Onmoraki

Onmoraki is a bird-form yokai said to appear at temples where rites for the new-deceased have been neglected. The figure is described as a great black crane-like bird with eyes that gleam like lamps and a clear, high cry, born from the residual breath of the dead. The figure entered Japan from the Chinese Buddhist tradition and was established as a figural yokai in the early modern period. In the canonical narrative, on the night after a funeral or wake at a temple where the monks have neglected sutra-chanting, a great black bird appears in the hall, extinguishing the lamps and menacing the priest. Toriyama Sekien's Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki (Anei 8, 1779) figures the yokai with a citation in the inscription to the Song-dynasty collection of Buddhist tales Qingzunlu. The Soto-shu reference work Zenrin Shokisen also mentions the figure. Murakami Kenji's Nihon Yokai Daijiten (Kadokawa, 2005) and the Nichibunken Strange Phenomena and Yokai Folklore Database compile the figure. Adjacent death-rite yokai include itsumade, ubume, kasha, and gaki; the Song-dynasty origin makes the figure a notable case of Chinese textual reference in Japanese figural yokai.