The Tengu of Aokigahara

The Tengu of Aokigahara
by Josh Linvers, December 11th 2024

As you may have heard, there is a particular forest in Japan that is, for many visitors, the final destination of their lives. Aokigahara, the ‘sea of trees’ lies at the Northwestern base of Mount Fuji in the Yamanashi prefecture. It has had the reputation of being a suicide spot for centuries. We can trace the origin of this reputation to the story of the tengu Shinjoubou 心浄坊 and his encounter with a young boy named Kiyoshi 清志.

Kiyoshi, the main character of this story, was the youngest sibling of 4 brothers, and since his birth, despite his beautiful name meaning “pure will” or “clean aspirations” he seemed to bring misfortune to everything he touched.

Kiyoshi and his family lived in the castle town of Kofu, in northern Shizuoka. During one hot summer night when Kiyoshi was about 12 years old, he was taken out by his brothers to hunt for fireflies at the Fuefuki river, about a 40 minute walk from home.

“Hey guys! Look at this!” Kiyoshi happened upon an old, but very well-made padded coat draped over a mound of rocks, when the brothers were checking the pockets they found a cloth containing a 5 gold oban (equivalent of several hundred thousand dollars).

“Whoever left this here would be sure to regret it!” Kiyoshi’s oldest brother exclaimed as he snapped up the coat to try it on. It was a bit big for him, but it would probably still fit his dad they figured. With these golden oban, they were rich — the family could eat rice and fish everyday for decades to come, the brothers took turns fantasizing about how they would spend the money. As they sat around a little makeshift fire, the eldest brother told his siblings stories of the mighty tengu of aokigahara Shinjoubou, a yokai that mastered immortality.

“Tengu consider human beings inferior, and only in the rarest circumstances do humans make an impression worthy of a tengu’s attention. Over Japan’s long history, it is said that many travellers have sought out this Tengu’s ‘knowledge of immortality’, and as its voice guides the seekers through a maze-like forest, the impure are turned around in circles until they starved to death.”

Kiyoshi was glued to his brothers stories, but he was getting sleepy. The 4 marched home from the river under the full moonlight with fireflies in tow, praising their unlucky brother for turning around his fortune.

When they returned home, everyone was asleep. The boys prepared for bed but Kiyoshi wanted to surprise their father with the news. He crept into their parents room and draped the coat over his sleeping father, putting the gold oban on the pillow next to his head. He closed the shoji and proudly went to sleep. It was a wonderful day.

“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!?”

The morning was erratic, and nowhere near as positive as Kiyoshi had hoped. The father was in an uproar demanded the children return the stolen goods. “We are not thieves in this house! We are not murderers! We are not liars or slanderers!” We are good people who live in an honest way! How have I raised you!?” the father shouted. “They’re not stolen father! We found them!” claimed the brothers. “Bullshit! People do not leave 5 oban carelessly laying around! Idiots!!” and after a lengthy back and forth between the brothers and their father, it was decided they will hold on to the oban for safe keeping. They will not spend any of it while the father is alive, and IF they should learn who had misplaced their belongings, they would come forth righteously and return it to them. It wasn’t what the boys had hoped for, but they respected their father’s wishes. The golden oban were hidden away in the ceiling rafters. After cooling down a little bit, Kiyoshi’s father sat down with his sons and explained: “There will be times you boys are tested in life, and if you fail, life becomes harder; but if you walk on the right path, even though it often seems uphill, or less exciting, you won’t regret a day of it. Remember that my sons.”

The following days were uneventful. The boys pleaded with the gods that no one in town would address the money, and no one did.

Kiyoshi’s father, who was typically a very stout and healthy man, seemed to have caught a nasty summer cold. Shortly after, it embraced his mother, then the house helpers, and eventually his brothers. It seemed this cold had spread to everyone but Kiyoshi. Rashes appeared on their father’s face, which turned to blisters, then hard balloons of pus that would break open and spew out a nasty yellow liquid. All very painful, with no signs of stopping. The towns healers were able to diagnose smallpox, but the cause and spread of the illness wasn’t well understood. Salves and moxibustion were tried as cures, to no effect.

Where could it have come from? Though the doctors probed the family, nothing insightful left their mouths, it was a family secret. Everyone believed in their hearts they were being punished for stealing. Kiyoshi’s father pleaded, in what were the final words to his youngest son, “please son, for the sake of our spirits, make amends to the gods; promise me to return the cursed gold to where you found it.” Kiyoshi swore to it, as his fathers eyes deadened.

“It isn’t fair, Kiyoshi’s the one who took it! He cursed us!” Kiyoshi covered his ears, crying. Their accusations didn’t last long, the words turned to moans, the moans turned to silence, and silence to the droning of flies.

Kiyoshi ate what food remained in the house, though much of it spoiled before he could get to it. When it became necessary, he climbed into the rafters, took out the families savings and the cloth of gold oban and left to purchase food, only to find that just outside his gate, guards were posted to quarantine him. The stigma of his families sudden demise alienated him. Ironically, Kiyoshi had in his sleeve the most money he had ever carried, but couldn’t spend a coin of it.

