Yamawarawa

Drypoint etching, 100×150, July 2020

Series: Japanese phantoms

A yokai called Yamawarawa once appeared in the mountains in Amakusa, Higo Province (now Kumamoto Prefecture), and there is a tradition that it said: ‘A bad disease is prevalent. The beholder avoids illness with my figure’. After I made it, I noticed that the Yamawarawa that combats epidemics has three legs! This Yamawarawa was a yokai like a kappa that went to the mountains, and it looks like the Yamawarawa who helped woodcutters with their work (a one-eyed child with two legs).