Nue

The nue is a monster (in Japanese, it is considered to be a yōkai) said to have the face of monkey, the legs of tiger, the body of a tanuki (Japanese racoon dog), and the front half of a snake as the tail. The nue is sometimes referred to as the Japanese chimera. The name comes from the call it makes: there is a bird called a nue, and the call of the monster resembles it. Its call can be heard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzBkL4lRQzc・

Because of the sad sound of nue, Japanese people in the past, especially the nobles, believed that the appearance of nue was a sign of the approaching of tragedies. Prayers would thus be held to avoid them.

The body of nue from the Tale of the Heike is flushed down a river as both a physical and a ritual means of cleansing the curses associated with its body. There is a noh play, Nue, based on the Tale of the Heike episode, in which the body washed up on the shore near Ashiya, where the local people built a burial mound and gave it a proper funeral to appease its soul.

If you would like to know more about Yokai, you can watch a video of an interview of Dr. Foster from University of UC Davis here.

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Post-reading Activity:

• Think about monsters in other traditions. How many can you name? What is their role in the stories about them? Do they, like the nue, mark cultural disruption?

Works cited:

Foster, Michael Dylan. The Book of Yokai : Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore, University of California Press, 2015.

Tyler, Royall, translator. The Tale of the Heike. Viking, Penguin Group, 2012.