English Version
Published October 21, 2019; updated February 21, 2020.
This article continues from the first half of our report on Nurikabe, the mysterious “wall” yokai. After the rediscovery of traditions connected to the so-called Kabenuri and Nurikabe, the Oita side of the story is more or less settled. But the earliest well-known Nurikabe reference is still unresolved: the Nurikabe of Onga, Fukuoka Prefecture, mentioned in Kunio Yanagita’s “Yokai Dangi,” has yet to be identified in the field. In the information age, that absence is strange in itself.
Below is a detailed report on Nurikabe-related folklore from several locations in Oita Prefecture.
Folklore Records from Usuki, Oita
According to materials from the Usuki City Board of Education in 1978, specifically records on the folklore of the Usuki Stone Buddhas area, the following beliefs were documented:
At night, while walking along a road, a person might encounter Kabenuri and suddenly be unable to see even an inch ahead.
If a tanuki or fox is said to be spreading its scrotum to blind a traveler, one countermeasure is to use fire. It is also said that taking a puff of tobacco can make one able to see again.
Kabenuri was often said to appear at Hara no Saka. If your vision was “struck” or blinded there, crouching down was considered a good response.
A 1968 issue of “Usuki Shidan” also records a Nurikabe-like phenomenon:
While walking, a person may suddenly find that they cannot see what is in front of them.
In Kakaji Town, this was called an “itachi Nurikabe,” or weasel Nurikabe. In other parts of Oita, it was called a “tanuki Nurikabe.” In Usuki City, it was known as Kabenuri. Similar yokai traditions were found throughout Oita Prefecture.
In Yamakuni Town, people said that a tanuki spread its scrotum to blind passersby. If someone encountered Nurikabe, the recommended response was to crouch down on the spot and light a cigarette. After a while, visibility was expected to return.
As a supplement: in Oita’s yokai and haunted-place folklore, the names Kabenuri and Nurikabe do not seem to refer to completely separate yokai species. They appear to function more like two names for the same kind of thing, similar to how a haunted umbrella yokai may be described with slightly different wording. The terms may also refer not only to a creature, but to the darkness-and-blindness phenomenon itself.
Nurikabe as a Yokai Haunt
From here, the question becomes: how did Nurikabe or Kabenuri come to be understood as a yokai?
Nurikabe and Kabenuri traditions appear in folklore sites across Oita Prefecture. Many were found in Usuki in particular. Usuki is famous for the Usuki Stone Buddhas, a site with an atmosphere that can easily suggest the uncanny to horror-minded visitors. The city was also known for its advanced plaster-wall techniques and was historically home to many people with overseas connections.
According to a hypothesis by Bintaro Yamaguchi, Usuki’s coastal location may have allowed outside influences to play a role. William Adams, also known as Miura Anjin, landed in Usuki. There is also said to have been a plaster-wall craftsman named Chin Genmei, though the original author notes that the name is oddly hard to find through online searches. This craftsman reportedly settled in the area with many apprentices, and his descendants are said to continue to this day.
The plaster walls made by Chin Genmei were apparently innovative for their time. These walls, called oil plaster, were treated to repel rainwater. Yamaguchi’s theory is that people of the period were astonished by these water-repelling walls, and that this surprise somehow became connected with darkness, dead ends, or the feeling of being blocked in the night. From that, the yokai-haunt phenomenon called Kabenuri or Nurikabe may have emerged.
It is admittedly a difficult leap. Still, the connection between a startling new kind of wall and a yokai whose name evokes a wall is hard to dismiss entirely.
Similar beings that blocked travelers on night roads appear in folklore from across Japan. Examples include Fusuma, Futon-kabuse, Kaya-tsuri-danuki, Ashimagari, and Sunekosuri. Each of these yokai has a different form and character, but they share the motif of obstructing someone’s movement.
That raises a larger question: why did this kind of walking-obstruction phenomenon appear in so many parts of Oita?
