Nurikabe
The is a yōkai, or spirit, from Japanese folklore.
It is said to manifest as an invisible wall that impedes or misdirects travelers walking at night. This yōkai is described as quite tall, to prevent people from climbing over it, and wide enough to dampen any attempts to go around it.
Japanese scholar and folklorist Kunio Yanagita recorded perhaps the most prominent early example of nurikabe and other yōkai in his books. Manga artist Shigeru Mizuki claims to have had a nurikabe-like experience, being stuck in coal tar in New Guinea, inspiring a nurikabe character in his manga Gegege no Kitarō.
It was thought that no pre-modern pictorial depictions of nurikabe existed until it was noticed in 2007 that a 17th century yōkai picture scroll held by Brigham Young University included a "white dog-elephant like creature" labeled as "" matching a later copy held in Japan.
Mythology
The nurikabe takes the form of a wall—usually invisible—that blocks the path of travelers as they're walking. With the exception of Mizuki Shigeru's experience in New Guinea, most legends and accounts of nurikabe come from Kyūshū, in the Fukuoka and Ōita prefectures.Specifically, folklorist Kunio Yanagita gives the following lore:
Note the quoted text above does not explicitly refer to the wall's invisibility, so this is an aspect inferred by commentators.
Yanagita's writing on the nurikabe is thought to represent the earliest attestation of folklore record, or at least he is credited for making it widely known throughout Japan.
Some iterations of the legend say that trying to go around the wall is futile as it extends forever. It has been suggested that the legend of the nurikabe was created to explain travelers losing their bearings on long journeys.
Lore of Ōita
Some nurikabe-like experiences that have been recorded have been attributed as the doing of a tanuki in Ōita Prefecture. These happenings, instead of involving a wall, are instances where the traveler suddenly cannot see in front of themselves. This legendary phenomenon is referred to as "tanuki no nurikabe The same phenomenon is called itachi no nurikabe locally in Kakaji.Superstition tells that the tanuki erects a "blind wall" by outspreading its scrotum into a wide sheet, blocking the nighttime traveler's field of vision. Either the raccoon dog's or the weasel's nurikabe wall can be defeated by sitting down in place and smoking a puff of tobacco, then the traveler's vision will be restored, and he is able to resume his journey.
There is a tradition of nurikabe folklore in Usuki, Ōita as well. Usuki is known for abura shikkui, a proprietary plastering technique, and walls administered this kind of coating will repel water, whose weird appearance may have originally inspired the nurikabe monster, according to one theory.
Minamiamabe District, Ōita has a folk legend that the nurikabe appears on a sloped path named Shichi-magari, accompanied by another yōkai called azuki-togi . When a person is walking along at night, the nurikabe appears suddenly and the view ahead completely darkens. Its true identity is a tanuki, which hops on to the back knot of the obi around the person's kimono, then covers the person's eyes with its forepaws. Hence, the way to avoid this misfortune is to tie the obi in such a way as to prevent the beast from riding it.
Iconography
Yokai picture scroll
;An illustration labeled as "nurikabe" of a three-eyed quadruped white creature was found in Brigham Young University's Bakemono no e picture scroll, held by the BYU Harold B. Lee Library under the L. Tom Perry Special Collections Library's Harry F. Bruning collection of Yōkai folklorist Michael Dylan Foster thinks this creature resembles an elephant, though the later copy is considered to look like a lion or dog by Japanese commentators.
Thus, a near identical, but unlabeled, later copy of this painting exists in a picture scroll belonging to . and this unlabeled beast can now be characterized as another "nurikabe" painting by comparison conducted in January 2007. Yumoto's scroll was painted by Kanō Yoshinobu of the Kanō school in the year 1802/Kyōwa 2 dated on the colophon of the scroll. The "discovery" was made in January 2007 when Associate Professor Lawrence Marceau of the University of Auckland carried photographic data of the BYU scroll and visited Yumoto to make comparison. Subsequently in August 2007, Yumoto announced the exhibition of his picture scroll illustration now identified as "".
Before this "discovery", pre-modern depiction of the nurikabe was thought not to exist. Manga artist Shigeru Mizuki called the find "significant" or "important yōkai national treasure"。After 2007, the visual depiction of nurikabe circulating around Japan changed completely, from the flat wall creature with eyes, arms and legs depicted by Mizuki, to this "white dog-elephant-like creature". Mizuki's version was solely based on his imagination and written folklore
But some Japanese scholars are not convinced this image actually depicts the same nurikabe known by the oral lore of Kyushu. Writer-researchers Natsuhiko Kyogoku,, and journalist Osamu Kato of Asahi Shimbun held a panel discussion published in the periodical, which rendered opinion that it is unclear whether the scroll picture nurikabe and the oral folklore nurikabe are the one and the same.
One theory is that nurikabe is a homonym for completely different yōkai, and the name match merely coincidence. Another possibility is that the picture labeled "nurikabe" or just nurikabes name alone circulated to the Kyushu region, and was forcibly matched with local lore that seemed to fit. Folklorist et al. also deem as "uncertain" the exact relationship between the scroll picture and the nurikabe of Yanagita's folklore.
Inō Heitarō's adventure
In the Edo Period illustrated yōkai narrative ), there is a scene where a face with eyes and a mouth appears on the wall and glares at the person. There had been advanced theories in the past that this "face on the wall" might be the traceable origin of the nurikabe.On the 30th day of the 7th lunar month, the protagonist is met with a mass of ash which spews a herd of earthworms, and the wall nearby has sprouted eyes and a mouth, laughing.
This "face in the wall" is related to hitobashira according to literary critic Shirō Kuramoto, as it is quite conceivable for a sacrificed human to be plastered into the wall. Though Kuramoto is not referring to the nurikabe monster itself but rather nurikabe as a construction technique, a somewhat similar line of thought is already seen in the theory that the nurikabe monster originated from walls finished with so-called the "oil plaster" of Usuki city.
Mizuki's manga
The yōkai manga author Shigeru Mizuki created the character, a large wall with eyes, hands and feet. The visualization was strictly the invention of Mizuki's mind, except that he relied on Yanagita's folklore that the "wall appears" ahead. So this Nurikabe is essentially a folk legend based fictional character.Parallels
The of Iki Island is considered a similar creature. It is said to jut out from the side of the mountain next to the road at night.Nobusuma
The nobusuma is a yōkai which in some versions has been likened to the nurikabe. The nobusuma down south from Tokyo in the Shikoku region, in village, Hata District, Kōchi, purportedly blocks the way and it is so expansive, there is apparently no end to it whether you seek up and down or sideways. When blocked, the traveler needs to calm down and smoke his tobacco.Hiroshi Aramata comments that the above creature should be distinguished from another nobusuma, the other type, according to legend around the Tokyo area, flies up to humans and covers their eyes. But that tactic does resemble the eye-hiding by the tanuki that rides the obi sash behind a person's back, described above. In fact, another yōkai reference considers the nobusuma a kindred or subtype of the fūri which would generally be construed in Japan to mean "wind tanuki". More specifically, the nobusuma is said to glide through the air by night, latch onto the back of a mountain hiker, cover his eyes and mouth, and suck the blood. The nobusuma is illustrated and annotated by Toriyama Sekien, where he describes it as "essentially a flying squirrel ", which eats nuts and fire.