Tsukumogami

Lore & Background

The word tsukumogami does not appear in The Tales of Ise; a waka poem in the 10th-century work uses 'tsukumo' meaning 'ninety-nine' or 'many times,' not 'tsukumogami.' The element 'kami' is a homophone for both 'hair' and 'spirit,' and the term later came to mean a 100-year spirit. The kanji representation 付喪神 dates to a Tenpō period otogizōshi called the Tsukumogami Emaki, which states that a tool, after one hundred years, would develop a spirit and become a tsukumogami. The emaki also notes that the word tsukumo could be written with the kanji 九十九, meaning 'ninety-nine' years, but the established canon specifies 100 years.

Reader's Guide

The concept of tsukumogami spread mostly in the Japanese Middle Ages and declined in more recent generations, according to scholar Komatsu Kazuhiko. Although Bakumatsu period ukiyo-e art led to a resurfacing of the idea, Komatsu infers these depictions were produced in an era cut off from actual belief. The Tsukumogami Emaki describes how people would throw out old objects before they became one hundred years old—a practice called susu-harai—to prevent them from becoming tsukumogami. However, objects that were ninety-nine years old could become angered and turn into yōkai by other means. The idea of becoming a yōkai at one hundred or ninety-nine years old is not necessarily literal; the numbers can represent the notion that humans, plants, animals, or tools acquire a spiritual nature once they become significantly old. Today, the term is generally understood to apply to any object that has reached its 100th birthday and become alive and self-aware, though this definition remains controversial.

Did You Know?

• Tsukumogami are specifically tools or objects, not animals; claims about foxes and tanuki are not supported by standard canon.
• The Tsukumogami Emaki states that a tool, after one hundred years, would change and acquire a spirit, and deceive people's hearts.
• The word tsukumogami is not attested in surviving literature outside of specific uses, so its historical usage has not been handed down in detail.
• By the twentieth century, tsukumogami had entered Japanese popular culture, with Buddhist teachings largely lost to most outsiders.