With so many oral traditions, it is fair to ask whether there was some concrete basis behind them.
How Nurikabe Changed with the Times
To explain this yokai-haunt phenomenon, which was passed down from the Edo period into the prewar era, Bintaro Yamaguchi proposes his own theory: vitamin deficiency.
His idea focuses on the dietary shift away from unpolished brown rice, common until the middle Edo period, toward polished white rice becoming available to ordinary people. Polishing rice removes the bran, which contains many vitamins. In other words, Yamaguchi looks to beriberi as a possible cause.
A lack of vitamin A can cause night blindness. A lack of vitamin B1 can cause beriberi. These two conditions are not completely unlike the effects attributed to Kabenuri or Nurikabe. Beriberi can make the legs unsteady, while night blindness can make unlit paths seem suddenly impossible to see.
If a bodily condition is projected outward and interpreted as something appearing in front of a person, it could become exactly this kind of yokai. In that sense, the phenomenon might have been a kind of illness caused by changes in diet, something comparable to a modern lifestyle disease. Limited science and medical knowledge may then have encouraged people to give the experience a name and a form.
Human beings fear the unknown and the unidentified. Perhaps people wanted to grasp an elusive suffering by turning it into a yokai-haunt phenomenon.
If this theory is correct, it says something rather careless and self-serving about human nature. When people faced an uncomfortable condition in their own bodies, they sought something concrete that could be acted upon. Then they attached that experience to plaster walls, one of the fresh wonders of the time. In this way, the yokai Kabenuri or Nurikabe was born.
Again, this is only Yamaguchi’s hypothesis. But the act of forming a hypothesis is not entirely different from the way people once created yokai. It may be a necessary mistake we make in order to live.
Traveler Note
Usuki and the Usuki Stone Buddhas are real places, and some of the folklore here is tied to roads, slopes, and rural areas. If you visit, stay on public paths, respect posted signs and private property, and avoid walking unfamiliar unlit roads at night. The legends are best enjoyed safely, with local history and folklore in mind.
