Heavier in Your Arms: Konaki Jiji and the Baby's Cry in the Mountains of Awa

The best thing about the konaki jiji is that its looks and its voice don't match at all. From deep in the mountains comes the sound of a baby crying. But the one doing the crying is an old man. You could even say that this mismatch is the whole of what the konaki jiji is.

An old man's body, a baby's voice

The konaki jiji is a yokai told of in the mountains of Tokushima Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku. The folklorist Kunio Yanagita wrote it down, as a tale from the mountains of Awa (the old name for Tokushima), among the yokai names he gathered from around Japan.

The tale itself is very short. It lives deep in the mountains. It looks like an old man, but it cries like a baby. When someone feels sorry for it and picks it up, it suddenly turns heavy, clings on, and won't let go. Almost nothing is said about its clothes, its size, or anything else about how it looks.

Even so, this little tale has a clever hook. Most people can't just walk past a crying baby. That very wish to help is what draws them close to the konaki jiji.

Other things that grow heavy in your arms

Things you hold or carry that keep getting heavier: the konaki jiji isn't the only yokai with that trick.

One of the best known is the ubume. She is said to appear on night roads and ask a passerby, "Please hold my baby for me." The baby grows heavier and heavier, but there are tales in many places that those who hold on to the end are rewarded with great strength.

There are also stories, told here and there, of yokai that climb onto your back on a dark road and grow heavier with every step you take.

Weight is something you can't see, yet your body feels it clearly. That heavy pull on your arms or your back is not so different from the uneasy feeling of a dark mountain path at night. Perhaps that feeling is exactly what these "it got heavier" stories are trying to put into words.

The mountains of Awa

Tokushima is also known as a place especially rich in tales of the bake-danuki, the shape-shifting tanuki. With its deep mountains and small villages scattered along the valleys, the Awa highland has long been a place where strange stories were born and handed down.

The hills of Yamashiro, in Miyoshi City, Tokushima, are known as a home of the konaki jiji legend. On Pixel Yokai's Yokai Map, you'll find the konaki jiji peeking out from the mountains of Tokushima.

If you hear crying in the mountains

Today, many people picture the konaki jiji the way it appears in manga and anime. But in the old tales, it is a yokai made almost entirely of a voice and a weight.

On the konaki jiji's Yokaipedia page, we started from the moment in the tale when someone picks it up. So we drew it bundled in a swaddling blanket like a baby, with only its face that of a wrinkled old man. It's crying with its mouth wide open, little hands poking out of the blanket to cling on.

If you ever hear a baby crying deep in the mountains, take a quick peek at its face before you pick it up.