Japanese mythology includes a vast number of gods, goddesses, and spirits. Most of the stories concern the creation of the world, the foundation of the islands of Japan, and the activities of deities, humans, animals, spirits, and magical creatures...
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Kamaitachi (鎌鼬) is a Japanese yōkai often told about in the Kōshin'etsu region, or can also refer to the strange events that this creature causes.
They appear riding on dust devils, and they cut people using the nails on both their hands that are like sickles. One would receive a sharp wound from it, but there is no pain.
They are seen to be the same as the Qiongqi (窮奇) of China, and kamaitachi are also sometimes written as 窮奇.
It was originally thought to be a corruption of the word "kamae tachi" (stance sword), but like the kyūki in the "Yin" part of Toriyama Sekien's Gazu Hyakki Yagyō, they were thus re-used and depicted as a weasel yōkai, eventually becoming established as the yōkai it is now. In the "Mimibukuro" by Negishi Shizumori as well, children in the estate called Kagaya in Edo were enveloped by a whirlwind, and on the surface of their backs, there remained the footsteps of a beast, and it was written that this was the proof of a "kamae tachi" (構太刀). As a beast with fur like that of a hedgehog and a cry like that of a dog, and one that flies through the air with wings, they are said to attack people with limbs like that of a sickle or razor.
Also, there are tales of experiences with these not only in the outdoors but also indoors, and in Edo, there are tales of women who attempted to do their business in a bathroom in Yotsuya and men who attempted put on a geta in Ushigome who encountered kamaitachi. In Ōme, there is a story where a certain woman had her lover stolen by another woman, and gathering up her resentment, when she cut her own hair, that hair became a kamaitachi, and cut off her rival in love's head by the neck with a single stroke. In this way, the legends of the kamaitachi in these various area are the same phenomena, but what their true identity is thought to be is not uniform.
