A RICH FOLKLORE of ghosts exists in Japan which, despite a certain weight of Confucian disapproval, has found its way prominently into literature, drama and art. Ghosts appear in profusion throughout the literature of the medieval period, and again during the eighteenth and nineteenth centunes when a sudden vogue for ghosts resulted in several distinguished collections of weird and strange tales. Ghosts appear in some celebrated Kabuki plays, while nearly half the repertory of the Nō theatre is concerned with the salvation of lost and distracted spirits. The ghost prints of Kuniyoshi and Hokusai are familiar to all connoisseurs of the woodblock art of Japan.

The source of all this inspiration lies in the traditional folklore of ghosts. Beliefs concerning the fate of the dead, that is to say, have been ‘strong’ enough to provide some of the most powerful themes in Japanese traditional culture. Here, however, we shall be concerned with one aspect only of these beliefs: the fear of the angry ghost, onryō or goryō. Angry ghosts, moreover, will be treated as they appear in folklore. We shall not be concerned with firsthand testimonies of apparitions such as might interest the student of psychical research, but rather with what Dr Briggs has called the ‘tradition’ of ghosts, what is made of the shocking and often horrifying expenence of perceiving an appantion of the dead, and the stereotypes into which, as though by some magnetic force, the mind tends to elaborate these bare perceptions.

A ghost becomes angry in Japan when its death has been violent or disgraceful, or when its descendants neglect the obsequies necessary to its contentment in the other world and its progress to final release.

A preliminary word is necessary to explain some of our background problems. What kind of entity is believed to survive the death of the body? How should that entity be treated by its surviving relatives? And what is liable to happen if these measures are neglected?

Spirits of the dead are known in general as tama or tamashii. This term connotes first something round, such as a round jewel or a pearl. Hence it comes to mean a soul, which frequently appears in the form of a round floating ball. The tama resides in a host, to which it imparts life and vitality.