' (like "''ubu''" in "''ubume''" ) is originally a dialect term referring to newborns. In Yanaizu, Kawanuma District in the same Fukushima Prefecture, there is a legend concerning the who asked a man to hold her child (''obo'') while she did her hair, and after he complied, he received a stack of mochi made of gold as reward.

In the Nishimatsuura District, Saga Prefecture and in Miyamachi Miyaji, Aso, Kumamoto Prefecture, they are called "''ugume''" and it is said that they appear at night and they would make people embrace a baby a night, but when dawn comes, they would generally be a rock, a stone tower, or a straw beater. (A type of funayūrei ("ship ghost") called " ugume" is known on in Kumamoto Prefecture, as well as , one of the Gotō Islands, in Nagasaki Prefecture).

On Iki Island (Nagasaki Prefecture), they are called "''unme''" or "''uume''" and they occur when a young person dies or when a woman dies from difficult childbirth, and they would sway back and forth before disappearing, having the appearance of a creepy blue light.

In Iwaki Province, now Fukushima Prefecture and Miyagi Prefecture, it is said that the ("dragon lantern"; an atmospheric ghost light said to be lit by a dragon spirit) would appear at beaches and try to come up to land, but it is said that this is because an ''ubume'' is carrying a ''ryūtō'' to the shore. In Kitaazumi District, Nagano Prefecture, ''ubume'' are called ''yagomedori'', and they are said to stop at clothes drying at night, and it is said that putting on those clothes would result in dying before one's husband.

Social and cultural influence

The yokai ubume was conceived through various means of social and religious influence. During the late Medieval period of Japan, the attitudes surrounding motherhood started to change. Rather than the infant being considered a replication of the mother and an extension of her body, the fetus started to be seen as separate from the mother. This distancing of mother and fetus caused an emphasis on the paternal ownership of the child, reducing the mother to nothing more than a vessel for male reproduction. For a mother to die in childbirth or late pregnancy soon came to be considered a sin, the blame for the death of the unborn child being placed on the mother who in a sense was responsible for the infant's death.

The idea that a pregnant woman who dies and get buried transforms into an ''ubume'' has existed since ancient times; which is why it has been said that when a pregnant woman dies , one ought to cut the fetus out the abdomen and put it on the mother in a hug as they are buried. In some regions, if the fetus cannot be cut out, a doll would be put beside her.

The ubume's blood-soaked appearance is thought to be because in feudal society, the continuation of the family was considered important, so pregnant women who died were believed to fall into a hell with a pond of blood.

Folkloristics

In Japanese folklore the ''ubume'' is the ghost of a woman who had died in childbirth, or "''birthing woman ghost''".

Typically, the ubume asks a passerby to hold her child for just a moment and disappears when her victim takes the swaddled baby. The baby then becomes increasingly heavy until it is impossible to hold. It is then revealed not to be a human child at all, but a boulder or a stone image of Jizō.

Many scholars have associated the ''ubume'' with the legend of the ''hitobashira'' ('human pillar'), where a sacrificial mother and child "are buried under one of the supporting pillars of a new bridge".

The in Shizuoka Prefecture, according to scholars, is where local women come to pray to conceive a child or to have a successful pregnancy. According to Stone and Walter (2008), the origins of the temple's legend, set in the mid-16th century, concern:

a modern statue of Ubume, displayed once a year in July. At this festival, candy that has been offered to the image is distributed, and women pray for safe delivery and for abundant milk. The statue, which is clothed in white robes, has only a head, torso, and arms; it has no lower half.

In art

Tokugawa-era artists produced many images of ''ubume'', usually represented as "naked from the waist up, wearing a red skirt and carrying a small baby," or rather, wearing a blood-soaked '' koshimaki'' loincloth.

Another illustration of ''ubume'' comes e from Toriyama Sekiens late-18th-century encyclopedia of ghosts, goblins, and ghouls,
''Gazu Hyakki Yagyō''.

In popular literature

Natsuhiko Kyogoku's best-selling detective novel, ''The Summer of the Ubume'', uses the ''ubume'' legend as its central motif, creating something of an ''ubume 'craze'' at the time of its publication and was made into a major motion picture in 2005.

See also

*Harpy
*Konaki-jiji, a childlike yōkai that, like the ubume's bundled 'infant', grows heavier when carried and ultimately takes the form of a boulder.
*Myling, an example of a similar motif in Scandinavian folklore.
*Pontianak
* Sankai, yōkai that emerge from pregnant women

Explanatory notes

Citations

References

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Further reading

*Iwasaka, Michiko and Barre Toelken. ''Ghosts And The Japanese: Cultural Experience in Japanese Death Legends''. (1994)
*Kyogoku, Natsuhiko. ''The Summer of the Ubume''. San Francisco: Viz Media. (2009)
*Wakita, Haruko. ''Women in medieval Japan: motherhood, household management and sexuality''. Monash Asia Institute. (2006)

External links

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{{Japanese folklore long

Ubume
Japanese ghosts
Japanese folklore
Yōkai
Female legendary creatures
Mythological and legendary Japanese birds