Gyuki or Ushi-Oni

The Gyuki or Ushi-Oni is represented by this odd Japanese statue said to represent what several people had been seeing in the 1600s. Although it is called an "Ox-headed Demon" and translated also as "Minotaur", most commentators bring attention to the odd capelike effect of the area under the arms and at the sides.
Orangutan at the left and a redrawing of the creature from the statue at the right, from Deviant Art. The colouration is speculative but the resemblance between the two is striking. Male orangutans can have such long hair on their arms that it hangs down a long way, and the hair over the upper back also forms a "Cape". The thumbs are represented as spikes on the statue and in the painting, and oddly enough so is the moustache. The feet are "Cloven" but in this case that seems to mean the big toe is in opposition to the others. The EYELIDS would be white and the nose is flat with round nostrils pointing straight ahead (I had to retouch the painting to make the nose clearer) And it is just possible the protruding ears mean to indicate the cheek pads on the male. The original creature would have had no horns but adding horns to "Onis" is pretty much the standard practice.

The creature seems to be the same creature as is called Xing-Xing in Chinese, pronounced Shing-Shing and said to mean "Lively-Lively." In the Japanese version it means a distinctly reddish creature, but one of the Chinese descriptions has it being green or blue. Presumably that was a copyist's error. One Chinese description says it has the body (belly?) of a pig but a face more like a man's, which is a fair description of an orangutan, and the word is used in modern Chinese and Japanese (and on the larger nearby islands such as Taiwan) as a direct translation for the recognised name of the orangutan.

In this case, I think we have a series of old and misunderstood reports of a male Hibagon, and some of the reports also make it out to be a cyclops or a water-dwelling creature like a Kappa. The ordinary appearance of the females and young are less extreme and the netsuke illustrated in an earlier CFZ posting (reposted here) could still be the same species. More recently, the bigger adult males are said to be like gorillas, which is probably more generic once again. In this case there is a whole constellation of observed features which are close to a male orangutan, although perhaps not portrayed exactly correctly on the statue.

Best Wishes, Dale D.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushi-oni

Yet another ushi-oni is depicted as a statue on the grounds of the Negoroji temple in Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture. It is a bipedal monster with huge tusks, spurred wrists, and membranes like a flying squirrel. A sign nearby explains that this creature terrorized the area about four-hundred years ago, and was slain by a skilled archer by the name of Yamada Kurando Takakiyo (山田蔵人高清). He dedicated its horns to the temple, and they can still be seen to this day. [1]
http://www1.plala.or.jp/negoro/usioni.html

[The horns are possibly fossils. They did not come from a recently living animal and probably have nothing to do with the creature that was sighted four hundred years ago and slain by the archer.-DD]

Ushi-oni are also mentioned in Sei Shōnagon's tenth-century diary The Pillow Book, and in the Taiheiki of the fourteenth century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibagon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y%C5%8Dkai
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legendary_creatures_from_Japan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8Dj%C5%8D
[Shojo is used to translate the Chinese Shing-shing. It also means a young girl]



Princess Mononoke Apes (Shojo=Shing-Shing or Xing-Xing, Orangutans)

Pink Tentacle Abominable Yokai

Here is a sampling of standard Wildmen types listed as Yokai (Traditional Japanese Monsters) from the Pink Tentacle site and amplified by a few examples from Wikipedia. The first one illustrated here IS pretty much the standard (Eurasian-Almas) Wildman and going under the name Satori. It is said to be able to read minds (my cat can "read my mind" to a limited extent and part of that is picking up on body language, scents and other things that most human beings are not used to picking up on. But my cat and I can gague each other's emotional state and intentions without direct communication to some extent) The name "Satori" is very interesting and it has been stated to be the direct transliteration of the Classical term "Satyr" as introduced by early Portugese missionaries.
"The satori is a type of mountain-dwelling goblin that can read human minds. When it encounters travelers passing through the mountains, the creature approaches them and begins speaking their thoughts aloud.[or mocking them, as in "Monkey See, Monkey Do"?-DD] Once the victims become thoroughly confused and disoriented, the satori captures and eats them.
It is said that an empty mind is the best protection against a satori attack. Thinking nothing at all causes the creature to turn away in boredom or flee in fear. A notorious satori named Omoi lives on the slopes of Mt Fuji"


