Tsuchigumo is a historical Japanese derogatory term for renegade local clans, and also the name for a race of spider-like yōkai in Japanese folklore. The name Tsuchigumo is believed to be derived from tuchigomori (土隠); tuchi (土) means “earth” and gomori (隠) means “hiding”. The word is thought to have referred to a local clan of powerful people who did not obey the imperial court and lived in caves. As a local clan, the Tsuchigumo were described as short in stature but long in limbs, with the temperament of a wolf and the heart of an owl, and living an uncivilized life. The giant spider-like figure of the tsuchigumo as a oni-like yōkai first appeared in medieval literary works. The most representative work among these tales is The Tale of the Heike, compiled in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) in the first half of the 13th century, in which it appears under the name yamagumo (山蜘蛛, “mountain spider”). As the tsuchigumo passed through the ages, it became a more bizarre-looking yōkai. In the 14th-century emakimono Tsuchigumo Sōshi, the tsuchigumo is depicted as a giant yōkai 60 meters long, and when it was exterminated, 1990 heads of the dead came out of its belly. Minamoto no Yorimitsu and Watanabe no Tsuna, who participated in the extermination of the tsuchigumo in these stories, are legendary heroes in Japan; they also appear in the legend of the powerful oni Shuten-dōji. The tsuchigumo as a yōkai also appeared as the subject of Noh, Jōruri and Kabuki plays.
Description Tsuchigumo is a historical Japanese derogatory term for renegade local clans, and also the name for a race of spider-like yōkai in Japanese folklore. The name Tsuchigumo is believed to be derived from tuchigomori (土隠); tuchi (土) means “earth” and gomori (隠) means “hiding”. The word is thought to have referred to a local clan of powerful people who did not obey the imperial court and lived in caves. As a local clan, the Tsuchigumo were described as short in stature but long in limbs, with the temperament of a wolf and the heart of an owl, and living an uncivilized life. The giant spider-like figure of the tsuchigumo as a oni-like yōkai first appeared in medieval literary works. The most representative work among these tales is The Tale of the Heike, compiled in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) in the first half of the 13th century, in which it appears under the name yamagumo (山蜘蛛, “mountain spider”). As the tsuchigumo passed through the ages, it became a more bizarre-looking yōkai. In the 14th-century emakimono Tsuchigumo Sōshi, the tsuchigumo is depicted as a giant yōkai 60 meters long, and when it was exterminated, 1990 heads of the dead came out of its belly. Minamoto no Yorimitsu and Watanabe no Tsuna, who participated in the extermination of the tsuchigumo in these stories, are legendary heroes in Japan; they also appear in the legend of the powerful oni Shuten-dōji. The tsuchigumo as a yōkai also appeared as the subject of Noh, Jōruri and Kabuki plays.
