Skip to main content

Japanese Ghosts and Legends

a scythe

Teke-Teke or Click-Clack Ghost


Managed to terrify myself with Japanese urban legends of ghosts again. Tonight's terror: Teke Teke.

Teke Teke is an imitative noise, to represent a scraping or thumping sound. In this instance, to imitate the specific scraping sound of a bloody torso dragging along the pavement, being pulled on its own elbows.

Teke Teke, see, was a girl who fell on some railroad tracks after some childhood bullying gone awry; she was unable to move away in time to avoid the oncoming train and was sliced in half. Her ghost now wields a scythe and she, legless, creeps around on her elbows, pulling herself along to chase down victims whom she slices in half in imitation of her own disfigurement. As she hunts you down you can hear her come: click-clack, click-clack, click-clack (teke teke).


red mantle ghost

Aka Manto: The Ghost With the Red Cape

We seem to be developing a series of posts about Japanese ghosts! After the previous one about Slit-Mouth Woman, I was looking into some more data about the ghosts of Japan and came onto Aka Manto, or Red Cape.

Red Cape is reportedly a handsome man wearing a red cape: however, he wears a white mask to disguise his good looks, as they had brought him problems in life. Presumably this is the cause of the unhappiness which turned him to a malicious spirit. He usually only is said to haunt girl's bathrooms, and especially inclines to the final stall or the fourth stall (four is an unlucky number in Japan as it is a homophone to the word for Death.)

An experience with Red Cape finds one sitting on the toilet. A man's voice appears mysteriously, asking: "Do you want a red cape or a blue cape?" To answer with a preference for either results in one's own grisly murder: asking for red will find Red Cape appearing and cutting you to shreds or beheading you so that your blood will resemble a cape, asking for blue brings him to appear and strangle you or else drain the blood from your body so that your skin turns blue.

Also, Red Cape is not so easily fooled as Slit-Mouth Woman. While giving her an alternate answer to her pre-set questions can confuse her into leaving you be, Red Cape responds to any requests for alternate colors of cape by simply dragging you away to Hell -- or, some say that if you ask for yellow, he will end his mischief at merely dunking your head into the toilet. The most effective way to avoid Red Cape's wrath, however, is to refuse any of his offerings.

Kuchisake-onna, Ghost of The Slit-Mouth Woman

Yeah, it's 2 AM, I'm alone, live near a train, and anything that sounds at all like a clicking noise is freaking me the hell out. (Why do I live amongst so many tick-tock clocks???) Japanese ghost
I confess, I'm a scardey-cat, and I have the particularly unreasonable fear of ghosts, of all things. I managed to completely terrify myself into sleeplessness one evening by just reading the Wikipedia article about the Slit-Mouth Woman.

According to Japanese legend, the ghost of the Slit-Mouth Woman approaches her victims on the street, covering her mouth -- in the old days she used the long sleeves of her kimono as her cover, but in modern form she wears a surgical mask. She asks her victim, "Do you think I'm pretty?" A no answer means instant death; but a yes prompts her to reveal her face, showing that her mouth has been carved into a Glasgow grin. She asks again if she if pretty. Again, a no ensures instant death, but a yes this time means she blesses you with the opportunity to look as pretty as her, by slicing your mouth open into a similar Chelsea smile. In some versions of the story, she will also kill you when she does this.

The legend however does say there are ways to escape. The Slit-Mouth Woman, like many ghosts of lore, is easily confused. Simply repeating your answer multiple times, whatever it may be, can be enough to confuse her and allow you a chance to escape. Another (very Japanese) way to flee her wrath is to simply tell the ghost of the Slit-Mouth Woman that you are in a hurry and need to be elsewhere: she will apologize for her bad manners for detaining you, and let you be.

According to the legend, Slit-Mouth Woman was a beautiful girl whose jealous husband mutilated her face by slitting her mouth out to her ears. This trauma drove her to insanity, and this is why her ghost remains bent on inflicting the same fate upon others.

