Inugami

For other uses, see Inukami.
"Inugami" from the Hyakkai Zukan by Sawaki Suushi
"Inugami" from the Gazu Hyakki Yagyō by Sekien Toriyama. The one on the bottom-left that looks like a child is a "shirachigo" (白児, "white infant") that was either the inugami's pupil or the yōkai child of a disabled person.[1][2]
Inugami (犬神) from Bakemono no e (化物之繪, c. 1700), Harry F. Bruning Collection of Japanese Books and Manuscripts, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.

Inugami (犬神, "dog god/spirit"), like kitsunetsuki, is a spiritual possession by the spirit of a dog, widely known about in western Japan. They seemed firmly rooted until recent years in eastern Ōita Prefecture, Shimane Prefecture, and a part of Kōchi Prefecture in northern Shikoku, and it is also theorized that Shikoku, where no foxes (kitsune) could be found, is the main base of the inugami. Furthermore, traces of belief in inugami exists in the Yamaguchi Prefecture, all of Kyushu, even going past the Satsunan Islands all the way to the Okinawa Prefecture. In the Miyazaki Prefecture, the Kuma District, Kumamoto Prefecture, and Yakushima, the local dialect pronounces it "ingami"[3][4] and in Tanegashima, they are called "irigami."[3] It can also be written in kanji as 狗神.[5]

  1. ^ 湯本豪一編著 (2006). 続・妖怪図巻. 国書刊行会. p. 161. ISBN 978-4-336-04778-6.
  2. ^ 粕三平編著 (1973). お化け図会. 芳賀書店. p. 190. NCID BN0895133X.
  3. ^ a b 日野 2006, p. 234
  4. ^ 大藤他 1955, pp. 108–130
  5. ^ 浅井了意 (2001). 伽婢子・狗張子. 江戸怪談集. 藤堂憶斗訳. 鈴木出版. p. 139. ISBN 978-4-7902-1101-3.