Japan's Wild Mountain Bird-men

Before I take you on a journey into the mountains of Japan with my travel blog, I should impart a story. In the mountains of Japan there is a legend of the wild men who live on the highest peaks.  These men are Buddhist monks, living in austere temples unseen by human eyes and living off the stark and Spartan existence provided for them ONLY by the mountain itself.  These men, these Yamabushi, as they are called, are legendary in deeds and distinct in their appearance, yet even they harken to a much earlier and more intriguing legend.

It is said that there dwells another wild people in those mountains; wild beings who look like men at first since they have the bodies of men but the similarities fade into the wings and talons of a bird, with great features and feathers of a bird such as a beak or a long nose with fearsome features.  Sometimes they wear geta (japanese sandals) but with only one central clog, perfectly balanced upon these great shoes as any bird would be on a branch. Yes, the yamabushi may tell you such stories of their progenitors, the fearsome and somber tengu.

Like so many of Japan’s mysterious spiritual creatures, the tengu have traveled a great distance and gone through many transformations before they roosted on Japanese peaks.  Translated roughly as, “heavenly dog,” tengu are both yokai (weird creatures) and kami (gods).  They began their existence as pests, goblins, who preyed on mountain travelers somewhere in China.  Later they spread their wings and crossed the ocean and through Buddhism many were transformed to a more benevolent state.

Tengu come in many shapes and sizes.  Sometimes they are small, and much more like birds of prey, and sometimes they are very human but larger.  You usually see them represented in the form of a mask with deep red skin, a distinct long nose with thick brows and mustache and piercing golden eyes.  With this appearance its not hard to see that tengu have earned their reputation as fearsome, but like all Japanese spirits it is not that cut and dry. Tengu have become enlightened by converting to Buddism in Japan, becoming monks and practicing a form of discipline and aesthetic called “shugendo.”  It is this living off the mountain, honing one’s mind and body through stark and often difficult meditations in the wilds, that the yamabushi supposedly learned from them.

Tengu teach this art, along with other forms of martial arts and the disciplines of the sword and combat to special individuals.  Japan’s legendary warrior prince, Yoshitsune learned from the king tengu before going off to help unite Japan with his elder brother.  Later, when jealousy drove them apart, Yoshitsune fled back to such mountains and was either killed by his brother’s forces or spirited away to never be heard from again. Perhaps he still waits there with the tengu today.  

My first encounter with a tengu was on a trip down from Lake Chuzenji in Nikko six years ago when we passed a statue of one.  It was the briefest glimpse of this human figure standing with a staff and overlooking the valley below.  When I pointed it out, the cab driver remarked, “Hai, tengu.”  He did not stop driving, and perhaps for good reason. Tengu are jealous guardians of the secrets they keep, and though they can be friendly, theirs is a fearsome reputation to those who cross their ire.

I had a few other encounters with Tengu in my journeys to come, in the forms of statues or their iconic masks, but usually in temples where their fury is contained by the spiritual presence surrounding them, or in shops where they seem to loom like a disapproving father overlooking everything else.  Like the enigmatic kitsune, something about them that drew me like a metal to magnet, and I can circuit the orbit of one ten times and see something new. 

Unlike the kitsune, the tengu’s reasons to exist are easier to discern and digest into human understanding.  They naturally dress as we do without pretending to be us, nor do they have any desire to be human like other yokai.  The tengu can, without hesitation, break a human like a twig, or use a great feathered fan to blow us away with the power of a hurricane.   But they don’t.  They remain where they are, watching, studying, content on their mountains, and why?  Because they have nothing to fear from us.  They are Japan’s mysterious wild mountain bird men, and they rule those lofty roosts.