"The 'wild woman' shown here appears to be an aquatic humanoid with scaly skin, webbed hands and feet (each with three fingers and toes), long black hair, and a large red mouth. People claim to have encountered the creature in the 1750s in mountain streams in the Asakura area of Fukuoka prefecture "


Another wild Woman as a transcription of the Chinese variety (Yeren) from the Wikipedia entry Shojo. In native Japanese the term Shojo also means "Young Woman" or "Virgin" but the Wikipedia has this as a translation of the Chinese term Shing-Shing. Please note that this "Wild Woman" is positioned much the same as the last one and it is otherwise comparable.



Kijimuna are tree sprites from Okinawa and the native equivalent to "Troll Dolls." young-Urchin "Onis" are also depicted with big bushy hair like this.


Onis are the standard Japanese Ogres or Trolls and so the exact local equivalent of "Marked Hominids": in this case they are commonly depicted as redheads. Onis are also depicted as the Demons in Hell and so I suppose that makes them the equivalent of Big Hairy Monsters or Hairy Bipeds [I do not call any such reports "Bigfoot" reports-once a report crosses over a line to become supernatural, I cross it off of my list. Not my territory to cover those.]Female Onis can also be seductive, like teenage European Troll girls are supposed to be.



Onis are also the local equivalent of Ghouls (Guls) as this print shows:



As far as the current REPORTS go, we have the Hibagon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibagon


Hibagon (ヒバゴン?) or Hinagon (ヒナゴン?) is the Japanese equivalent of the Bigfoot or Yeti.

DescriptionThe hibagon is described as a black creature with white hands and large white feet, standing about five feet tall. Sightings have been reported in forested, mountainous areas of the country.[1] It has been reported in the forests around Mount Hiba in Hiroshima Prefecture and has been said to resemble a gorilla.[2]

The creature is reported to look like an ape and smell like decaying flesh. It is said to live in low shrubbery on the foothills of Mt. Hiba and also areas around Hibayama National Park. A typical sighting says that it is about five feet tall with a face shaped like an inverted triangle. The Hibagon has a snub nose, large deep glaring eyes and is covered with bristles. Theories to account for this cryptid range from a gorilla, a wild man, or a deserter from the Japanese army, to an individual ravaged by atomic radiation from the nuclear attack on Hiroshima. A sighting from 1972 reports that the creature has a chocolate brown face and is covered with brown hair. Although the Hibagon is said to have 'deep glaring eyes', in two reports by a Mr. Sazawa and a Mrs. Harada, the creature took no hostile action and fled from four armed residents intent on hunting it. Japanese Boy Scouts claimed to find footprints 25 cm (10 in) long and 15 cm (6 in) wide. As with most hominid cryptids, the Hibagon is said to have a most unpleasant stench, like a decomposing human body.[3]

As far as the smell goes, that usually comes from eating carrion and handling carcasses. As far as identity goes, Hibagon are probably the local population corresponding to Yetis and Yerens. because of that, it is most surprising to find this depiction on the Pink Tentacle site:

Which is a supposed anatomical section of a demonic creature called a "Kasha --a Cat-like demon that descends from the sky to feed on corpses before cremation" and is therefore assumedly attached to Buddhist mythology imported from areas Westward and Continental (because of the cremation-desecration angle). In fact this is a fair copy of a Tibetan "Big Yeti" confused as a "Snow Lion" and its urinary bladder is in fact said to contain ice here (meaningless, but probably a marker that the legend originated in Tibet). So this is a transposed version of a "Dzu-Teh" or "Nyalmo" and described as a troublesome demon. And because of this, I doubt that such a thing is supposed to live locally: it is just an indication of how legends diffuse over the Orient.

Best Wishes, Dale D.

Quoting mainly
http://pinktentacle.com/tag/yokai/