Ki-no-Kami (夔の神 Kinokami) is an animal-like kami.
Appearance[]
Ki-no-Kami is a creature with purple skin, a cat-like head with no ears, oval-shaped eyes with yellow sclera, a mouth with fangs, brown hair covering their neck, and a single, human-like foot.
History[]
Video Games[]
- Ki-no-Kami appears in GeGeGe no Kitarō: Yōkai Yokochō as a D-Rank yōkai.
Legend[]
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Illustration of Ki-no-Kami
Illustration of Kui
Ki-no-Kami is a kami only enshrined in Yamanashi Oka-jinja Shrine, Shizume, Kasugai, Fuefuki City, Yamanashi Prefecture. He is only worshipped to the public once every seven years (back then every ten years) on April 4, and is believe to ward off thunder and evil spirits.
The first recorded documentation of Ki-no-Kami comes from Ogyū Sorai's Kōchū Kikō (峡中紀行, Travels Through the Gorge). In 1705, when Sorai's master, samurai Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu became daimyō of Kōfu Domain, he visited Kai Province in 1706 at the behest of him, and wrote this travelogue of the journey. While there, Sorai identified the statue of the then unnamed kami as the Kui, a tree and stone spirit from Chinese myth and folklore, and a counterpart to the Chimi and Mōryō. In the Chinese Book Shānhǎi Jīng (山海经, Classic of Mountains and Seas), Kui is described to live in Mt. Liú bō (流波山, Liú bō shān), a mountain extending 7,000 li into the sea. It resembles a blue, hornless, one-legged ox, and whenever it goes into and out of water, wind and rain appears. The legendary Yellow Emperor killed the Kui and used its skin, as well as sticks made from a thunder god to make a drum that could be heard over 500 li far.
According to Nakamura Izuminokami's (中村和泉守) essay Chinmemura Yamanashiokajinja Kinokami Raiyuki (鎮目村山梨岡神社夔神来由記), many tales related to the Ki-no-Kami emerged during the late Edo Period, the time when yōkai started to become popular. A legend was made that during the Tensho Era, Oda Nobunga's visited Yamanashi Oka-jinja Shrine, and caused the kami to spread an epidemic. Talismans of Ki-no-Kami were also presented to the Ōoku of Edo.
While Sorai's hypothesis of the Ki-no-Kami being a kami based on the Kui is the most widely-accepted origin of it, there are also a number of different explanations for its origins. One explanation posits that the Ki-no-Kami might be connected to local, one-legged Yamagami and Dōsojin. In another explanation from Kyoko Yamanaka's (山中共古) essay, Kai no Rakuyō (甲斐の落葉, Fallen Leaves of Kai), it simply states that the statue of Ki-no-Kami is a damaged Komainu statue. In yet explanation, it posits that the Ki-no-Kami might be connected to the Shinto kami Kuebiko. In the final explanation, Shigeru Mizuki connects the Ki-no-Kami to Ippon-Datara, Inosasaō, and Yama-Jijii, in the fact that they're all mountain spirits.