Yamawaro (Yamaguchi)

Yamawaro is a child-form entity of the mountains of western Japan, the size of a child, with a hairy body and large eyes. It engages with people by challenging them to sumo, helping with mountain work, and playing tricks. Folklore of mountain Yamaguchi and the Chugoku and Kyushu ranges places it broadly, and it shares with the kappa the seasonal cycle in which mountain folk and river folk exchange identities. The typical pattern is a child-form figure appearing during mountain work to wrestle, or helping carry timber; Yamawaro understands human speech and is pleased by rice balls or sake, but punishes a broken promise. Kyushu and the Chugoku region carry a common pattern in which Yamawaro descends to the rivers in autumn and becomes a kappa, and climbs back into the mountains in spring. Yanagita Kunio's Santo Mintan-shu (Taisho 3, 1914) sets out a chapter on Yamawaro. Sasaki Kizen's Oshu no Zashiki-warashi no Hanashi (1920), Kyushu Folklore Society reports, Murakami Kenji's Nihon Yokai Daijiten (Kadokawa, 2005), and the International Research Center for Japanese Studies Yokai Folklore Database organize the tradition.