Rokurokubi

For this week's episode, we're HEADING (you'll get the joke later) over to Japanese folklore to look at the long, wringing neck monster, the Rokurokubi! Why does this monster tend to hangout in brothels? Why does sexism play a huge part in its origins? Find out this week!

Transcript

INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world. 

These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.

I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.

Firstly, I have to apologise for the late publishing of this episode, this is because on the 19th March, I found out that I’m being made redundant from my job and I was not in a good place quite frankly. So I didn’t get round to writing the show, let alone putting it out - I was actually just trying to fathom how I’m going to survive without a job in this economy within that time. 

Thankfully, I’m covered by my redundancy notice for three months so I have that time to sort my life out. But yeah, as you can imagine I was a little worse for wear last week so my apologies again for the lateness of this episode.

DESCRIPTION:

Enough doom and gloom of reality though, for this week’s monster, we’re heading over to Japan for a stretchy necked menace, the Rokurokubi. 

The Rokurokubi are typically described as normal people, usually beautiful young women, who live amongst us but at night, their necks extend to massive lengths and their heads go on an adventure of sorts. These heads go on a hunt for people who do not respect the Buddhist teachings, predominantly men, and they either devour, drain the blood or absorb the vital energies of their prey. 

Whilst I have mentioned that they are typically women, they can also be men, but it’s much rarer. Male Rokurokubi hunt for female prey who have broken the same Buddhist laws - but they are not as reported on in Japanese folklore in comparison to the female counterpart, so we’re going to focus on these.

These monsters are typically described as yokai, or demons/supernatural entities in Japanese folklore, however, strangely and differently to any of these - they don’t actually know that they are monsters. They only remember small parts of their nightly headly adventures as if they were dreams and the person never usually finds out that they are one of these monstrous creatures. Sometimes you can see faint white marks on their neck to identify a Rokurokubi, but this is typically uncommon. 

So of course, when it comes to powers - it’s kind of self-explanatory. They have the power to disguise themselves as usual people throughout the day and completely remove conscious thought of the affliction in the host body. They also have the power to stretch their necks to impossible lengths, and when I say impossible lengths, I mean they can go cross country, and it’s definitely possible to bump into a Rokurokubi’s neck and never see their head. 

Lastly, they have the power to absorb energy, drain blood or eat a person in full. Whilst there’s not much written about their eating habits exactly, the assumption is that they have sharp fangs like vampires and are able to stretch their mouths to consume whole people, like in horror movies I guess. 

I will stress though that although these monsters seem pretty evil, although justified in their own minds by being the fist of Buddhism, they can be benevolent but mischievous. There are records of Rokurokubi being annoying rather than evil, playing tricks such as drinking oil from lanterns, spying on neighbours or intentionally spooking people.

So how do you become a Rokurokubi? It’s unfortunately usually something someone has done to you, rather than something you can bring upon yourself. The Rokurokubi is known as a curse, usually for doing some evil or misdeed within your life such as unfaithfulness or crimes against gods or nature. However, usually this curse is passed onto the women in your life if you’re a man, for instance, if your dad committed an evil act, as his daughter, you would be cursed to become a Rokurokubi, not him. Although those male transformations are not unheard of, it’s more likely that it would be your mother, sister, niece or daughter paying for your crimes as a man.

It was actually super common to find Rokurokubi in brothels because these women were separated when they slept from men who would report them, and were consistently abused by unfaithful men - making it a prime hunting ground too.

And how do you kill one? Well there’s really two ways because they have two forms. If you know a woman if a Rokurokubi, you could kill her in her usual human form in whatever way you fancied, but you’d have to do it before sundown so as to not evoke her monstrous side to come out and defend her. Whilst in her Rokurokubi form, her head and neck are completely invulnerable but her body is defenceless. So you would need to find her usually sleeping body and destroy it with fire, and quickly before the neck retracts. 

However, if you keep your nose clean and not do anything evil or against Buddhism, you’re going to be safe from her anyway - their heads will not attack those unworthy of their punishment and they will turn away from you and move on. I wouldn’t recommend attacking the head though, in case she counts that as a sin against her and eats you instead. 

