Datsueba the Clothes Snatcher: The Evolution of a Japanese Folk Deity from Hell Figure to Popular Savior (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9789004514416)

The first comprehensive study in English of the Japanese hell figure Datsueba explores her evolution since her eleventh-century emergence as a terrifying old woman who strips the clothes of the dead in the afterworld.
Drawing widely on literature, art, and worship practices, the author reveals how the creative utilization of Datsueba's key attributes--including a marker of borders, a keeper of cloth, and an elderly woman--transformed her into a guardian of the human journey through life and death and shaped a figure that is diverse and multifaceted, yet also strikingly recognizable across the centuries.

Author: Chihiro Saka
ISBN-10: 9004514414
ISBN-13: 9789004514416
Publisher: Brill
Language: English
Published: 07/21/2022
Pages: 284
Format: Hardcover