“Official instructions on what to do with you are being decided, remain in your home until we tell you otherwise.”

The smell of his family rotting in the summer heat put him in a state of constant nausea.

Under the shroud of night, Kiyoshi slipped out the side door and escaped his captivity through a loose board in the fence. His sense of direction was poor, but he walked all night looking for the river to return the gold. When his little legs couldn’t carry him further, he plucked a thicket of susuki and slept under it like a fox. At sunrise he walked again, exhausted, starving, but he regained hope as he heard the flow of water. It was a river, but was it THE river? He couldn’t be sure, but he walked the banks looking for piles of rocks. Unfortunately there were piles of rocks everywhere. He sat down and cried.

A fisherman saw him in the distance, approached him and asked who he was, why he was at the river alone, and where he might be from? Kiyoshi wasn’t ready to reveal anything, and instead begged for food. The fisherman sympathized and shared his catch. The fisherman mentioned the hard times that hit his village, a mysterious disease that quickly killed many families. He wasn’t sure why he had been spared, but expressed that luck was on his side. Kiyoshi’s expression sunk deeper, he was easy to read. The fisherman suspected something like that happened to him too, and didn’t need to pry further.

Kiyoshi asked if they were at the Fuefuki river, but unfortunately for him they were not. “This is the Ashi river” the fisherman replied. “Fuefuki is much further north.”

Anxious and fearful that he may not be able to keep the promise to his father, he began to cry. “I have an important promise to keep, but I don’t know if I have time to do it” Kiyoshi started. “If only I had more time… my brother told me there is a tengu in the forest that can live forever… maybe if I meet him and learn how, maybe then I can accomplish my mission.”

He asked the fisherman if he knew about Aokigahara and the Tengu of immortality. “Ah kids” thought the fisherman. “Well boy, I don’t know if its true, but Aokigahara isn’t much further south from here and I live in that direction, I’d be glad to show you the way, would you like to join me?”

The two journeyed for an hour or so and passed through the fishermans hamlet. There was no one to be seen, it’s as if it had been quickly deserted. “These houses are all cursed” he said, “something inside makes your skin boil.”

Kiyoshi kept quiet, he was clearly tired from all the walking. The fisherman offered a place to sleep, Kiyoshi graciously accepted. He woke to the fragrance of grilled fish and miso soup. As they sat down to eat, the fisherman spoke:

“Boy I don’t know what you’re going through, but a forest like Aokigahara is no place for children to walk alone. You’re looking for Fuefuki river but ended up at the Ashi — you don’t seem to know up from down, I’m worried I’m going to regret it if I let you go in there.”

Kiyoshi became defensive. “Please don’t stop me, I made a promise that I have to keep.”

“Don’t worry boy, I have no intention of stopping you, but you might do well to spend a few days here before you go. Rest your legs. Eat. Regain some of your energy.” The man seemed genuine in his concern for Kiyoshi, and this kindness put him at ease. Days later, as the man was drying himself from an afternoon bath, Kiyoshi spotted a terrifying mark on the man’s upper back.

Kiyoshi’s heart was pounding, does he know? Did I do that? Am I really cursed? Is he going to die? No! It isn’t fair! He didn’t do anything! By the time the man had his house coat on, Kiyoshi had disappeared. He ran as fast as he could into the forest.

The sun was setting and it was too dark to find a proper place to sleep. He sat on a nest of exposed roots, hugged his legs and rested his head on his forearms. The forest was eerily silent. The only sounds made in the forest were of Kiyoshi’s doing, he focused on his breathing. Then it spoke to him.

“Ko…..chiiii” the wind whispered to Kiyoshi as it wove through the trees. Kiyoshi’s senses piqued up and he concentrated on the sound, but he did not move or respond. It became louder, clearer “Kooo….Chiiiiiiiiii…Koooooooiiiiiiiiiii”

Kiyoshi lifted his head and spoke into the darkness: “Shinhoubou?” For minutes there was no response. “KOOOOOO CHIIII KOOOOIIIIIIII” the wind howled, a branch snapped from a tree and thundered to the ground. The sounds of foxes gekkering in the distance made him anxious. Kiyoshi stood up, he was scared, but understood that something extraordinary was happening. He carefully proceeded through the black shroud, following the cacophony of foxes. One misplaced step caught his foot on a root and Kiyoshi tumbled down the hillside, slamming into a tree, he was knocked unconscious.

He coughed himself awake into a thick fog, his face stuck with yellowed pine needles, sap and grime. His belongings were scattered about as if they’ve been picked through by his brothers. He couldn’t move his left arm without significant pain, but before assessing his bodies condition, he steadied himself onto his feet and began to frantically search for the cloth of oban. Kiyoshi panicked, it was gone, completely and utterly gone; he started to hyperventilate. The quiet forest apathetically drank in his breath.

