The Encyclopedia Of Demons And Demonology

kitsune 141
folktales and in the literature about possession. It originated
in the lore of China, where it is described as a lewd
creature, the huli jing.
Possession
Possession by the fox demon is called kitsune-tsuki. Cases
have been recorded in Japan since the 12th century. Some
are believed to be revenge for a family’s former offenses
against a huli jing.
Most possession victims are female. The fox spirit
enters the body either through the breast or under the
fingernails. It resides on the left side of the body or in
the stomach. The victim hears the fox spirit speak inside
her head; when she talks out loud, the fox spirit takes
on a different voice. The victim exhibits cravings for
certain food, especially beans or rice demanded by the
demon, sometimes as a condition of its departure. The
victim also suffers insomnia, restlessness, and aberrant
behavior.
The following case concerned a teenaged girl described
as “nervous from birth,” who was recovering
from typhus. Her weakened condition, plus strong belief
in the kitsune, seemed to make her highly suggestible or
vulnerable to possession:
A girl of seventeen years, irritable and capricious from
childhood, was recovering from a very bad attack of
typhus. Around her bed sat, or rather squatted in Japanese
fashion, female relations chattering and smoking.
Everyone was telling how in the dusk there had been
seen near the house a form resembling a northern fox. It
was suspicious. Hearing this, the sick girl felt a trembling
in the body and was possessed. The fox had entered into
her and spoke by her mouth several times a day. Soon he
assumed a domineering tone, rebuking and tyrannizing
over the poor girl.
After several weeks of this behavior, the family consulted
an exorcist from the Nuhiren sect, specialists in
dealing with kitsune-tsuki. The exorcist commenced a
“solemn exorcism.” The fox resisted all efforts until food
was provided:
Neither excommunication nor censing nor any other
endeavor succeeded, the fox saying ironically that he
was too clever to be taken in by such maneuvers. Nevertheless,
he consented to come out freely from the
starved body of the sick person if a plentiful feast was
offered to him. . . . On a certain day at four o’clock
there were to be placed in a temple sacred to foxes
and situated twelve kilometers away two vessels of rice
prepared in a particular way, of cheese cooked with
beans, together with a great quantity of roast mice and
raw vegetables, all favorite dishes of magic foxes: then
he would leave the body of the girl exactly at the prescribed
time. And so it happened. Punctually at four
o’clock when the food was placed in the distant temple
the girl sighed profoundly and cried: “He has gone!”
The possession was cured.
Not all cases of kitsune-tsuki are resolved. An account
from the early 20th century tells of a 47-year-old Japanese
woman who became permanently possessed. She was a
peasant, sad-looking (and thus perhaps suffering from
depression), not intelligent, but in good physical health.
She sought out help in a university clinic in Tokyo. She
related that one day eight years earlier, she had been with
friends when one of them said that a fox had been driven
out of a woman from a nearby village and was seeking a
new home. This made quite an impression on her. The
same evening, the door was opened unexpectedly at her
home, and she felt a prick in the left side of her chest—the
traditional entry point for a fox demon. She knew it was
the fox, and immediately she became possessed:
In the beginning the sinister guest contented himself
with occasional stirrings in her bosom, and mounting
into her head, criticized by her mouth her own thoughts
and made mock of them. Little by little he grew bolder,
mingled in all conversations, and abused those present.
The woman went to a succession of exorcists, including
the hoiny, mendicant monks from the mountains who
specialized in exorcism. None could help her.
The clinicians witnessed the appearance of the fox,
who first showed with twitching of her mouth and arm on
her left side where the demon had entered. These became
more violent, and she repeatedly struck her left side with
her fist. The fox spoke and called her a “stupid goose”
and said he could not be stopped. There followed a fit in
which the woman and the fox argued. It lasted about 10
minutes. The speech of the fox deteriorated, and then the
spirit left her. The woman said that these fits occurred six
to 10 times a day and even awakened her at night.
The clinicians put her in a glass room for round-theclock
observation. The pattern was consistent. Any emotional
excitation brought on a fit.
The fox spoke far more intelligently than the woman
and even taunted the clinicians:
“Look here, Professor. You might do something more
intelligent than trying to entice me by your questions.
Don’t you know that I am really a gay young girl,
although I live in this old frump? You should rather pay
court to me properly.”
The kitsune said he would depart with the proper offering
of food but never did so. Efforts to cast him out
with chloroform, verbal orders, and “other suggestion”
(perhaps hypnotism) also failed. The woman was released
without a cure, having been diagnosed as suffering from a
chronic condition of “periodic delusion.”
Shape Shifting
To accomplish its shape shifting to human form, the kitsune
flicks its fire-shooting tail once, puts on a human
skull, turns around, and bows to the Big Dipper constellation.
If the skull remains in place and does not fall, the
transformation is successful.