Tsuchigumo

"Tsuchigumo" from the Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki by Sekien Toriyama
Tsuchigumo, from Bakemono no e scroll, Brigham Young University

Tsuchigumo (土蜘蛛, literally translated "dirt/earth spider") is a historical Japanese derogatory term for renegade local clans, and also the name for a race of spider-like yōkai in Japanese folklore. Alternative names for the mythological Tsuchigumo include yatsukahagi (八握脛, roughly "eight grasping legs") and ōgumo (大蜘蛛, "giant spider").[1] In the Kojiki and in Nihon Shoki, the name was phonetically spelled with the four kanji 都知久母 (for the four morae tsu-chi-gu-mo),[2] and these words were frequently used in the Fudoki of Mutsu Province, Echigo Province, Hitachi Province, Settsu Province, Bungo Province and Hizen Province as well as others.

The name Tsuchigumo is believed to be derived from tuchigomori (土隠). tuchi (土) means "earth" and gomori (隠) means "hiding". The word is thought to have referred to a local clan of powerful people who did not obey the imperial court and lived in caves. As a local clan, the Tsuchigumo were described as short in stature but long in limbs, with the temperament of a wolf and the heart of an owl, and living an uncivilized life.[3][4]

Historian Sōkichi Tsuda (ja) points out that unlike Kumaso and Emishi, Tsuchigumo is not treated as a group in the Fudoki, but as an individual name. The historian Yoshiyuki Takioto (ja) also deduces that the Tsuchigumo were local chieftains with shamanism as their power background from the fact that the Tsuchigumo in the Fudoki of Kyushu appear as sorcerers related to agriculture who appease angry kami.[5]

The giant spider-like figure of the tsuchigumo as a oni-like yōkai first appeared in medieval literary works. The most representative work among these tales is The Tale of the Heike, compiled in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) in the first half of the 13th century, in which it appears under the name yamagumo (山蜘蛛, "mountain spider"). As the tsuchigumo passed through the ages, it became a more bizarre-looking yōkai.[6] In the 14th-century emakimono Tsuchigumo Sōshi, the tsuchigumo is depicted as a giant yōkai 60 meters long, and when it was exterminated, 1990 heads of the dead came out of its belly. Minamoto no Yorimitsu and Watanabe no Tsuna, who participated in the extermination of the tsuchigumo in these stories, are legendary heroes in Japan; they also appear in the legend of the powerful oni Shuten-dōji.[7] The tsuchigumo as a yōkai also appeared as the subject of Noh, Jōruri and Kabuki plays.[4]

  1. ^ 岩井宏實 (2000). 暮しの中の妖怪たち. 河出文庫. 河出書房新社. pp. 156頁. ISBN 978-4-309-47396-3.
  2. ^ 京極夏彦・多田克己 編著 (2008). 妖怪画本 狂歌百物語. 国書刊行会. pp. 293–294頁. ISBN 978-4-3360-5055-7.
  3. ^ Makoto Sahara (Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties) (1987). 体系 日本の歴史 1 日本人の誕生. Shogakukan. p. 178. ISBN 978-4096220016.
  4. ^ a b 土蜘蛛 (in Japanese). Kotobank. Archived from the original on 12 February 2023. Retrieved 12 February 2023.
  5. ^ Itaru Matsueda [in Japanese] (2006). 象徴図像研究―動物と象徴. Gensōsha. pp. 76–100. ISBN 978-4862090072.
  6. ^ Katsuhiko Fujii (8 February 2021). 土蜘蛛～山中の異形の妖怪も、元は善良な民だった⁉ (in Japanese). ABC Ark, Inc. Archived from the original on 27 September 2022. Retrieved 12 February 2023.
  7. ^ Sachie Miyamoto, Azusa Kumagai (2007). 日本の妖怪の謎と不思議. Gakken. p. 74. ISBN 978-4056047608.