Departments
Intermediate Japanese - Free Online Course
TENGU
天狗
mountain spirit
The tengu is a creature of Japanese folklore. Usually the tengu is depicted as a novice monk with reddish skin, and a protruding, bulbous nose. The creature often carries a fan. Tengu live in the mountains. They can supposedly control the forces of nature.
Japanese settlements have always tended to cluster around the low-lying areas near the coast. In old times, ordinary Japanese regarded the sparsely populated mountain areas as mysterious and dangerous. The people who lived in these areas were also viewed with a mixture of fear and suspicion. Legends about the tengu added to this mysteriousness.
Many of Japan’s mountainous areas are still sparsely populated, and they can still be dangerous. In 2004, there was an unusually high number of accidental deaths among people who journeyed to mountain areas to gather mushrooms. Most of the victims slipped and fell, or got lost and died of exposure. This prompted Japanese authorities to warn citizens to exercise caution while on mushroom gathering expeditions, and to travel in groups.