What Are the Legends of Curse Words? Kotodama Belief and Folklore Explained

Legends surrounding "curse words" survive in great number the world over, and in Japan too, since ancient times. Behind them lies the kotodama belief that "words hold power." This article explains, from a folklore perspective, how curse words have been spoken of and why they were feared — the etymology, the kotodama belief, forbidden words, and their side as warnings. Note that this article is an introduction to culture. It does not recommend any act that harms another person, and does not cover any concrete procedure of cursing.

The kotodama belief that power dwells in words

In ancient Japan, words once spoken were believed to affect reality just as they were. Good words invite good results; bad words invite bad ones — this is the kotodama belief. The Man'yoshu contains a poem praising Japan as "the land where the kotodama brings good fortune," a sign that a reverence for the power of words had taken root long ago.

It is why people chose auspicious words at celebrations and shunned words they were loath to speak. Curse words were feared for the same reason: because words themselves were thought to hold a power to move reality. A word once uttered cannot be retracted; it acts, as it is, upon the other person or upon oneself — this sense lies at the root of the dread of words.

"Noroi" and "inori" are of one ground

What is striking is that "to curse" (norou) and "to pray" (inoru) are said to have originally been close words. Tracing the etymology, "noroi" is thought to arise from the old verb "norofu," which derives from "noru" — an archaic word meaning "to say, to declare." The "norito" chanted before the gods, too, connects to "noru"; curse and norito branch from the same root of uttering words to exert power.

In other words, the act of fervently entreating the gods becomes a "prayer" if its direction is good and a "curse" if it is negative — two sides of one act. Curse and blessing, though exact opposites, are born from the same soil of believing in the power of words.

Imikotoba — the words people avoided speaking

The dread of the kotodama shows too in the culture of "imikotoba," forbidden words. Avoiding "cut" or "part" at a wedding, not speaking "fall" or "slip" around an exam, refraining from repeated words such as "again and again" at a funeral — all rest on the fear that an inauspicious word will draw the reality to it.

Turned around, this shows how deeply people believed that "words hold the power to move reality." That curse words were feared lies on the same ground as this culture of forbidden words. The restraint of not carelessly speaking bad words is the most everyday expression of the kotodama belief.

The "warning" the legends have handed down

Many of the curse legends left across the land have, in part, been passed down not as manuals for action but as warnings — that "human resentment is fearsome," that "words cannot be taken back." Curse lore such as the ushi-no-koku-mairi, too, has largely been told as "what must not be done," "what will ruin you if you do it" (that legend is explained in What Is the Ushi-no-koku-mairi?).

Intense negative words cast a shadow not only on the person they are aimed at but on the heart of the one who utters them — the saying "curse someone and you dig two graves" puts precisely this lived wisdom in a single phrase. The curse legends, it can be thought, did not deny the feeling of resentment itself, but handed down the peril of loosing it carelessly outward.

Curse words are not something to be recommended

As we have seen, the legends surrounding curse words have been handed down strictly as culture and history; they are not manuals for actually harming someone. This article, too, neither introduces any method of cursing nor recommends harm to another.

What matters is this: to hold a feeling strong enough to make you want to curse is by no means abnormal, nor a sin. The question is how you handle that fierce feeling. Aim it at an actual person, and in most cases a wound is left on your own heart too. That is exactly why a way to get the feeling safely outside you is needed.

Negative words are best written out, and let go

Anger and resentment strong enough to make you want to curse someone are not things to deny. But if you aim those words at an actual person, in most cases a wound is left on your own heart too. Noroi Nikki is a private place to write such fierce negative words onto the page, instead of hurling them at others, and to set them outside yourself. What you write is seen by no one, and never reaches the other person. As you put them into words and look at them, the raw feeling gradually settles into a size you can handle. Start by writing, and setting it down.

Related reading: What Is Shio Majinai? The Folklore of Salt, Purification, and Letting Go by Writing