Local tradition offers an etiological explanation that abura-sumashi are the spirits of humans who stole oil and fled into the woods. Because oil was a valuable household commodity before electricity, theft (especially from temples and shrines) was morally serious; that wrongdoing is given cosmological consequence in the form of reincarnation or transformation into this yokai that haunts mountain roads.
Older oral accounts emphasize behavioral and apparition aspects (a disembodied voice or a sudden materialization on a mountain pass). In modern visual depictions—shaped by contemporary artists such as Shigeru Mizuki—the abura-sumashi is often shown as a squat creature with a straw-coat covered body and a potato-like or stony head. Traditional sources do not supply an extensive pre-modern physical description beyond manifestations and voice.
Reported behaviors include surprising travelers on mountain passes, materializing suddenly or appearing out of thin air, and replying verbally to conversational prompts (famous tales record a mysterious voice answering, "I still do!"). Its folkloric origin as the ghost of an oil thief implies a habit of haunting particular rural routes, though no specific supernatural powers beyond apparition and vocal reply are recorded in the provided sources.
Abumi-guchi
A Japanese yōkai classed as a tsukumogami: an animated stirrup (abumi) depicted in Sekien Toriyama's Gazu Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro. Traditional accounts say it is formed from a stirrup that belonged to a soldier who fell in battle and that it waits where the stirrup lies for its dead owner to return.
Akaname
Akaname is a Japanese yōkai associated with baths, bathtubs, toilets, and other places where scum and filth accumulate. Traditionally depicted as a child-like creature that licks grime, it functions in folklore as a cautionary figure tied to cleanliness; a few narrative variants cast it as dangerously predatory.
Akateko
Akateko (赤手児, lit. 'red child's hand') is a yōkai from Japanese folklore commonly told as a small, red, disembodied child's hand that appears from trees—especially the Japanese honey locust—and startles travelers; in some regional variants it is accompanied by a specter of a young woman or manifests as paired foot- or leg-like apparitions. Accounts vary between mostly harmless trickster apparition and a violent variant that attacks humans.
Akubōzu
Akubōzu (灰坊主, Akubōzu) is a household yōkai from parts of Akita and Iwate Prefectures in northern Japan said to live in the ashes of the hearth. Sources say they appear when people (notably children) play with or dig in hearth/furnace ash; the figure is cited as part of a broader Tōhoku motif warning against disturbing ash.
Akuma
Akuma (悪魔／あくま) in Japanese sources is an evil spirit, devil, or demon associated with misfortune and mental disturbance. The term appears in Buddhist texts and Heian-period literature and was later used to translate the Christian figure of Satan, as well as the Buddhist Mara.
Akurojin-no-hi
Akurojin-no-hi (悪路神の火, "fire of the god of the bad road") is a flamelike ghost from the folklore of Mie Prefecture, Japan. It is reported to appear on rainy nights; those who encounter it and do not run away are said to become gravely ill. The phenomenon is sparsely documented and is usually compared to will-o'-the-wisp type ghost-lights.
Amabie
Amabie is a mid-19th-century Japanese yogenjū-type wondrous creature attested in kawaraban and related pamphlet culture that emerges from the sea (in canonical accounts) to prophesy about harvests and epidemics and prescribes that its image be drawn and shown to the sick as a protective measure.
Amanojaku
Amanojaku (天邪鬼 / あまのじゃく) is a Japanese yōkai-type being portrayed as a contrarian, heart-reading trickster. Treated in different contexts as a small ogre (ko-oni), a wicked demon (jaki) in Buddhist iconography, and a folkloric spirit that provokes human vice, it appears across regional tales with variable roles from malicious kidnapper to household oddity.
Amanozako
Amanozako is a Japanese divine/monstrous figure described in classical summaries as a furious, contrarian kami produced from the ferocious aspect (ara-mitama) of the storm-god Susanoo; later glosses present her as an ancestor-figure for ill-tempered yōkai such as tengu and amanojaku.
Amefurikozō
Amefurikozō (雨降小僧 or 雨降り小僧) is an Edo-period yōkai figure depicted in classical illustrated and popular print culture as a youthful attendant associated with rain. Classical sources (notably Sekien Toriyama's Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki) present it as a kozō-type servant linked by captional wordplay to a rain deity; later popular literature elaborates its rain-producing role and playful mischief on rainy nights.
Ameonna
Ameonna (雨女, "rain woman") is a figure in Japanese folklore treated as a yōkai associated with rain. Sources depict her both as a rain-calling supernatural being (sometimes helpful in drought) and as a folk label for an unlucky person whom rain seems to follow; a key pictorial source is Toriyama Sekien's Konjaku Hyakki Shūi.
Amorōnagu
Amorōnagu (Amorōnagu / 天降女子) is a tennyo or celestial maiden figure in the folklore of Amami Ōshima (Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan). Attested sources describe her as a heavenly woman who bathes in pools and waterfalls in ravines on the island.
Community Record
- [1]Abura-sumashi - Wikipedia. Wikipedia: 'Abura-sumashi' article (accessed via provided research notes)wiki
- [2]Abura-sumashi - Wikidata. Wikidata entry Q2732289 (referenced in research notes)other
- [3]The Night Parade Of One Hundred Demons: A Field Guide To Japanese Yokai (Archive). Archive field guide listing abura-sumashi among yokai of the 'Wilds' (referenced in research notes)folk