Oki Bake-kujira Legend

The Oki Bake-kujira tradition is a coastal kaidan around the Oki Islands in the Sea of Japan, of the bake-kujira, a giant skeletal whale that appears offshore at night. On a moonless night, a white skeletal whale without flesh or organs, followed by countless fish and strange birds, glides quietly past the islands as fishermen watch in silence. Encountering the bake-kujira foretells plague or poor catches for the village; if duly mourned, the disaster is settled. Along the San'in coast, where whaling crews held sway, the figure entered into the ethics of whaling and remembrance. The story has three central scenes: the appearance of the skeletal whale at sea on a moonless night, the strange schools of fish and birds that follow, and the village abnormality and rites of remembrance after sighting. A typical early-modern sea kaidan in which awe for ocean life and whaling ethics meet, resonating with the whale-burial sites of Ikitsuki Island and Taiji. The central area is the seas around Okinoshima Town (former Saigo) of the Oki Islands, with related tales reported on Dogo and Dozen. The Oki Nature Museum and the Okinoshima Town Library hold related materials. Yanagita Kunio's Yokai Dangi, Inoue Enryo's Yokai-gaku Kogi, and the Ehon Hyaku Monogatari (Momoyama Jin Yawa, Tenpo 12, 1841) "Bakekujira" carry the figure; San'in gazetteers such as Unyo-shi (Kyoho 2, 1717) and Inshu Shicho Goki (Kanbun 7, 1667) provide related material.