Kamaitachi (Okayama)

Kamaitachi is a wind-yokai. A sudden whirlwind catches a person on a winter or early-spring road, and afterwards a sharp, deep cut, as if from a sickle, appears on the leg or arm with little pain or bleeding. In Shinshu and Echigo, the figure is told as three weasels working in turn: the first trips the victim, the second cuts, the third applies a salve. Densities of tradition cluster in Nagano (Shinano), Niigata (Echigo), Tohoku, and the mountain districts of Okayama and the Chugoku region. The three-weasel version of the narrative is especially dense in Shinshu and Echigo, where the absence of pain is explained by the salve. Toriyama Sekien's Gazu Hyakki Yagyo, "in" volume (1776), figures the yokai under the name "Kyuki," linking it to the Shanhaijing monster of the Western Mountains chapter. The Edo-period zuihitsu Hokuetsu Seppu by Suzuki Bokushi (1837) records detailed Echigo kamaitachi cases. Yanagita Kunio's Santo Mintanshu (1914) and later folk studies make the figure a central object; Murakami Kenji's Nihon Yokai Daijiten (Kadokawa, 2005) and the Nichibunken Strange Phenomena and Yokai Folklore Database systematize the cases. In the Chugoku mountains the folk explanation of whirlwind-cuts as kamaitachi persisted into the modern era, marking the southern limit of the type's distribution.