Abura-akago
Abura-akago (油赤子, "oil baby") is a Japanese type of infant spirit or ghost. It is a yōkai that appeared illustrated in Toriyama Sekien's mid-Edo period Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki, as an infant spirit lapping oil out of an andon lamp.
Sekien's accompanying notes describe it:
- In Hacchō, Ōtsu in Ōmi ("Afumi") Provincethere exists a flying ball-like fire. (近江国 (あふみのくに) 大津の八町に玉のごとくの火飛行 (ひぎやう) する事あり。)
- The natives say that long ago in the village of Shiga there was an oil merchant, and every night he stole the oil from the Jizōof the Ōtsu crossroads, but when this person died his soul became a flame and even now they grow accustomed to this errant fire. (土人云、むかし志賀の里に油をうるものあり、夜毎に大津辻の地蔵の油をぬすみけるが、その者死て魂魄炎となりて今に迷ひの火となれるとぞ。)
- If it is so then the baby which licks the oil is this person's rebirth. (しからば油をなむる赤子は此ものの再生せしにや。)[1]
The words after "long ago in the village of Shiga" were quoted from a story about a mysterious fire called the "abura-nusumi no hi" (the oil-stealing fire), which featured in the Edo period books, the Shokoku Rijin Dan (諸国里人談) and the Honchō Koji Innen Shū (本朝故事因縁集).
In more modern yōkai literature, it is interpreted that this yōkai takes on the appearance of a ball of flames and flies into people's houses, shapeshifts into that of a baby and licks the lanterns (andon lanterns), and returns to being a ball of fire and leaves.[5] There's the theory that in the countryside in the past, unrefined materials like fish oil were used, so when cats licked the lamps, they might have looked like an abura-akago (baby licking an oil lamp).[5]
Resembling this interpretation, in the book
Like the abura-nase and the ubagabi, there are many yōkai legends related to an attachment to oil.[8] In this background, oil was a valuable resource used as food and as illumination in Japan, becoming even more of a necessity since the middle ages due to an improvement in refining technology, leading to the theory that these yōkai were born as a warning against wasting oil by licking and sucking it.[9]
References
- ISBN 978-4-336-03386-4.
- ^ a b 村上 2005, p. 17
- ISBN 978-4-642-08547-2.
- ^ 柴田宵曲 (1963). 妖異博物館. 青蛙房. p. 67. NCID BN11938012.
- ^ a b 水木 2004, p. 7
- ^ 山田野理夫 (1974). 東北怪談の旅. 自由国民社. p. 29. NCID BA42139725.
- ^ a b 村上 2000, p. 20
- ISBN 978-4-06-205172-9.
- ISBN 978-4-413-00965-2.)
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Sources
- 水木しげる (2004) [1998]. 妖鬼化. Vol. 2. ISBN 978-4-86133-005-6.
- 村上健司編著 (2005). 日本妖怪大事典. Kwai books. 角川書店. ISBN 978-4-04-883926-6.
- 村上健司編著 (2000). 妖怪事典. ISBN 978-4-620-31428-0.
- ISBN 978-4-86133-006-3.
- ISBN 978-4-04-405101-3.
- "Kaii Yōkai Denshō Database: Konpaku En". Archived from the original on 25 May 2007. Retrieved 16 April 2007.
- http://www.obakemono.com/obake/aburaakago/ The Obakemono Project: Abura akago