Introduction

With the face of an oni, a body of a tiger, and the arms and legs of a spider, Tsuchigumo are giant, murderous yokai that live in rural settings in Japan and use shape-shifting and trickery to ambush humans. They are often portrayed as very deceiving and cruel monsters, taking various forms to lure and kill prey (who are mainly humans). Tsuchigumo are most famous for their numerous encounters in various Japanese folktales with the legendary warrior Minamoto no Yorimitsu (Raiko) and his reitainer Watanabe no Tsuna. Stories concerning Raiko and his interactions with Tsuchigumo have greatly influenced a variety of Japanese artistic performances, including a very famous Noh play and Kabuki drama, both called Tsuchigumo.

While the stories between Raiko and the Tsuchigumo are exciting tales worth mentioning (and will be discussed further), the emergence of the term "Tsuchigumo" and the transformation of its meaning and portrayal throughout history is a fascinating subject in its own right. The word "Tsuchigumo" directly translates to "earth spider" and first appears in various mythohistorical texts, including the Kojiki, the Nihonshoki, and the fudoki, Fudoki of Hizen long before it was associated with the yokai. It is widely believed by scholars that in these texts "Tsuchigumo" was actually a derogatory term used to demonize an ethnic group of indigenous inhabitants of Japan. These natives were portrayed as having short bodies with long arms and legs, and that they lived in holes in the ground. While scholars debate the exact identity of the Tsuchigumo people, it is generally thought that "Tsuchigumo" eventually transformed into a derogatory term for any group of people who refused to follow the rule of the Yamato clan and were thus assigned the status of barbarians (Hudson, 201).

Throughout time, the depiction of Tsuchigumo shifted, and gradually it stopped being associated with indigenous people. From the Kamakura period onward, the Tsuchigumo started appearing in several different texts and legends as a monster rather than a group of people. The famous early fourteenth-century otogizoshi (picture scroll), Tsuchigumo-zoshi is generally marked as the emergence of Tsuchigumo as a full-fleged yokai. In this story, the Tsuchigumo is a gigantic female spider-demon disguised as a beautiful woman that is eventually slayed by Raiko and Watanabe no Tsuna. When Raiko cuts off Tsuchigumo's head and slices her belly, it is discovered that over 1,990 skulls of her victims and hundreds of spiders as big as humans were being held inside her body. In this story, the Tsuchigumo is portrayed as a cannibalistic evil-being, but the weird-ness of its illusions and abilities are almost comical (Foster, 129).

Tsuchigumo-zoshi became a very popular legend and inspired many other stories of Raiko encountering and killing tsuchigumo. While the Tsuchigumo takes many different forms in the legends it appears in, including a young servant boy and a strange monk, its most famous form by far is as a mysterious, beautiful women who uses seduction to lure her prey to their death. Like this, the Tsuchigumo faces another transition from a derogatory term, to a spider monster, to a destructive female killer with femme fatale elements. The idea of a fatal woman, a charming yet seductive woman, is a figure of fascination in many different legends, myths, folktales, and literary works around the world. Especially in Japanese mythology, monsters often appear to be beautiful women with immense powers in shape-shifting and deception. They are unpredictable and hard to control but in most cases are conquered by heroes in the end (Kimura,32).

As we've learned throughout the semester, the interpretation of how yokai are perceived is very dependent on the way they are portrayed through their surroundings. As political, cultural, and social ideas change and evolve, the meaning and symbolism of various yokai also change. The "same" yokai can appear in many different forms at different times, invoked for different purposes in a wide range of media. The Tsuchigumo in specific is a great example for how people shape the meanings of yokai as its portrayals have evolved so much throughout time. The Tsuchigumo first appeared as a derogatory term in various texts, but gradually became a horrific spider-demon yokai. Even after the Tsuchigumo became an established yokai, it's meaning was changed through various metaphors and interpretations. Tsuchigumo have been the subject of various pieces of work including folktales, legends, noh plays, kabuki dramas, paintings, animes and videogames. In this way, one monster was able to represent multiple different ideas all at once. The antagonist in various legends that sets Raiko as a heroic figure in Japanese folktales. A dangerous shape-shifting female spider that shows Japan's traditional views on women. A metaphorical painting that makes a political statement against the Tokugawa Government. In all of these ways, people are using Tsuchigumo to represent a certain concept and its meaning as a yokai is fluid.