Types of Curses in Japan: A Folklore Guide to Japanese Curses

Say "a curse" and Japanese folklore holds a remarkable variety of forms — nailing a doll, chanting words, the spirit of a living person said to fly at another. This article explains what types of curses exist, purely as a matter of folklore and legend, sorting them into broad categories.

All of these are historical and cultural lore, not a how-to for cursing anyone. At the end, we touch on how to face feelings fierce enough to make you want to curse.

Two principles that sort all curses

Before the specific types, it helps to grasp two old ideas common to magic the world over. Anthropology has long organized magic around two basic principles: "sympathetic magic," the notion that things resembling each other affect one another, and "contagious magic," the notion that things once in contact stay connected even when parted.

Much of Japan's curse lore fits these two. Acting on a doll made to resemble the target is the sympathetic idea; using the target's hair, nails, or a worn possession is the contagious idea. The many forms of curses can be seen as these two plain notions branching out across eras and regions.

Curses using tools

First come curses using tools or dolls. The leading example acts on a "katashiro" — an effigy, such as a straw doll, standing in for the target. "Ushi no koku mairi," nailing a straw doll to a sacred tree at a shrine deep in the night, is the best-known form. Tradition describes a pattern: in the hour of the ox (roughly 1 to 3 a.m.), in white robes with an iron trivet worn on the head, one visits for seven nights until the vow is fulfilled — but if anyone sees the figure, the power is lost. Places such as Kifune Shrine in Kyoto are spoken of as its home ground.

Intriguingly, ushi no koku mairi is said to have begun not as a ritual of grudge but as a visit in the hour of the ox to the deity of Kifune to pray for a good match and the granting of heartfelt wishes. Only later did it turn into a tale of jealousy and resentment avenged. The forms of curses have their meanings rewritten over time. All of this is told as tradition, not something we encourage doing.

Curses of words

Next are curses using words themselves. Japan has long held the idea of "kotodama," that power dwells in words: good words invite a good reality, bad words a bad one — which is exactly why the words one speaks were chosen with care. Curse phrases uttered wishing another's misfortune, and the spells and the "kuji" said to be used by onmyoji, belong to this curse of words.

Word-curses were feared because people so firmly believed "words have the power to move reality." Turned around, this means words hold not only the power to harm another but also the power to order and lighten your own heart.

Curses of spirits

Third are curses worked by spirits. Well known are the "ikiryo," where a living person's fierce resentment is said to leave the body and afflict another, and the "onryo," the spirit of one who died in bitterness said to bring calamity. The ikiryo is spoken of from especially early times: in "The Tale of Genji," the Lady Rokujo becomes, without even realizing it, a jealous living spirit tormenting her rival — a famous emblem of the idea.

These rest on the notion that fierce feelings such as hatred and resentment become an unseen force that reaches the other. One senses how the Japanese dreaded the very intensity of emotion as a kind of "power." Distinct from this is "chobuku," subduing an enemy through prayer while casting them as "evil"; its pretext differs from a curse that aims raw ill will, and it too was spoken of in connection with such spiritual force.

Curses tied to creatures and possession

Region-rooted curse lore should not be overlooked either. "Kodoku," which the ancient law codes punished heavily, was a magic said to harm people using insects or small animals. And chiefly in western Japan there was lore of "tsukimono-suji," possession lineages: certain households were said to command spiritual creatures such as the "inugami" (dog-spirit) or "osaki," setting them on people to bring calamity.

Such traditions were often a mirror of raw human relations within a village — envy, rivalry, gaps between rich and poor. Behind the tales of curses there always lie the real feelings between people.

The true nature of a curse is feeling with nowhere to go

Survey the types this way and you notice that most curses, though they wear the "form" of a tool, a word, or a spirit, are at bottom someone's anger or resentment with nowhere to go. Curse lore is this rich for one reason only: in every age there have been people who hated another from the heart.

But there is no need to turn that fierce feeling into real action. Anger fierce enough to make you want to curse someone becomes far lighter once you first put it into words and get it out of yourself. Noroi Nikki is a private app for gently writing out, and letting go of, exactly those "curses you can tell no one." What you write is seen by no one, and no one else is dragged into it.

For a related piece of lore, see also the meaning of straw-doll curses.