Thenoppera-bō (のっぺらぼう/野箆坊; <nopperi "flat-faced"[2]), inJapanese folklore, is a facelessyōkai that looks like a human but has no face.
An 18th century version exists which calls theyōkai anupperibō. Old versions may not name theyōkai explicitly as anopperabō, and this also applies toLafcadio Hearn's short story "Mujina" (1904), set in Edo (Tokyo). Here, a man witnesses a blank-facednoppera-bō woman, flees, and tries to tell his experience to asoba noodle shop proprietor, who also turns around with a blank face and asks if that was what the man saw.
This motif of double-scare has been dubbedsaido no kai (再度の怪) (§ Recurrent spookings). Sometimes the blank-faced human is told or hinted to be a trick played by a shapeshifter beast such as themujina, foxkitsune, ortanuki. Additional regional folktale examples have been printed also.
In Lafcadio Hearn's story, the faceless being is not called anoppera-bō but amujina, which usually refers to abadger orraccoon dog, ascribed an ability toshapeshift.
Noppera-bō are known primarily for frightening humans, but are usually otherwise harmless.[4] They appear at first as ordinary human beings, sometimes impersonating someone familiar to the victim, before causing their features to disappear, leaving a blank, smooth sheet of skin where their face should be.
As in Hearn's version,nopperabō tales often exhibit the motif of§ Recurrent spookings (saido no kai (再度の怪)).
Often, anoppera-bō would not actually exist, but was the disguise of amujina, a foxkitsune, or atanuki,[5][6][7] though it has been conjectured that this might be a case of folktale being contaminated by Hearn's literary publications.[7]。
Theyōkainuppeppō bears a similar name and is probably related, though perhaps distinct since it is typically depicted as having a face on its huge head in lieu of any torso, from which the arms and legs stick out.[5] Consequently,ukiyo-e artist and novelistHarumachi [ja]'s woodblock illustrationnuppeppō (fig. right) fails to fit this definition (cf.§ Similar or sub-types).
One tale that hints at some shapeshifting magic beast tricking humans into seeing faceless beings occurs inkaidan collectionShinsetsu Hyakumonogatari (Meiwa 4/1767). It records that thenupperibō (ぬっぺりほう) made spooky appearance in Nijōgawara, Kyoto (nearNijō-ōhashi bridge [ja]), and since the victims came away with thick hairs attached to their clothing, the events were blamed on the tricks of some furry beast.[8]
However, sometimes their real identity is not known, and in theKanbun 3 (1663)kaidan collectionSorori monogatari [ja], it was written that in the Oike-chō of the capital (nowMuromachi dōriOike sagaru,Nakagyō-ku, Kyoto), there appeared anoppera-bō about 7shaku (about 2.1 meters) in height, but nothing was written about what its true identity was.[9]
They are also said to appear in folktales in theOsaka Prefecture[10] andKotonami,Nakatado District,Kagawa Prefecture among other places.[11]
An iconic story about anoppera-bō (though this name does not appear in the story) is "Mujina" inLafcadio Hearn's bookKwaidan (1904). The story tells of a man who, travelling along theAkasaka road toEdo, comes across a seemingly distressed and weeping young woman near Kii-no-Kunizaka (i.e.,Kinokunizaka [ja]) hill, perhaps attempting suicide. He attempts to console her, when she turns around and drops the sleeve from her face, revealing she had "no eyes or nose or mouth". Frightened, he runs down and reaches asoba-noodle vendor. The man winds down and starts telling the vendor of his encounter, only to have the soba vendor turn around and ask if the lady's face was "anything like this?" stroking his egg-like smooth face, making him into anoppera-bō himself.[12][13] Hearn's narrative does not clarify what themujina is, merely stating it haunted the Kinokunizaka area, and was witnessed by the old merchant,[12] but it could be inferred that thismujina was a shapeshifter that "transmogrified" into these humans to tease the old man, as has been commented.[14]
Hearn's use of the name Mujina here is confusing, but an encounter with thenoppera-bō is indeed often blamed on the trickery of the shapeshiftingmujina,kitsune, ortanuki, in the folklore of many regions of Japan.[15]
