Yotsuya Kaidan: Before going on stage, actors must first visit the shrine to pay respects to Oiwa

Among Japan's most famous ghosts, there is one named Oiwa. She is the female protagonist of the kabuki play *Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan*, which premiered in 1825 at a theater in Edo. The author was Tsuruya Nanboku, who was already seventy years old at the time.

The story goes roughly like this: Oiwa married a ronin named Iemon, and the two lived in poverty. Later, a wealthy family took a liking to Iemon and wanted to marry their granddaughter to him. Iemon was tempted and decided to abandon Oiwa. That family sent over a package of 'postpartum tonic,' which was actually poison. After Oiwa took it, her face slowly rotted, one eyelid swelled up, and when she combed her hair, it fell out in clumps. By the time she learned the truth, it was too late; she died in agony, became a ghost, and haunted Iemon relentlessly until both he and that family were ruined.

The play was very popular and is still performed today. What is more special is that there is a set of rules for those who perform or film this play: before the performance or filming begins, they must first visit a small shrine in Shinjuku, Tokyo, called Tamiya Shrine, also known as Oiwa Inari, to pay respects to Oiwa. According to legend, theater troupes that do not pay their respects will always have accidents on set—lighting rigs fall, actors get injured, and so on. Different people tell different stories about which year and which play, and the accounts do not match.

According to the shrine, Oiwa was a real person—a virtuous wife of the Tamiya family. Because the family continued to encounter misfortune afterward, the family members felt her spirit was restless, so they established the shrine. Later, when Tsuruya Nanboku wrote the play, he borrowed this legend.

The shrine is located in a small alley in a residential area and is not large. Every year, people from the theater world come to pay their respects, and the shrine accepts them without saying much more.

#Ghosts #网络转载 #日本怪谈