Tradition / Region: Japanese Mythology (Gunma–Nagano, Usui Pass)
Alternate Names: Shumoku Musume
Category: Yōkai / Mountain Dweller / Shark
The Myth
Moku Musume, also known as Shumoku Musume, is a yōkai known from monster paintings and traditional karuta cards. Her appearance is immediately recognizable and unlike that of any ordinary being. Her head is shaped like a shumoku, a T-shaped Buddhist mallet used to strike bells in temples. On each end of this T-shaped head are eyes, giving her vision to both sides, and her face resembles that of a hammerhead shark.
She is depicted as a female figure whose body is otherwise human, with the strange hammer-shaped head defining her supernatural nature. Because of this form, she is sometimes associated visually with Buddhist ritual objects, though her exact behavior is not described in surviving sources.
One karuta card explicitly names her as the “Shumoku Musume of Usui Pass,” suggesting that she was believed to appear at Usui Pass, the mountainous route connecting present-day Gunma and Nagano Prefectures. Travelers passing through the pass would have regarded the area as dangerous and uncanny, and the presence of Moku Musume was tied to this liminal mountain road.
Beyond her appearance and place-name association, little is recorded of her actions. She endures primarily as a visual yōkai, preserved through paintings and cards, her strange hammer-shaped head marking her as a being that belongs neither fully to the human world nor to the ordinary realm of spirits.
Interpretive Lenses
Religious Readings
- Christian Ascetic Deep Dive
Philosophical Readings
- Nietzschean Deep Dive
Psychological Readings
- Jungian Deep Dive
Esoteric Deep Dive
- Hermetic Deep Dive
Political / Social Readings
- Marxist Deep Dive
Other
- How to Invite The Spirit