Popular posts from this blog

Planetary Hours and How To Use Them for Magic Spells and Conjure Work

The Planetary Hours are a belief that sections of each day are ruled by certain heavenly bodies, and that these times of day can be utilized by those who understand their secrets to improve success in certain types of ventures. Folks like Jim Haskins and Tarostar have printed slightly incorrect versions of "Venus Hours" which have been popularly repeated: the claim that 2 AM, 9 AM, 4 PM and 11 PM on a Sunday, 6 AM, 1 PM and 8 PM on Monday, etc, are Venus Hours is wrong. This is a problem that goes back to the 18th century at least -- the Petit Albert itself mentions the mistake. The error stems from the notion that planetary hours align to hours on the clock -- they do not. As the Albert puts it: "In order that there be no mistakes about the hours that each planet rules [...] one needs to reckon the first hour from the sunrise, and not by midnight, as some people have erroneously claimed." In other words, the planetary hours are reckoned by a solar clock. T...

The Intranquil Spirit

(EDIT: Up to date information about the Intranquil Sprit can be found in my book  The Intranquil Spirit , available on Amazon.  This post has some incomplete information which is clarified in the book.) The Intranquility spell is, unfortunately, the first resort of many a rejected lover. In some ways it makes sense -- the more unhappy and forlorn one is about a breakup, the better this idea of making the other partner feel just as much so starts to sound. Unfortunately, this spell is often not well suited to a case. The purpose of the standard Intranquility spell is to have the person be tormented by the spirit until they make contact with you, or whomever the spell is being cast for. This means that if a person is already in good contact with their ex OR if they're one of those people who cannot restrain themselves from initiating contact, then this already is probably not the right spell for that case. If you've had an Intranquility spell cast and you make contac...

Paper-in-Shoe Spells

A popular and very traditional hoodoo spell, often used for any situation where you need to control someone with magic , is the namepaper-in-shoe spell. It's very easy: you write the target's name 3, 7, or 9 times on a paper (depending on intent and who's giving instruction) then fold it up, sometimes after dressing it with oils or powders, then put it in your shoe. This "keeps the person underfoot" or "stomps out the trouble" or "puts pressure on them" or any other number of metaphors. I have had this work several times over the years. In one instance, I was working for a very unpleasant boss, on a short-term job. It was the last day, and I only had about 3 hours of work left on the project; and I wanted him to up my pay for the day since it almost wasn't worth the trip across town for the amount he was paying me, for only 3 hours. He was very reluctant. So I wrote his name 3 times on a 5-dollar bill he'd given me, and dusted it...

Cut and Clear Purification Spell - White Witchcraft to Forget the Past

The time has come. You're over and done with that relationship. It could be a romance, a friendship, a business partnership -- any sort of connection really. But now you're done, and you want all ties severed. This spell helps clear up any lingering energies and makes people let go of past feelings. You need: 1 bottle Jinx Removing salt Lemon verbena leaves Purification oil or Cut and Clear oil Personal or representational items of the person(s) you are removing yourself from (names and photos are easy) Purification incense 4 white candles You will also need to make your own Cut and Clear bath salt. For this you'll need about 1/2 cup epsom salt to which you add 5 drops each lemongrass oil, lemon or melissa oil, and rue or rosemary oil. It's important to make this salt yourself with only oils (no herbs) because we want it to run clean down the drain with no residue left behind to be cleaned up. Many spiritual bath blends contain herbal matter and curio...

13 Herb Bath for Curse Removal

13 Herb Bath for curse removal can be made from from any 13 uncrossing and purification herbs. For example, if I needed to fix a batch of 13 herb bath right now based on what I've got in the house, I could mix bay leaves, rue, mint, rosemary, wood betony, sage, verbena, angelica root, white rose petals, lemongrass, lemon peel, agrimony and arnica, and it would suffice well. Other herbs like hyssop, pine needles, juniper leaves, boldo, eucalyptus leaves, mullein, basil, lavender, or marshmallow leaves would be good to use too. By no means complete, here is a list of just a few herbs said to remove a curse or jinx that you can use to make your own 13 Herbs bath: Agrimony Alkanet Angelica Arnica Basil Bay leaves Black Pepper Blessed Thistle Boldo Cayenne Pepper Chives Eucalyptus Garlic Hyssop John the Conqueror Juniper Lavender Lemon Lemongrass Lime Marshmallow leaves Mint Mullein Onion Pine Rosemary Rue Sage Sandalwood Verbena White Rose Petals ...