Kamikiri (髪切り, hair-cutter) or Kurokamikiri (黒髪切, black hair-cutter) is a Japanese yōkai said to secretly cut the hair of people's head. The origins of the kamikiri can be traced to urban rumors of the Edo period; incidents attributed to them were intermittently recorded from the 17th to 19th centuries.

Concept It was believed that kamikiri could suddenly appear from nowhere and cut the hair of victims without their noticing.

The , a collection of stories (setsuwa) compiled in the Kanpō era (1741-1743) records strange paranormal incidents from early Genroku era (1688-1704) which allegedly happened at Matsusaka, Ise Province (now Matsusaka, Mie Prefecture), and at Konya, Edo, (now Chiyoda, Tokyo, Tokyo): people's hair, both male and female, would suddenly be cut off from their (, a hair-tying string) as they were walking along on roads at night. Those people would not notice this at all, and the cut-off hair would fall down on the road still tied up. Ōta Nanpo's essay also records similar happenings alleged to have taken place at Shitaya (now Taitō, Tokyo) and in Kohinata (now Bunkyō, Tokyo), where females servants employed at shops and residences were the victims.

In Meiji 7 (1874), in Hongō, Tokyo, on the 3rd street at the Suzuki residence, a female servant named Gin was a victim of this kamikiri phenomenon, and this was also reported in the newspaper (Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun) at that time. On March 10, some time after 9PM, when Gin was going to the residence's lavatory, she felt a chilly presence and then suddenly had her tied up hair cut, making it very messy. Startled, Gin rushed to a nearby home and fainted. The people of the house looked after Gin and listened to what happened, and when they looked around the lavatory, they found the severed hair on the floor. Eventually, Gin fell into an illness returned to live with her parents. Rumors that a kamikiri was responsible apparently caused the other residents to abandon the lavatory.

In the writings of Mizuki Shigeru, it is explained that it would appear when a human tries to marry an animal or ghost, and it would cut off that person's hair.Mizuki Shigeru Nihon Yōkai Taikai (日本妖怪大全) Kōdansha 1991, page 105 and 164 "Kurokamikiri" is its name in Mizuki Shigeru's writings.

Variations Descriptions of hair-cutting yokai vary as to physical appearance, method of hair cutting, and motive. Some early authors attributed hair-cutting incidents to kitsune (fox spirit), which were believed to collect human hair for magical purposes. Other accounts describe an insect-like yokai known as the "kamikiri-mushi" ("hair-cutter bug").; In still other accounts, the culprit is identified as the kurokamikiri ("black hair-cutter"), usually depicted as an amorphous creature covered in pitch-black fur which uses its sharp teeth to chew off the hair of the victim.

Kitsune (fox-like) 's diary during the Muromachi period attributed rumors of unexplained hair cutting to the kitsune, a type of supernatural fox. He quotes the Chinese reference book Taiping Guangji which includes a similar story about a fox which cuts human scalp hair.

In the Edo Period writing , volume 4 Onna no Kami wo Kuu Kitsune no Koto (About How a Fox Ate a Woman's Hair), there is a story about how a fox was captured at the place where someone fell victim to a kamikiri phenomenon, and when the fox's belly was cut open, a large amount of hair was found packed inside. In 's , there is written the explanation that a Taoist priest was manipulating a mystical fox to cut hair.

Kamikiri-mushi (insect-like) The folk encyclopedia (Kan'ei 14/1637) explains mysterious hair-cutting incidents as the work of an insect-like creature called the , or hair-cutting insect. It was believed to lurk under roofs and is described as having razor teeth and sharp claws that functioned as scissors. Paintings depicting this kamikiri-mushi were sold as amulets to ward off evil spirits, and it became fashionable to wear paper charms bearing a poem that read: "If it be a fierce god the parishioner [worships], may his hair be an uncuttable jadeite wig".

