Today’s yokai is Azukiarai, a fairly gentle yokai who lives in the mountains. They are very shy and elusive, so it’s quite difficult to see them. Their name means “bean washer,” and that’s exactly what they do — they wash buckets of red beans in mountain streams, singing their bean-washing song, which goes like this:

“Azuki togou ka? Hito tottekuou ka? Shoki shoki.”
“Should I grind my azuki beans? Or should I snatch a person to eat? Shoki shoki (the sound of washing beans in the bucket).”

It sounds scary, but he really just sings it for fun. Azukiarai doesn’t hurt people or cause mischief, though it is said that anyone approaching close enough to see one will inevitably fall in the water just before he runs away.

Azukiarai

Yesterday I showed you Zashiki-warashi, which is named for the zashiki — a kind of room in a Japanese house. I mentioned that there are different kinds of zashiki-warashi, and they vary in terms of pleasantness. Most zashiki-warashi appear as young children, and while they love to play pranks and mess around, they’re generally well-liked yokai.  Today’s yokai has a much less wholesome image. This isUsu-tsuki-warashi. It’s named for a Japanese millstone, and has a slightly less wholesome image. Usu-tsuki-warashi is connected with ancient infanticide customs, in which an unwanted baby would be buried in a warehouse, in a dirt floor, or underneath the millstone.

Usu-tsuki warashi is said to cause general feelings of unease in houses that it inhabits. It crawls out from beneath the dirt floor and creeps about the house, making noises like someone pounding on a millstone (thus its name). It’s not a malevolent yokai, but it certainly can feel that way.

Unfortunately, it’s like that driving it out of the house would have the same ruinous effects that driving its more-pleasant cousin out would have… so a family with a Usu-tsuki-warashi may have to live with the creepy yokai rather than forcing it to leave.

Usu-tsuki-warashi