August is the month of Obon (お盆), a Buddhist festival that honours ancestral spirits, who are believed to return to their birthplaces in this week. Since otherworldly beings are wandering about, it’s also the perfect time for ghost stories or kaidan. We start with the most famous one, Yotsuya Kadain (四谷怪談), based on a real story. Or rather, real characters.
The samurai Iemon Tamiya lived in Yotsuya with his wife, Oiwa. Then he fell in love and started an illicit affair with another woman, and ordered his servant to put poison in Oiwa’s food every day. Oiwa’s condition deteriorated, her hair fell out and the right side of her face became deformed.
When she died, Iemon married his mistress, but when he lifted his bride’s veil on their wedding day, he was confronted by the deformed face of Oiwa, who had returned to haunt him. The horrified Iemon lunged at the face with his sword and cut off the apparitions’ head, but when the severed head finally stopped rolling on the floor … it had the face not of Oiwa, but of his bride.
Eventually Iemon committed suicide. Read more detailed versions of the story here and here.
Oiwa is honoured at a shrine in Yotsuya called Oiwa Inari Tamiya Jinja (於岩稲荷田宮神社), which was allegedly built by the Tamiyas to appease her angry spirit. Oiwa’s body (the real Oiwa’s real body) is buried elsewhere, but I’ll tell that story on another day.
Top left: woodblock print of Oiwa by Utagawa
Top right: woodblock print of Oiwa by Hokusai, depicting
her face emerging from a lantern
Middle: Oiwa Inari Tamiya Jinja in Yotsuya
Bottom left: pamphlets and a cute figurine at the shrine
Bottom right: newspaper stories about Oiwa at the shrine
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