Guhuoniao

The Guhuoniao is a legendary bird from Chinese folklore. It is described in ancient books such as Western Jin natural history book 玄中記, and the Ming period herbology book Bencao Gangmu, and in the Edo Period Japan book Wakan Sansai Zue.^[1]

They go by various names, such as yexingyounu (夜行遊女, nocturnal roaming woman), tidnadishaonu (天帝少女, celestial woman), and rumuniao (乳母鳥, nanny bird), and guiniao (鬼鳥, "demon bird").^[2] It is said to be a kind of demonic spirit and often takes human lives. It is a monstrous bird that flies at night and harms infants, and its cry sounds like that of an infant. It lives mostly in Jingzhou, China. When it wears its fur, it transforms into a bird, and when it takes off its fur, it takes on the form of a woman.^[3]

They have a habit of taking other people's children and claiming them as their own, marking them with blood when they find them or their children's clothes dried at night. The marked child is instantly deprived of its soul and develops a disease called wugugan (無辜疳), which is a type of convulsion.^[3]

They share similarities with the “yuyinu” (羽衣女, feather-clad woman) in the Eastern Jin novel In Search of the Supernatural in the aspect of becoming a bird when she wears hair and a woman when she takes off her hair, and to the nuqi (女岐) of the Chu Ci in the aspect of stealing other people's children, so it is believed that the guhaoniao is a fusion of several Chinese legends.^[4] The Tang era Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang notes that guhaoniao are a pregnant woman who died in childbirth and turned into a bird,^[4] an idea also purported in the Bencao Gangmu.^[2]

Relation to Japanese folklore

In Japan, there is a similar legend in Ibaraki Prefecture, where it is said that when a child's clothes is hung up to dry at night, a yokai called “ubamatori” would consider it to be the yokai's own child's clothes and mark those clothes with milk from the yokai's breasts, which said to be poisonous.^[5] This is believed to have originated from the Chinese mother-in-law bird, and it is believed that this comes from an intellectual bringing over information about the Chinese guhaoniao.^[6]

In Japan in the early parts of Edo period (which as 1603–1867), the Japanese yokai ubume was equated with the Chinese yaoguai, and the characters 姑獲鳥 would be read as "ubume," and this is believed to be because the ideas about ubume and the guhaoniao were mixed together and as legends pertaining to pregnant mothers.^[4]

Notes

1. 寺島良安 (Ryōan Terajima) (1987). Wakan Sansai Zue. 東洋文庫 (平凡社) (The Eastern Library). Vol. 6. Heibonsha. pp. 342–343. ISBN 978-4-582-80466-9.
2. 李、396-397頁。
3. 郭氏、301-303頁。
4. 多田、29-40頁。
5. 民俗学研究所編著 (Institute of Folklore) (1955). Kunio Yanagita (ed.). 綜合日本民俗語彙 (A Comprehensive Japanese Folk Lexicon). Vol. 1. 平凡社. pp. 136–137. ncidBN05729787.
6. 村上健司編著 (2005). 日本妖怪大事典 (Encyclopedia of Japanese Yokai). Kwai books. 角川書店. p. 46. ISBN 978-4-04-883926-6.

References

• 郭氏 (2006). "玄中記". In 竹田晃; 黒田真美子 (eds.). 中国古典小説選 (Selected Chinese Classical Novels). Vol. 2. 明治書院. ISBN 978-4-625-66343-7.
• Katsumi Tada (2006). 百鬼解読 (Explaning 100 Oni). Kodansha Bunko. Kodansha. ISBN 978-4-06-275484-2.
• 李時珍 (1931). 頭註國譯本草綱目 (Toushoku Kokushoku Tsugumoku). Vol. 第11冊. 白井光太郎校訂・鈴木真海訳. Shunyodo Publishing. ncidBN09260163.