Japanese Language
公開日：2019年10月21日 更新日：2020年2月21日 。ぬりかべ前半のお話はこちら 。幻の妖怪「カベヌリ」「ヌリカベ」伝承地再発見されてから。。これで一応、大分県地方は片が付きましたが、ヌリカベ初出の方が、まだ終わっていません。柳田国男の 「妖怪談義」 に記載のあった、福岡県遠賀のヌリカベは未だに発見されてないのです。この情報化時代なのに不思議というべきでしょうか。。以下から、大分県各地の妖怪心霊スポットの伝承の詳細報告をお送りします。
昭和５３年度における大分県臼杵市教育委員会の資料から。臼杵石仏地域の民俗。・夜、道を歩いているとカベヌリに合って、一寸先も見えなくなることがある。・タヌキかキツネが金玉を広げて目隠しをする場合、対処法は火をつけるとよい。また、煙草を一服すると見えるようになる。・原の坂にカベヌリがよく出る。その時、目つぶしされたら、しゃがんみこんでいるとよい。昭和４３年度の「臼杵史談」から。・ぬりかべ現象について。歩いている最中、突然目の前が見えなくなることがある。
それを香々地町ではイタチのぬりかべ、県内各地では狸のぬりかべという。・臼杵市内では、かべぬりと呼ばれる。大分県内各地に伝わる妖怪。山国町では狸が金玉を広げて目隠しをしているという。ぬりかべに遇ってしまった時は、その場にしゃがみこんでタバコに火をつけるとよいとされる。そのうち見えるようになるという。。補足として、大分県妖怪心霊スポットの「 カベヌリ 」「 ヌリカベ 」の名称は異種固有の妖怪を指すのではありません。「傘化け」と「化け傘」のように同種のものを指し、なおかつ暗闇現象それ自体を指すと思われます。
。心霊スポットとしての妖怪ヌリカベは？。。さてここからは、 妖怪心霊スポット において、ヌリカベ・カベヌリが妖怪として成立した謎に迫ってみましょう。ヌリカベ・カベヌリは大分県の各地の心霊スポットにみられました。とくに大分県臼杵市から多く発見されましたが、大分県臼杵市といえば、なにやら 心霊スポット を彷彿とさせる「 臼杵磨崖仏 」が有名です。また、同市は「 しっくい壁 」の技術に秀でた技術を持っています。加えて、 帰化人の多い地 でもありました。
。。あくまで山口氏の仮説ですが、沿岸部ということで、海外からの影響が考えられるとしています。たとえば、三浦按針ことウイリアムアダムスが上陸したのも大分県臼杵でした。また「珍元明」(なぜかググっても出てきません)という「 しっくい壁 」の技術者も多くの弟子をつれ定住したそうです。子孫も未だに続いているといいます。。珍元明の作るしっくい壁は、当時では画期的でした。油漆喰と呼ばれた壁は、雨水をはじく撥水加工が施されていたといいます。この水をはじく壁を見た当時の人々の驚きが、どういうわけか「闇」と「行き止まり」、もしくは闇夜の行き止まりと結びつき、妖怪心霊スポット現象となって、 「カベヌリ」、「ヌリカベ」を生んだという苦しい理論が成り立つ というのです。
。飛躍が過ぎますが、ともかく驚くべき新壁とヌリカベが、壁繋がりであることは否めないでしょう。ヌリカベ同様に夜道の歩行者を通せんぼしたモノは全国各地の妖怪心霊スポットにいました。。例を揚げるなら、「ふすま」、「ふとんかぶせ」、「蚊帳つり狸」、「あしまがり」、「すねこすり」等がいます。しかし、いずれの妖怪も各種各様ちがった姿をしています。。それでは大前提として、 歩行を妨げる妖怪心霊スポット現象は、なぜ大分県各地で起きたのでしょう。。沢山の言伝えがあるからには、具体的な根拠を求めてもよいのではないでしょうか。
。時代が移り変わると共にヌリカベは。。時代区分でいえば江戸期から戦前にかけて語り継がれた、その妖怪心霊スポット現象を説明するに当たり、山口敏太郎氏は独自の説として、「 ビタミン欠乏説 」を挙げています。江戸中期までの未精米の玄米食をやめて、庶民も白米を食べられるようになったことを。。精米によってビタミンを多く含有する糠が除去された、つまり、脚気(かっけ)に彼は原因を求めるのです。ビタミンＡの不足は夜盲症を引き起こし、ビタミンＢ１の不足はかっけを引き起こす原因となります。
。この二つの症状は「カベヌリ」「ヌリカベ」が引き起こす妖怪心霊スポット現象に似ていなくもありません。脚気は足をもつれさせ、夜盲症は無灯火の視界遮断を起こします。身体現象を他に投影させ、いきなり現れる物とするなら件の妖怪になるのです。つまり、 豊かな食生活の変化によって生じた、今でいう成人病みたいなもの です。それが未発達な科学、医学的無知によって助長された上、名と姿を与えられたのでしょう。人間は未知なモノ、正体不明なモノを怖れる生き物です。
。なんとか、妖怪心霊スポット現象として、とらえがたき苦痛をとらえたかったのかもしれません。。この説が正しければ、人間とは何といい加減で身勝手な生き物なのでしょうか。我が身に起きた不都合に対処可能な具体性を求め、その姿に当時の新鮮な驚きであった「しっくい」を合わせる。妖怪「カベヌリ」「ヌリカベ」の誕生です。。当時の栄養欠乏から生まれた妖怪「カベヌリ」「ヌリカベ」。これはあくまで、山口氏の仮説ですが、仮説を立てるという行為は、昔の人の妖怪製造となんら違いはありません。
。我々にとって必要な生きるための誤謬(ごびゅう)なのです