InSazanami Iwaya's anthologyDaigoen (1935) is a story set inHirosaki under theTsugaru Domain (now inAomori Prefecture), where the facelessyōkai was calledzunberabō. A man namedYohei (與兵衛) who boasted of his singing voice took a mountain path towards home late in the day and encountered someone singing beautifully the same song as he. When Yohei approached and asked who he was, it turned out to be a faceless man who answered "Me!". Yohei sped back to the neighboring village whence he came, and awoke his acquaintance to recount his experience, when the listener turned around with a blank face and asked "Did thezunberabō look like this?"[16][17][18]
According toSengoku period warlordMori Nagayoshi (d. 1584)'s autobiographicalKaneyama-ki (兼山記), whenKukuri Castle [ja]'s lord Toki Mikawa-no-kami (Kukuri Yorioki [ja]) was in his youth and went by the name Akutarō (悪五郎), he went into the wilderness to hunt and encountered a monstrousyamabushi about 1jō (10shaku, about 10 feet) tall. Akutarō wrestled him down, but the ascetic disappeared. He descended from the mountain and came toChōhō-ji [ja] and began to tell about his encounter to the abbot, when the priest clapped his hand and asked, "was that phantasm something like this?" upon which fiends with white, eyeless and nose-less faces like white gourds began spawning endlessly, and finding himself unable to draw sword, had resigned himself to meeting his death, when a wind blew and the temple disappeared, and he found himself in an open field.[19][20]
An anthology ofHigo Province (Kumamoto Prefecture) folklore published in the Shōwa era (1940s) relates a story about thenopperapon [sic], as follows. A slope called Hoke-zaka (法華坂) in Kumamoto was where reputedly theJūbakobaba ("lunchbox hag") appeared, which everyone feared without knowing what sort of monster it was. A traveler (seemingly a pilgrim of many temples) came to rest at a teahouse atop the slope, and asked the woman for some warm food. He asked whether the rumored creature really appeared, and she answered "yes it does come out", and "this is what a Jūbakobaba is like",[c] displaying her face without a nose, eyes, or a mouth. The traveler fled and reached a teahouse at the slope's bottom, and confessed to the woman there he'd just seen the dreaded hag, at which this woman repeated the same line as the first hag, and displayed hernopperapon face.[21]
A variant of the tale also set in Higo Province refers to the faceless monster asnopperabon.[22]
A horror story from old Sasayama (nowTamba-Sasayama,Hyōgo) speaks ofDote-ura no Ochobo (土手裏のおちょぼ), that is, abob-haired girl named "Ochobo behind thedyke". When one takes the narrow path through the bushes (where Behind-the-Dyke is located) at night, and happens to call on the girl, she will turn around and display herzunberabō (ヅンベラボウ) face without eyes or nose.[d][23][24]
Qing dynasty writerJi Yun'sNotes of the Thatched Abode of Close Observations was written in five parts, and Part 2, entitledSo Have I Heard (如是我聞, 1791) contains a story that happened at the old residence ofCuizhuang, where a slave named Zhang Yunhui (張雲會) while fetching tea utensils for his master saw a young girl with long hair hidden in the tree shade. Thinking he caught a maidservant (slacking off) he grabbed her, when she showed her face, which was completely white without ears, eyes, mouth, or nose. Tattle talks ensued, and some said such things have been heard of, others suggested that the girl cleverly shrouded her face with a piece of fabric.[28][29]
Yetan suilu (夜譚随録, "Jottings of nighttime talks", late 18th cent.)[e] contains the episode of the "Lady in scarlet garment".[f] There were guards drinking on night duty[g] inside Xishiku,[h] at theXian'an men [zh] west gate of theImperial City, Beijing. One of them went off to urinate, and saw a woman in a scarlet dress crouching. When the man embraced her from behind, she revealed a face white astofu and vague-looking.[31][32][29][33]
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 Nopperabō bronze installed alongMizuki Shigeru Road [ja] |
The motif of "recurrent spooking" in ghost stories has been dubbedsaido no kai (再度の怪) and Lafcadio Hearn'sMujina story version ofnopperabō (or a close cognate tale thereof[i]) has been pointed out as an example exhibiting this double scare. Ghost stories featuring theyōkai known asShu no bon [ja] (lit. "vermillion tray") also exhibit the "recurrent spooking" motif.[34][33][35]