ORIGIN:

Moving onto etymology, the work Rokurokubi is Japanese of course, and it’s not 100% confirmed that we know the true meaning of the word. However, what we do know is Rokuro is the Japanese word for a potter’s wheel, a water well’s pulley or the handle of an umbrella - all of which elongate. Kubi means neck - so it almost naturally translates to elongated neck, which makes sense. I think this is a really fun one for etymology this week - I like ones that break down the word literally.

Their history and origins are also interesting, these monsters came from the Edo period in Japan, which was around 1603 until 1868, and is when most of our Japanese monsters make an appearance. 

I’ve never actually talked about why this happened though, the Edo period was the biggest time period for monsters in Japan because of a couple of factors. Mostly, entertainment was massive at this time, alongside the rise of printing technology which gave way to exploring folklore and mythology in different ways than they were used to. It was also a time of relative peace for Japan, so people were more relaxed and no one was going off to war meaning generally the population was higher than usual - so books and illustrations were being published right, left and centre about monsters and the supernatural and people had the time to enjoy them.

We believe that the Rokurokubi was created in this time though because of religion, especially as this was a very woman centered curse. This firstly put people off breaking any Buddhist tenets, because they knew a horrifying woman with a stretchy neck would be after them, but to men especially, to give this curse to a woman in your family was not only dishonourable, but cruel. So it was more of a deterrent to do bad things than anything else, just unfortunately, men almost escaped their punishments and women took the brunt of the curse from it.

I do have a few popular legends about Rokurokubi, such as the one about the landlord and the girl. The landlord had noticed that the oil in his lamps was being used very quickly, and suspected one of his servant girls might be a Rokurokubi. He spied on her and saw that once she had fallen asleep, vapors and ectoplasm formed around her chest and neck and once she rolled over in her sleep, only her body moved. 

The next day he fired her and she was then fired from every place she worked. The girl never knew why she had such bad luck with jobs, because she never found out that she was a Rokurokubi.

Another story talks about a monk who eloped with a young lady named Oyotsu. While traveling, Oyotsu became sick. Treating her would have used up all of their travel money, so the monk murdered Oyotsu and stole the remaining money. On his travels, he stayed at an inn owned by a man with a beautiful daughter. The monk slept with the daughter, and during the night her neck stretched and her face changed into his former wife. She accused him of murdering her and scared him out of his wits.

The next morning the monk confessed the murder of Oyotsu to the innkeeper out of fear. The monk also told the innkeeper what he had seen the night before with his daughter. The innkeeper in return, confessed that he too, had murdered his wife for her money. He used the money to build his inn, and as a punishment his daughter was transformed into a Rokurokubi. Eventually, the monk rejoined his temple, built a grave for Oyotsu, and prayed for her soul every day. We never hear about what happened to the daughter - but I imagine she’s still out there eating horrible men’s souls. You go girl!

In terms of cultural impact, the Rokurokubi were popular until the early 1900’s and would often be used in magic acts and freak shows throughout Japan. There was a report of a male Rokurokubi in Tokyo in 1810 which was a popular attraction, but many freak shows advertised a want for a real Rokurokubi during the Edo period. As a magic act, the Rokurokubi is more of a namesake. The trick is that a doll without a head wearing a kimono is put in front of the curtain. There's a rope behind the curtain and a female performer connected to it who shows only her face. As she stands and squats, the fake neck would stretch and contract, as if it were a Rokurokubi.

Now there aren’t many references we can find for this to be debunked with reality based comparisons - however, there are a lot of mythical monsters, mostly from Asia that are very similar. 

The Nukekubi is the most similar monster within Japanese folklore, and you’ll recognise the kubi in there meaning neck. Nuke means removable, and instead of stretching, their heads fully detach and fly around on their own. The Rokurokubi and Nukekubi are very often put together and even mistaken as each other - I’ll make sure to cover the Nukekubi in another episode, but they are the exact same MO - just one detaches and one doesn’t.

