Monsters, Cryptids and Yokai: the Kuchisake Onna or Slit Mouthed Woman.

 

 i love myths and folklore from all over the world.

Japan  is  full of interesting yokai, today's post will be about the Kuchisaki- onna or slit mouthed woman.


The slit mouthed woman is a well know yokai and has been seen in several popular modern shows and movies.

She can also be found in several  manga, live-action movies, anime and video games throughout Japan.

She was in the 1994 animated film Pom Poko, produced by Studio Ghibli, and would later appears in the 1996 live-action
short film titled " Kuchisake-onna", directed by Teruyoshi Ishii.
   

The 2007 horror movie "Carved" (also known under the titles Kuchisake-onna or A Slit-Mouthed Woman), directed by Koji Shiraishi  and featuring Miki Mizuno as the Kuchisake-onna,  The film was then followed by a sequal Carved 2: The Scissors Massacre  (also known as Kuchisake-onna 2) and The Slit-Mouthed Woman: The Beginning (or Kuchisake-onna Biginingu), released in 2008.

 Another movie in 2012 called Kuchisake-onna Returns,  

As well as in the occult/supernatural webcomic Mob Psycho 100.

And several other mentions and appearances in various manga's and shows.

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According to the urban legends, children walking alone at night may encounter a woman wearing a surgical mask, which is not an unusual
sight in Japan as people wear them to protect others from their colds or sickness.

The woman will stop the child and ask, "Am I pretty?" If the child answers no, the child is killed with a pair of scissors which the woman
carries. If the child answers yes, the woman pulls away the mask, revealing that her mouth is slit from ear to ear, and asks "How about now?"
 If the child answers no, he/she will be cut in half. If the child answers yes, then she will slit his/her mouth like hers. It is impossible to
run away from her, as she will simply reappear in front of the victim.

When the myth reappeared, the late 1970s rumors of ways to escape her soon followed. Some sources say she can be confused by the victim answering
her question with ambiguous answers, such as "You are average" or "So-so". Unsure of what to do, her victem will have enough time to escape while
she is lost in thought. Another way too  escape her is simply to tell her you have a previous engagement; she will pardon her manners and excuse herself.
In some variations of the tale, she can be distracted by fruit or candies thrown at her which she will then pick up, thus giving the victim a chance to run.
 

Another way is for the child to ask her if the child is pretty; she will get confused and just leave.

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The Origins ===
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The Kuchisake-onna was a woman who was mutilated during her life, with her mouth being slit from ear to ear,and became a vengeful yokai after death.

In some versions of the story, the Kuchisake-onna was the unfaithful wife of a samurai during her life.
As punishment for her infidelity, her husband sliced the corners of her mouth from ear to ear.

Other versions of the tale claim her mouth was mutilated during a medical or dental procedure,
or that she was mutilated by a woman who was jealous of her beauty and one that stats her mouth is actually filled with several sharp teeth and her mouth
is split to accommodate them.

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Regardless of how her mouth became split, after her death, the woman would return as a vengeful spirit, or onryo.

As an onryo, she covers her mouth with a cloth mask  (often specified in modern tails as a surgical mask), or in some iterations, a hand fan or even just a handkerchief.  

She also carries a sharp instrument with her, in some versions  a knife, others its  a machete, or a scythe, but the most well know versions  she uses a large pair of scissors.
 

In every version of the legend, she is said to ask potential victims if they think she is pretty often phrased as "Watashi, kirei?"  (which translates to "Am I pretty?" or "Am I beautiful?").  If the person answers "no", she will kill the person with her knife,  and if the person answers "yes", she will reveal her mutilated mouth.

She then repeats her question  (or asks "Kore demo?",  "Even with this?" or "Even now?") and if the person responds with "no" or screams  in fright, she will kill the person immediately .

If the response is "yes", she will slice the corners of the person's
 mouth from ear to ear, so that they will look like her.

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===escape====
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An individual can survive an encounter with Kuchisake-onna by using one of several methods. like the ones listed above.

In other versions of the myth, the Kuchisake-onna will leave the potential victim alone if they answer "yes" to both of her questions, though in other tales, she will visit the individual's residence later that night and murder the person  while they sleep.  

Other survival tactics include replying to her question by describing her appearance as "average", giving the individual enough time to run away;  distracting her by giving or throwing  money or hard candies (particularly the kind of candy known as bekko ame, made of caramelized sugar) in her direction, as she will stop to pick them up; or by saying the word "pomade" three times.
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older versions
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When rumors of alleged sightings began spreading in 1979 around the Nagasaki Prefecture, other sightings soon spread throughout Japan and  caused panic in several towns.

Though the original myth is believed to date back as far as the Edo piriod, the modern version of the  Kuchisake-onna can be  traced back to as early as 1979.

Several articles reported sightings of this malevolent yokai, the Gifu Prefecture newspaper Gifu Nichi Nichi Shinbun on  January 26, 1979,
 

the weekly publication Shukan Asahi on  March 23, 1979, and the weekly news magazine Shukan Shincho on  April 5, 1979.