It has been proposed that at the root of all "recurrent spooking" ghost stories lies the examples inChinese classical literature, namely theSoushenji.[j][36][35] There are two narratives that apply. One involving a boy and old man as passengers both carryingpipa lutes, whose faces turn ferocious,[37] The other tale involves rabbit-like specters.[38][39][k]
Minakata Kumagusu gave opinion that since the old narrative attested in the 16th centuryKaneyama-ki (§ Toki clan of Gifu) already uses the expression "face like a white gourd, without nose or eyes", Hearn's phraseology "face―which therewith became like unto an Egg" was probably just a rehash.[20][42]
Hearn scholar Masaru Tōda argues that it was probably improvisation on Hearn's part to transpose the "recurrent spooking" motif to thenopperabō tale. He argues that traditionally the motif had only been used with other monsters, like theoni or ogre types.[l] Although there are regionalnopperabō tales with the double-spooking motif, Tōda notes they have been collected or published after Hearn, and cannot reliably be dated to the remote past, as some folklorists have been prone to doing. For example, the tale published by Iwaya (1935) above（§ Aomori'szunberabō contains the expression "like an egg", which suggests a vestige of someone who heard Hearn's tale. The tale published 1944 (§ Jūbakobaba of Kumamoto) had excited interest in some scholars in the past as possibly being Hearn's source, since the writer had spent time in the Kumamoto area, but Tōda is skeptical about backdating this tale specimen.[43]
As for the tale attested centuries before Hearn (§ Toki clan of Gifu) it could have easily been created independently of Hearn, based on pieces of the older (Azuchi–Momoyama period or earlier) tales preserved inSorori monogatari.[43]
Though thenuppeppō is probably somehow related to thenopperabō,[5] the typicalnuppeppō has distinctively different features (as illustrated inHyakkai zukan,Bakemono zukushi [ja],Hyakki yagyō emaki [ja], andBakemono no e[m]), being a sort of blobby-bodied being with sagging folds of flesh forming eyes, nose, and mouth on a giant face-head it carries instead of a torso,[45] and thus it might be distinguished from the facelessnopperabō according to Foster (2015).[5] However, it may just be that thenuppeppō wrinkled folds of skin merely simulates a face, and it does not actually have any eyes, nose, or mouth.[3]
Ashirobōzu [ja] is a subtype of anuppeppō[46][47] said to be a shapeshift of akitsune fox according to some sources,[46] but in theIzumi area ofOsaka Prefecture, an elderly informant insisted theshirobōzu was the doing of thetanuki racoon dog and not a fox, this area being the renowned for the lore of theShinoda vixen.[47] As there is ashirobōzu ("white priest/baldie/boy") there is also a yōkai calledkuroobōzu [ja;fr] ("black priest") whose only facial feature is a mouth. Both theshirobōzu andkurobōzu are categorized as types ofnopperabō inShigeru Mizuki's essay.[47]
Thenupperibōzu inYosa Buson'sBuson yōkai emaki (c. 1754–1757) allegedly appeared in theKatabira-suji [ja] ("Chainmail alley") area of Kyoto City.Kōichi Yumoto [ja] considered it to be just anopperabō after all. But thenupperibōzu is shown with the distinctive trait of an eyeball in the anus, glowing like lightning.[48] This has prompted Mizuki to give it the nameshirime (尻目; "butt-eye"). His embellished cartoon depicts hisshirime as stripping naked while carrying its clothes in order to spook a samurai.[49][50]
There is also themeoni [ja] (lit. "woman ogre") from the 11th century novelGenji monogatari, Book 53,Tenarai [ja] which describes it as an eye-less, nose-less being from long ago.[51]
Yanagita Kunio'sTōno monogatari shūi [ja] ("supplement", 1935), Story #11, tells the legendary history of the Komagata-jinja shrine in the formerAyano village [ja] (nowAyaori-chō in Tōno city). According to locals, the shrine was founded after a certain traveler came by long ago, piggybacking a flat-faced child with no eyes nor nose, wearing a red hood on its head,[n] and rested on the spot, or had died there.[52]
Ohaguro bettarii [ja] has been classed as a subtype ofnopperabō,[3] as this femaleyōkai is a "nopperabō with a grinning mouth", displaying her namesake blackened teeth (ohaguro) but having neither eyes nor nose.[53]
崔莊舊宅..奴子張雲會夜往取茶具、見垂鬟女子潛匿樹下、.. 女子突轉其面、白如傅粉、而無耳目口鼻
