I asked my adult class to come up with some horror tales for tonight's lesson. Two of them came up with the typical "My co-workers and I saw this old man ghost floating in the halls of the hospital" or "The ghost of one of the tsunami victims touched me so I sprayed her with salt." One of them (mid-50s) says that she used to play this game called Kokkuri-san in Junior High School. You'd write the alphabet, and numbers on a sheet of paper and you'd use a 10 yen coin as a planchette and place your fingers on it and it'd spell out words and conjure up spirits of the deceased.
She wrote the above on the board and they are the kanji for kitsune, tengu and tanuki (fox, bird-like yokai and raccoon dog.) I guess the combo of the three is active in the spirit world.
Thanks to Wikipedia, I learned that the game goes as far back as the Meiji era and it uses a pot resting on a cloth upon a tripod of bamboo sticks. The apparition moves the pot around in order to answer your queries.
And of course there was a movie or two about the story, here are a few...
I'm not sure if they're all from the same movie or different ones. I must say the one below is pretty creepy.
And of course, there's an anime. I wouldn't mind conjuring him/her up. He/she is dreamy.
I found a copy of the movie on YouTube but alas it is only in Japanese. When I get a chance I'll watch it and let you know if it's worth checking out.
I spent the rest of the lesson carving a mini-pumpkin and teaching the history of the Jack o' Lantern and Halloween.
Here is the finished product. Not bad for a twenty minute project.
Dang, past my bedtime again, so just a quick Yokai before I retire.
ベヘモト is another way of saying Behemoth and apparently it has magical powers in its navel!
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