His arm was probably broken, he was dizzy, disoriented. He dragged himself through the fog without any sense of direction, head throbbing, and eventually came to a spring. He washed himself clean from everything but the incredible guilt. He sat on a fallen tree to rest and stared at the ground

It really hurts… I dont want to die, I dont want to die… father I’m sorry… maybe I cant keep my promise… I’m cursed… I’m tired…

The wind picked up again in the quiet forest, cutting a channel into the fog

“koiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii” the wind whispered. Followed by the cackling of foxes.

Bewitched, Kiyoshi answered the call with hopeless, sunken eyes. He shuffled forward.. Along the path stood a tanuki, it shot Kiyoshi a disapproving stare as it bit into the head of a snake. Kiyoshi didn’t pay it any mind and continued on. He arrived at the base of a magnificent cedar tree and sat to rest. A large and menacing figure approached him from his peripheral vision, it didn’t make a sound as it strode above the fallen trees and leaves.

“Shin…jou…bou…” Kiyoshi mustered

The tengu glared at him

“I want to live forever…”

The tengu remained still for a while as it stared into Kiyoshi curiously. It untied a gourd from its obi and tossed it to Kiyoshi.

What he drank from the vessel… he could not fathom, it was red, thick, rich — like blood, but nourishing, comparable to life itself. He felt a surge of energy coarse through his body, euphoria. His pain completely disappeared.

The tengu sat, cross legged with its hands on its knees and watched the event unfold, expressionless.

Kiyoshi stood, amazed. Looking at Shinjoubou, his saviour. He excitedly approached the tengu to ask a question but was surprised when no voice would leave his throat.

Something was wrong, his chest was getting warm. His heart started to pound, he stepped back and balanced himself against the great tree. He felt the need to vomit, so he did. It didn’t stop. The pain was incredible, the red vomit painting the ground around him. Tears started to blur his eyes, and into his hands he puked a pile of his own teeth. His joints gave out and he collapsed to the forest floor. His eyes followed, ejected from his body like a disease. Whether it came from his mouth, nose, or ass. His body was emptied of its contents, and he layed crippled in a pile of himself, unable to see, hear, or breathe, though somehow still conscious.

It wasn’t long before the songs of birds graced the air, and the fog dissipated revealing a lush and tranquil forest. Kiyoshi stood to his feet, looking down into the pile of his human waste, somehow apathetic to it all. He looked at his right hand, his skin stained red with the blood of his rebirth, and then to the tengu. Again Kiyoshi tried to speak, but again there were no words.

“It will take you a very long time to learn to speak like you used to”

Kiyoshi tried again.

The wind picked up, bouncing off the trees and rocks.

“You will never die, sleep, or need to eat again. You have ascended.”

The leaves fluttered down from the sky, dancing in the breeze.

“Yes, follow me”

Shinjoubou led Kiyoshi to a fox hollow at the base of a boulder.

“There” Shinjoubou pointed.

Kiyoshi smiled, and crawled into the hollow. While there wasn’t much room to maneuver inside, the downward slope and momentum that Kiyoshi could muster through pulling at tree roots allowed him to pass through the space. Progress wasn’t fast, but as he inched his way through the earth, the tunnel tapered down to a size that he could not enter. Kiyoshi contorted his shoulders to reach through the darkness and felt his cloth of lost oban. Kiyoshi exhaled a sigh of relief.

The tengu sat in the gentle summer breeze, listening for an hour.

“The first thing you’ll learn about immortality is the value of freedom” Shinjoubou laughed, as it rose to its feet “convince 20,000 trespassers to kill themselves in this forest, and I’ll set you free. That is the fee for my help, Kiyoshi 鬼夜死 (Demon Night Death) ”

Kiyoshi flailed around in frustration for days, the wind carrying his menacing howl; and though he resisted for a while, after weeks of being unable to move, even to reposition his head, he accepted his situation. Kiyoshi’s humanity eroded with the passage of time. He has become fluent and poetic in his vision of death, and his voice is carried through the breeze encouraging suicidal thoughts to all visitors to Aokigahara.

Police stopped reporting Aokigahara suicide statistics around the year 2004, however the number of recorded deaths from the late 90s and early 2000s were from 30 to 100 per year. This puts Kiyoshi on track to complete his objective by the end of this century, though surely, the sweet young boy we knew is not who will emerge from the hole. Whether he remembers the promise to his father, or still places values in the worlds of mortals, we will never know.

Be careful what you wish for, and remind yourself that new circumstances, even good ones, always lead to new problems.

[Main themes or references that I wove into this story] – Tengu and their contempt for humanity, general Japanese pop culture references
– A dream I had that I named ‘The Heart of Horus’ in which I ate a mysterious red jewel, and my body destroyed itself before being reborn
– Seikaisuru Kado (anime) in the sense of human nature and desire
– a chinese proverb 塞翁失马，焉知非福 in that we cannot understand blessings or curses until we see them in hindsight.
– the philosophers stone as read in ‘The Book of Aquarius’
– how I think my daughter would react in the same situation (she’s 12 at the time of writing this)
– the wordplay of Kanji (Kiyoshi’s name) being phonetically the same, but almost polar opposite when certain kanji are chosen.