With so many new sightings of the Kuchisake-onna spreading throughout Japan, mass hysteria soon followed to the point  that younger children would sometimes be accompanied by members of parent–teacher association groups while walking home from school. to keep them safe.

The police even  increasing their patrols to ease public concern.
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==More recent sightings====
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In 2004 here were many new  reports in South Korea about a woman wearing a red mask who was frequently seen chasing children, and in October 2007, a coroner allegedly found some old records from the late 1970s about a woman who was chasing young children.
 

She was then hit by a car, and died soon after. Her mouth was reportedly ripped from ear to ear.



so be weary of strangers, and maybe keep some hard candy as a decoy just in case lol..

Monsters, Cryptids and Yokai: Batsquatch

 

batsquatch

Sightings of strange humanoid creatures can be found all over the world. The Sasquatch / bigfoot of North America, The Alma of Siberia Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp, the Mothman of Point Pleasant  West Virginia  or  the Owlman of Cornwall. And what about the mysterious “bat-woman of Viet Nam”, spotted by three U.S. soldiers during the war in Southeast Asia, The Ahool and the Orang Bati and so on......

Unidentified creatures stalking the woods is a scary thought in and of itself, but Flying Humanoids
have also been sighted hundreds if not thousands of time's at this point and some encounters are
far more terrifying in nature then the random bigfoot sighting.. (Flying Humanoid post coming soon)

So what would you do if you encountered one of these larger then life beings that just so happened to have  the ability to  fly?..

 

........

One such encounter took place near Mount St. Helens back in the 1980s.

The creature is now commonly referred to as Batsquatch !   
 

The eye witness account describes the beast as standing at least 9 feet tall with yellow eyes, a wolf-like
muzzle, blue fur, sharp teeth, bird-like feet and large leathery bat-like wings that span up to at least
fifty feet.

Brian Canfield was the first person to actually have his name associated with a Batsquatch sighting.

He was also the one that first called it “Batsquatch”. 

Brian’s friends and family testified that he was an ordinary and dependable man with no bad habits or traits. Of course, many had a field day with his report and he was smeared as a drunk or a drug addict when investigation revealed neither of those traits.

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It all started on On April 1994, when  Brian Canfield was driving in Washington's Pierce County when his truck suddenly died.
 
Brian believed this creature had the ability to effect cars and had somehow stopped his vehicle.(
(The ability to affect electronics/ motors is also similar the the mothman)

Canfield said a large creature landed in front of him an it was human-like, 9 ft tall with batlike wings and blue fur.

 

 

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..Other Sightings..
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1994 was also the year that a mountain guide and liquor store owner Butch Whittaker reported an encounter with Batsquatch. Whittaker claimed to have been flying a small plane to Mt. Rainier when he saw the devilish humanoid flying close to the plane. Whittaker says he was able to snap pictures of the winged beast but as is typical in paranormal stories, the photos remain unseen. Many take Whittaker’s claims with an extra large grain of salt.

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Another possible sighting was reported in 2009 near Mt. Shasta in California.
Several hikers witnessed a  Very Large creature with leathery wings (spanning possibly up to 50 ft.) fly out of a crevice in the mountain.
 

At first, an eye-witness described the creature as having a head similar to a pterodactyl, however upon reconsideration the witness claimed
it was more like a bat or a fox.

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In June 2011 Pheonix Tieraz-(pseudonym) was in his yard walking his dog.

He went to pick up the dog when he saw something in the sky. He said the following-------

 "I saw something flying the the sky.
  It had bat wings, blue fur and had a face similar  to a bats with glowing red eyes.
  It was about 9 feet tall at the least, after I watched, it just flew away. "
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On April 14, 2014 at Archbishop Hoban High School in Akron OH, a second period Spanish class spotted a giant black mass zip by the  window of the classroom at incredible speed.

The class claims it was about 9 feet tall with a 20-30 foot wingspan.

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So what do you think? is there a large flying bigfoot like creature stalking the sky's of North America, or is this  an  undiscovered giant bat specie's...

keep an eye on the sky... you never know whats flying just out of sight waiting to strick.......

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                            Batsquatch is also a beer :)

 

 

 

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                                                               Next post coming soon...
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Pagan Origins of Easter and The Easter Bunny

 

         -------------Happy Easter----------------

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                    🐰Hope everyone has a great Good Friday and an awesome Easter!🐰

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Like many modern Christian holidays, Easter  and the Easter Bunny can be traced back at least in part too older pagan traditions and celebrations .

 

The festival of Ostara / Ēostr

 

                                                

                                                         

                                                      

                                                        Goddess Ostara/ Easter...

 

In most Europe countries , the name for Easter is derived from the Jewish festival of Passover.

In Greek the feast is called Pascha, in Italian Pasqua, in Danish it is Paaske, and in French it is Paques,"

But in English-speaking countries, and in Germany, Easter takes its name from a pagan goddess from Anglo-Saxon England who was described in a book by the eighth-century English monk Bede.

Ostara otherwise known as Ēostre, is the Germanic  goddess of spring and dawn and fertility. 

