Ubume

An ubume is a supernatural being from Japanese folklore, said to be the restless spirit of a woman who died either in pregnancy or in childbirth. The spirit can appear as a pregnant woman, a woman carrying a child, or a horrific figure covered in blood and holding an infant. The name ubume is derived from the Japanese characters for “birth-giving woman.” The oldest known tales of the ghostly apparition originated in Japan around the twelfth century. According to the legend, an ubume is so consumed with worry about her child that she is unable to move on to the next life. The specifics of the tales can vary depending on the region, but typically the ubume desperately tries to find someone to help her baby or attempts to buy food or treats for the child herself.

Background

The ubume is an example of a yōkai, a wide-ranging classification of supernatural beings found in Japanese folklore. The term yōkai comes from the Japanese characters for “bewitching mystery” and encompasses various creatures and beings. Yōkai can be anything from a mischievous spirit to an evil demon or a vengeful ghost. They can be a force for good or evil, or they may simply be indifferent to the presence of humans. Japanese folklore includes hundreds of different yōkai, with their origins stemming from ancient myths to modern urban legends.

Storytelling and an interest in the supernatural are both important elements in Japanese culture. Stories of yōkai are found in the oldest works of Japanese literature, written in the eighth century CE. Over the next few centuries, the beings appeared in several texts, which introduced many new yōkai or sometimes changed the aspects of existing ones. In the eighteenth century, a poet and artist named Toriyama Sekien collected yōkai tales and compiled them in an encyclopedia that became immensely popular with the public. His work, and that of other artists, ignited an enthusiastic cultural interest in yōkai that lasted until the late nineteenth century. From that point into the first half of the twentieth century, belief in the supernatural was discouraged in Japan, and stories of yōkai fell out of favor. In the 1960s, a popular comic book and animated television series helped revive the public’s interest in yōkai and Japanese folklore, a fascination that has continued into the twenty-first century.

Overview

Tales of the ubume vary across Japan, with the one constant being an association with a woman’s death during pregnancy or in childbirth. In some cases, she appears as a normal-looking woman carrying a child and crying out for help, while other times, she is seen in the late stages of pregnancy. Most often, the ubume appears as a frantic woman naked from the waist up, wearing a garment covered in blood from the waist down. She can be holding a bundle wrapped like a newborn infant or holding the dead body of a stillborn fetus. Typically, the different forms of the legend are associated with the manner of the woman’s death or whether her child survived.

The ubume is believed to haunt the area where she died, still tied to the world of the living by intense feelings of anxiety for the well-being of her newborn. If both mother and child died either during childbirth or shortly before or after, the ubume appears holding a bundled infant, desperately seeking someone to care for her baby. The apparition is said to beg passing humans to take her baby. If a person accepts the child, the woman vanishes, the bundle grows so heavy, and the Good Samaritan is crushed under its weight. If the woman died, but her infant survived, the ubume often tries to provide for her baby by buying food, clothing, or candy for the child. However, instead of money, the apparition pays for the goods with dead leaves.

Other variations on the ubume refer to the being by different names depending on the region. For example, in some parts of the northeast, she is known as an obo; in parts of southern Japan, she is called the unme. Some references to the ghost seem to combine the ubume with a Chinese legend called the kokakuchō, or “child-snatching bird.” This version, called an ubumetori, is said to either poison children by smearing its blood on drying clothes or carry off infants to its nest to raise as its own.

The oldest known reference to an ubume is found in the Konjaku Monogatari, a multi-volume collection of tales written about 1120. In the “Tale of the Bravery of Urabe Suetake,” the samurai Suetake was camping with his fellow warriors by a river. As the men were telling ghost stories, one recounted the legend of the ubume, a ghostly woman who was said to haunt the river, begging those who crossed to take her child. If a person took the child, it would grow so heavy the person would drown. Suetake did not believe the tale and vowed to cross the river and prove the story wrong.

As his men watched, Suetake crossed the river, but on his return, a woman carrying a bundled child suddenly appeared next to him, pleading with him to take her baby. Suetake agreed and took the bundle. As he continued, the weight of the bundle grew heavier and heavier, but he was able to overcome the burden with his great strength. As he neared the other side, the woman began to scream for him to return her child, but he continued on and made the shore. However, when he opened the wrapped bundle, all that was inside was a pile of wet leaves shaped like an infant.

Tales of the ubume most likely originated from the fear of death during childbirth, a more common occurrence in pre-modern Japan. The superstitions surrounding the ghost also led to several traditional burial practices meant to stop newly deceased mothers from becoming an ubume. In some areas in Japan, if a woman died before giving birth, the child was cut out of her womb and placed in her arms for burial. If the woman died during childbirth and the baby died soon after, similar burials also took place.

Tales of the ubume entered contemporary Japanese literature and film in the twenty-first century. Ubume also made appearances in anime, manga, and video games. Local festivals in Japan incorporated folktales of ubume, and conventions were also held where people could discuss their ubume stories. Because the ubume continued to represent universal themes of motherhood and loss, their stories continued as part of Japanese folklore tradition in contemporary Japan. 

Bibliography

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