In other mythologies, the Hitoban and Rakutō from Chinese folklore are also similar, but again, it’s floating heads rather than stretchy necks, as well as the Penanggalan from Malay folklore, just with added entrails. And if we go past the neck and head, we also have the Manananggal and Leyak from Filipino and Balinese who detach their upper torso to suck blood and eat people too - although most of these focus on pregnant women or foetuses. 

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: 

Now onto modern media, there are only a few bits that relate to the Rokurokubi within media, especially anime, so these are all the bits I’ve found about neck-adjusting monsters.

For art, I’d really recommend looking at Matthew Meyer’s work on all yokai - he really gets across how cool and weird these monsters look - but from a more modern perspective and there’s a lot of other independent art for this monster that is super cool too. Otherwise, for actual portrait art, have a look at Rokurokubi by Katsushika Hokusai from 1914, Rokurokubi from 1776 by Sekiyama Torien, Rokuroubi by Jippensha Ikku and definitely a not safe for work portrait, The rape of a Rokurokubi yokai by Utagawa Kunitora. That last one of course comes with a trigger warning and explicit material warning - it is quite pornographic.

In movies, we have a handful; Miss Hokusai, Hellboy: Sword of Storms, Are We Monsters & Pom Poko.

For TV, we have; YuYu Hakusho, Rosario + Vampire, Steven Universe, Ninja Sentai Kakuranger, Yokai Watch, Ren and Stimpy, Hell Teacher Nube, The Simpsons, The Junji Ito Collection, Inspector Gadget, Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, Pokemon, Tonari no Yōkai-san & Ushio and Tora.

In video games, we have ones such as; Touhou Project, Little Nightmares 2, Pokemon, Minecraft, Tomodachi Collection, Ghostwire: Tokyo, Nioh 2, Pathfinder, Demon’s World, Ninja Emaki, Yokai Watch, Sable's Grimoire, Onmyōji, Puppeteer, MiSide, Monster Hunter & Team Fortress 2.

My book recommendation this week is of course, Yokai Attack!: The Japanese Monster Survival Guide and Yurei Attack!: The Japanese Ghost Survival Guide by Hiroko Yoda, as they are just fantastic books - I will never stop suggesting these. I'm sorry, but they’re great! 

DO I THINK THEY EXISTED? 

Now it’s time for, do I think they existed?

Honestly I’ve found this one a little harder to shut down this week, I think because of the human element of it and the unknowing of the cursed, it makes it a difficult one to call. 

I think also because it’s a punishment that is predominantly for men, but pushed onto women - it’s activating my feminist anger and I can totally believe that this is how an ancient Japanese curse would work. And I feel so sorry for these women who have no idea they have these abilities, but at least they get some kind of revenge in their nightly hunts, it’s just sad they don’t actually get to revel in them a bit. 

Also, I feel that monsters from Japan, because there are so many of them and they are usually quite out there, gives them a believability of some kind. This is so far-fetched that it’s almost believable - maybe it’s just me though. 

I think this monster is actually really awesome - I totally stan a lady who hunts bad men who caused her to be cursed in the first place. That’s what you get for cheating on your wives, you rotten scoundrels. I also keep thinking about all the benefits of having a stretchy neck, you’d never have to do a neck warm up before doing a workout and say bye to annoying cricks in your neck if you sleep wrong as a person over 30. 

In conclusion, I think this one is plausible so I’m going to leave it open and say maybe. I think the big pull for that answer is that the victim/monster doesn’t know that they do it, and that leaves the door open enough for me to think more than usual.

But what do you think? Did the Rokurokubi stretch their necks across the Japanese countryside? Let me know on social media!

OUTRO: 

An interesting monster from Japanese folklore as always. I’m slightly jealous of this power, imagine being able to eat out of the fridge without using your body to get there, or the lack of whiplash you’d get from rollercoasters.

Next week, we’re heading over to West Africa and the Caribbean for a tricky shapeshifter. We’re looking at both the protagonist and antagonist folklore spider, Anansi next Thursday!

For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got loads of social media for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, YouTube and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod and I’m now also on BlueSky under mythmonsters. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk, and you can also find us on Goodpods, Buymeacoffee and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast too.

Come join the fun though and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.

But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.