 

On the old Germanic calendar, the equivalent month to April was called “Ōstarmānod” – or Easter-month.

Ēostre is attested solely by Bede  in his 8th-century work The Reckoning of Time, where Bede states that during Ēosturmōnaþ (the equivalent of April), the pagan feasts in Ēostre's honor, but that this tradition had died out by his time, replaced by the Christian Paschal Month  a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus.

 Historic linguists  have also traced the name to a Proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn   Ausṓs from which descends the Common Germanic divinity from whom Ēostre and Ostara are held to descend.

 

 Scholars have also  linked the goddess's name to a variety of Germanic personal names, a series of location names in England, and, discovered in 1958, over 150 inscriptions from the 2nd century CE referring to the matrona Austriahenae.


There are several theory's that connect Ēostre with records of Germanic Easter customs  that alsoincl hares and Egg's. Particularly prior to the discovery of the matronae Austriahenae and further developments in Indo European studies, there have been several debates  among some scholars about whether or not the goddess was an invention of Bede. Ēostre and Ostara are sometimes referenced in modern popular culture and are venerated in some forms of Germanic neopaganism.

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During pre-christian times, people have celebrated the equinoxes and the solstices as sacred times

The spring equinox is a day where the amount of dark and the amount of daylight is exactly identical, so you can tell that you're emerging from winter because the daylight and the dark have come back into balance. The cycle of birth, death and rebirth...."People would plan out their whole life according to the patterns of nature.

Once Christianity took root across Euroup, the Easter period became associated with the resurrection of Christ.

In the first couple of centuries after Jesus's life, feast days in the new Christian church were attached to old pagan festivals,

Spring festivals  were to celebrate the end of winter and the retrn of warmer seasons, the main theme was new life and relief from the cold of winter this later became connected to the resurrected of Christ after the crucifixion.

 In 325AD the first major church council, the Council of Nicaea, determined that Easter should fall on the Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox.

This is why the date moves and why Easter celebrations are sometimes referred to as "moveable feasts".

There's a defined period between March 25 and April 25 on which Easter Sunday must fall, and that's determined by the movement of the planets and the Sun.

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 Easter eggs and the Easter Bunny 

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Ostre is a goddess of fertility her main  animal symbols are bunny and eggs. 

Rabbits are  known for their high rate breeding as such they have traditionally symbolized fertility, and eggs represent new life.

 

It’s believed that decorating eggs for Easter dates back to at least  the 13th century. 

 People began decorating eggs and eating them as a treat following mass on Easter Sunday after fasting through Lent.this is still something that happens in modern times, especially in eastern European countries like Poland.

During the 19th century Russian high society also started exchanging ornately decorated eggs—even jewel encrusted one's on Easter.

                                  

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                   -----The Easter Bunny-----

 

 

According to some sources, the Easter bunny first arrived in America with German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania..

 

The first association of the rabbit with Easter was a mention in  the "Easter hare"  a book by a German professor of medicine Georg Franck von Franckenau published in 1682.

He recalled a folk story that hares would hide the colored eggs that children hunted for, which would indicate that at least as early as the 17th century, decorated eggs were hidden in gardens for egg hunts.

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Von Franckenau taught anatomy, chemistry and botany in Jena and became a professor of medicine at the University of Heidelberg.

  In his "On Easter Eggs" essay, which he published around 1682, he considers ancientpagan symbols of life and fertility connected with religious traditions. 

 On the Easter bunny, he says this ---in Alsace, and neighboring regions, these eggs are called rabbit eggs because of the myth told to fool simple people and children that the Easter Bunny is going around laying eggs and hiding them in the herb gardens. 

So the children look for them, even more enthusiastically, to the delight of smiling adults. 

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These legends were preserved and improved upon by the Pennsylvania Dutch, who referred to the Bunny as the Oschter Haws. 

Beginning in the1680s, children around Germantown Pennsylvania would build nests out of hatsand bonnets, place them in the yard, or out by the barn and, on Easter morning, they would be found filled with colorful eggs. 

The decorated hats and bonnets eventually evolved into Easter baskets.

These custom's later spread across the U.S. and the bunny’s Easter morning deliveries would later  include chocolate and other types of candy and gifts, while decorated baskets replaced nests, children often leave out carrots for the bunny in case he gets  hungry from all his hopping.

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The Easter Bunny  or  Easter Rabbit 

This magic mythic bunny is believed to have  originated  among German Lutherans, the "Easter Hare" originally played the role of a judge(similar to Santa and his list), he would  determine  whether or not child's behavior  had been good or bad in at the start of the season of Eastertide. 

The Easter Bunny is sometimes depicted with clothes. In legend, he carries colored eggs, candy, and sometimes even toys in his basket  to the homes of children, another  similarity he shares   Santa Claus, they both bring gifts to children on the night before their respective holidays.

 

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Bunnies aren’t the only animal traditionally associated with Easter in every country. Some identify the holiday with other types of animals like foxes and even the  cuckoo birds.

whatever you believe in bunny fox or bird i hop you all have a great Easter weekend.

 

                      :) Happy Easter :)