Kurokamikiri (black kamikiri)

In Utagawa Yoshifuji's painting , the accompanying text explains that at a certain mansion in Banchō, Edo, a maidservant was going to the outhouse at night when "something completely black" drew near and seemed to strike her hair. When she recovered from her fainting spell, her bundle of hair (motodori) had been cut and lay 2, 3-'s distance or away. The all-black being was cat-like and velvety.

A similar incident had occurred in the lunar 4th month (May) of 1867 or 1868 at the infantry station in Ogawamachi, Edo where a soldier going to the latrines encountered an "all-black thing" making contact with his head, and when he regained consciousness, found his bound clump of hair two to three ken away.

Human explanations

Profit-making accusations According to Kaibara Ekken's , a fad for hair-cutting started in the Fukuoka area in Enpō 5/1677, and a samurai named felt his topknot tugged, but didn't realize until his hair had been cut until arriving home. He subsequently had recurrent dreams of yamabushi ascetics cutting his hair.

That kami-kiri or strange hair-cutting became on-going in Edo was already described with examples in the section. According to Sugita Genpaku's , the hair-cutting fad also arose in the year Meiwa 8 (1771) and consequently a yamabushi (practitioner of izuna magic) named dwelling in the daikon fields of in Edo performed prayers to ward off the hair-cutting and also sold protective paper charms () for tidy profit, leading to rumors accusing this yamabushi of using magic to cause the hair loss in the first place. He and other similar practitioners were arrested by the machi-bugyō magistrate, but eventually released as unfounded.

Besides the shugenja ascetics (i.e. yamabushi) in Edo, there were also wig shopkeepers in Osaka who were punished in Osaka on accusation they were trafficking in the hair obtained from "kamikiri". Again, this might have been a case of scapegoating in order to quell the unrest.

Fetishism In psychiatry, ("hair cutter") is a term for hair fetishists who feel pleasure from cutting off women's hair with a blade, so at least some of the kamikiri legends were conceivably perpetrated by humans. One reason to support this interpretation is that anecdotes tend to name women as victims whose head hairs were targeted. , a researcher on Edo Period culture and customs, stated in his writings that there have been several examples of people getting caught for the crime of cutting off a person's hair.

Superstition In April 1931 (Shōwa 6), a 22 year-old youth named was arrested for cut off a girl's hair, opportuning on the throng of people out for the ennichi at the at Shiba, Tokyo. He testified "if I cut the hair of a hundred girls and offer them at a shrine, my feeble body will certainly become healthy," thus providing a superstition as the reason for committing kamikiri.

Other It is also supposed that rather than being cut by someone or something, that it is simply an illness that results in hair falling off.

In pictures The kamikiri is illustrated in such picture scrolls () as the Bakemono no e and 's Hyakkai zukan ("Illustrated scroll of a hundred mysteries", 1737) from the Edo Period whhich depict the "kamikiri" as a birdlike yōkai with a long beak and scissor- or pincer-like hands. Although there is no explanatory text accompanying the paintings in these picture scrolls, some of the paintings also show locks of hair next to the creatures suggesting they were cut off.

Kamikiri no Kidan (1868), a nishiki-e by Utagawa Yoshifuji, also depicts a "kamikiri," but in contrast to the depictions in the aforementioned emakimono, it is depicted as completely black, based on a story of having actually encountered it (cf. image above).

Tobioni These Bakemonozukushi Emaki (化け物尽し絵巻) (from the Edo Period, now in private possession and entrusted to a museum of the Fukuoka Prefecture), considered to be a yōkai emakimono that was made for putting captions on previously existing yōkai pictures seen in picture scrolls, introduces the "kamikiri" under the name of In the accompanying caption, they are said to be found around the seaside of Izumo Province, and they are considered to eat the meat of small fish, birds, and mice.

In popular culture A kamikiri (traditional depiction) appears as a hair stylist in the manga Hozuki's Coolheadedness () vol. 14. (cf. also illustration holding blow dryer @ amazon)

Notes

Explanatory notes

References

See also List of legendary creatures from Japan