Crocodile Archives - MarkedHistory

Tradition / Region: Japanese mythology
Alternate Names: Mountain crocodile
Category: Mountain dweller, yōkai, Crocodile

The Myth

In the old illustrated scroll known as the Tosa Obake Zōshi, there appears a strange creature called the Yamawani—the Mountain Crocodile.

It is shown with a grotesquely large mouth, wide and thick-lipped, dominating its face. Its body is less clearly described than its jaws, for it is the mouth that defines it: heavy, fleshy, and capable of swallowing great things in a single gulp.

In the scroll, the Yamawani is said to speak of its kin. “My cousin lives in the sea,” it boasts, referring to the crocodile or shark of the waters. “He too is thick-mouthed and can lick up anything in one bite.” The creature claims a kind of family pride in its devouring nature. Even the crocodile carved or imagined at temples—known for their gaping jaws—is said to share this thick-mouthed likeness.

The Yamawani’s voice is described as making a peculiar sound—“tickle, tickle”—as though it mutters or chuckles through its massive jaws. Whether this is a threat, a laugh, or simply the grinding of its teeth is unclear.

It is not told that it hunts men, nor that it brings disaster like other mountain spirits. Instead, it lingers in the strange borderland between beast and caricature, a mountain echo of the sea’s crocodile, defined by its monstrous mouth and its unsettling presence in the wilderness.

Thus the Yamawani remains in the scrolls: a thick-mouthed being of the mountains, grinning in silence, its jaws large enough to swallow anything in a single bite.

Gallery

Sources

TYZ-Yokai Blog contributors. (n.d.). 転倒お化け (Yamawani). In TYZ-Yokai Blog, from https://tyz-yokai.blog.jp/archives/1010653500.html

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How to Invite The Yamawani

The Myth

Emobali was once a Djibu boy. One day, while hunting, he shot a woman without knowing who she was. When he discovered that he had killed his own mother, grief and terror seized him. Unable to live with what he had done, Emobali went to the Binatui River at Mude and threw himself into the water.

At the place where he entered the river, a deep hollow was formed close to the bank. This deep spot is said to exist because of Emobali’s leap, and it remains as a sign of his death.

Afterward, Emobali became a spirit of the river. In the water, he appears in the form of a crocodile or a fish, moving silently beneath the surface. Yet Emobali does not only haunt the river. He also comes to people in dreams. When Djibu people sleep naked, Emobali may appear to them and instruct them, teaching medicines and giving knowledge useful for hunting and gardening.

In these dreams, he does not appear as an animal, but in his human form, as the boy he once was.

Thus Emobali lives on as a crocodile–fish spirit of the river, born from an act of tragic ignorance, dwelling in water and dreams alike, feared and respected as both a reminder of guilt and a giver of hidden knowledge.