Edo Tenome Legend

The Edo Tenome tradition concerns the blind old-man entity Tenome, who has eyes in both of his palms and appears in Edo cemeteries and temple grounds to frighten night walkers. Tenome of Kyoto's Amida-ga-mine is the prototype, transferred to Edo and especially to Shinjuku Ward's temple districts of Ushigome, Yotsuya, and Ichigaya. The pattern is that the figure asks "Please lend me your hand," and when the traveler takes his hand the eye on the old man's palm opens to stare. The story is built on a two-stage "disguise-and-disclosure" structure: the mimicry of a harmless old man asking for help, followed by the disclosure of the eye in the palm and the moment of terror. The mimicry of physical weakness in blindness carries the first stage of fear, while the displacement of the eye to the palm, an inversion of sight and touch, carries the climax, joining the typical pattern of Edo-period yokai picture-scrolls. The central tradition area is the Edo temple-town district of Shinjuku Ward and the Koishikawa cemetery zone of Bunkyo Ward. The Amida-ga-mine cemetery of Higashiyama, Kyoto, is the prototype site. Toriyama Sekien's Gazu Hyakki Yagyo (Anei 5, 1776) "Tenome" carries the picture and inscription; Ihara Saikaku's Shin Kashoki and other Edo kaidan are background.