Yurei: Encyclopedia - Yurei

Yurei

Yūrei (幽霊) are Japanese ghosts. Like their Western counterparts, they are thought to be spirits kept from a peaceful afterlife due to some wrong caused to them in life, a lack of a proper burial, or because they committed suicide. They typically appear in the hours between midnight and sunrise, floating about to frighten and torment those who wronged them in life, but otherwise causing no harm. Some may argue that Hanzo Hasashi (aka Scorpion from the Mortal Kombat series) plays homage to this type of ghost probably due to the fact he was violently murdered and on top of that, his family and clan were all murdered.

Yurei - Features

Traditionally, they are female and dress in white kimono, typical burial clothing in ancient Japan. They typically lack legs and feet (respresented in theatre by the use of very long kimono), and are frequently depicted as being accompanied by a pair of floating flames or will o' the wisps (hi-no-tama in Japanese) in eerie colors such as blue, green, or purple. These ghostly flames are separate parts of the ghost rather than independent spirits. Yūrei also often have a triangular piece of paper or cloth known as a hitaikakushi (額隠) on their forehead. Some are depicted as possessing long black hair. Like many monsters of Japanese folklore, malicious yūrei are repelled by ofuda (御札).

Vengeful ghosts, on the other hand, called goryō (御霊), traditionally haunt a person or a location as an act of revenge for a wrong done to them during their lifetime. Thus, saying "I will haunt you" became a threatening statement made in anger to someone. This is one example of the Japanese idea of urami (怨み hatred, grudge). Yūrei will also appear to punish the descendents or relatives of the dead when proper ancestor-worship rituals are not conducted (tatari or tataru).

Buddhist priests and ascetics were sometimes hired to perform services on those whose unusual or unfortunate deaths could result in their transition into a vengeful ghost. (see exorcism). Sometimes these ghosts would be deified in order to placate their spirits.

Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan exemplifies "classical" Japanese yūrei and yōkai (妖怪) stories. Japanese horror films of the 1990s and beyond, often called J-Horror, are popular culture examples of recent Japanese yūrei narratives.

See also

• Hungry ghost
• Yuurei zaka
• Inoue Enryo

Categories: Japanese mythology | Japanese folklore | Ghosts

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Yurei", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki