Yōkai of Japan
Abumikuchi (Stirrup Mouth Demon)
In his book A Futile Bag of Illustrations of a Horde of Utensils (Gazu hyakki tsurezure bukuro) published in 1784, the painter Toriyama Sekien (1712-88) features several tsukumogami (lit. "tool spirit"), demons that become embedded in 100-year-old tools, household items, and accessories. Among them is the abumiguchi (lit. "stirrup mouth"), a small furry creature formed from the type of stirrup used on a horse's saddle in premodern Japan.
The poem states that the spirit once belonged to a warrior who was wounded in battle and is waiting for him to return. This might be the samurai Minamoto Tomonaga (1143-60), second son of Yoshitomo (1123-60), a general in the clan wars of the 1150s. According to the war epic The Tale of Heiji (Heiji mono-gatari), during the Heiji Rebellion of 1159 the Minamoto clan led by Yoshitomo were defeated by the Taira clan and Tomonaga was wounded. An arrow had pierced his left thigh making it impossible for him to step up into his horse's stirrup. As Tomonaga's condition worsened, thus jeopardizing the retreat of the Minamoto clan, he asked his father to kill him. In the early fifteenth century, the playwright Kanze Motomasa (1394?/1401?-32) wrote a Noh play about Tomonaga's final moments, but he altered the ending of the story so that Tomonaga committed suicide instead.
Text from Japanese Yokai and Other Supernatural Beings by Andreas Marks (Tuttle Publishing, 2023)