Yokai Yashiki at Ōboke

What is there

The roadside station at Ōboke sits above the gorge where the Yoshino river cuts through the mountains of western Tokushima. Upstairs is the Yokai Yashiki, the yokai house: some seventy figures of the creatures of the surrounding valleys, made by local people from the tales their families told, each with its story on a card. The stone museum next door explains the gorge. The district of Yamashiro, whose hamlets lie up the side valleys, was named a yokai heritage site in 2008, and the hall is its showroom. The konaki-jiji statue is a short drive up the Fujikawa valley.

Why here

The valleys around the gorge have one of the densest yokai records in the country, set down in the 1930s from the people who walked the mountain roads at night: the crying old man, the mountain women, the things that follow and the things that call. The figures in the hall are those records given bodies by the descendants of the tellers, and the cards keep the tales as the valley tells them.

Yokai you will meet

• Konaki-jiji 児啼爺 — The crying old man of the 1938 record, among the valley's figures; his statue is up the Fujikawa valley.
• Yamauba 山姥 — The mountain women of the Yamashiro tales, in local figures.
• Tengu 天狗 — The tengu of the gorge's mountains, as the valley people made them.

Getting there

Ōboke Station (JR Dosan Line). About 20 minutes on foot.

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