Also read Yamanba. Oni-onna 鬼女 (demonic woman) or yama-onna 山女 (mountain woman) are used occasionally.
1 A painting subject during the Edo period, depicting a legendary mountain woman often accompanied by her child of herculean strength *Kintarō 金太郎 (also called Kaidōmaru 怪童丸). In folk legend, Yamauba is known as a demonic character with supernatural powers who lives deep in the mountains with monkeys and deer, raising her young son Kintarō. A similar character appears in the Noh drama of the same name Yamauba 山姥. In the *Noh 能 play, the courtesan Hyakuma Yamauba 百魔山姥, traveling in the mountains of Echigo 越後 and Etchū 越中 (present day Niigata and Toyama Prefectures), stops at the house of a local peasant woman. At midnight, she is seen dancing in her real form as a demonic woman. Chikamatsu Monzaemon 近松門左衛門 (1653-1724) wrote the jōruri 浄瑠璃 play, Komochi yamauba 嫗山姥 (1712), combining aspects of the Noh and legends about the remarkably strong boy. In this play Sakata no Tokiyuki 坂田時行 is forced to commit suicide, and his blood, which has the power to inspire the desire for vengeance, is presented to his wife, Yaegiri 八重桐. She goes into the mountains, becoming Yamauba, and there raises her son Kaidōmaru, the living memorial of her husband. Kaidōmaru, after coming to the attention of Minamoto no Yorimitsu 源頼光 (? -1021), a famous warrior, grows up to become a courageous warrior himself, Sakata no Kintoki 坂田公時, and avenge his father.
The subject also appeared in illustrated books about ghosts, such as Hyakki yagyō 百鬼夜行 (1776) in which the figure of a horrible old lady holds the boy Kintarō.
Yamauba is usually represented with long hair hanging down in disheveled tresses, and dressed in tattered, flimsy clothing. A famous example is the votive tablet *ema 絵馬 done by Nagasawa Rosetsu 長沢蘆雪 (1754-1799) at Itsukushima Jinja 厳島神社 in Hiroshima Prefecture. Many artists of *ukiyo-e 浮世絵 depicted Yamauba, not only as a character in an illustration of dramatic performance shibai-e 芝居絵, but often as a modern-day beauty, humoring her son. In particular, Kitagawa Utamaro 喜多川歌麿 (1754-1806) portrayed many Yamauba in the guise of beautiful women bijin 美人.
２ A Noh mask *nōmen 能面 used in the play Yamauba and representing an old woman, half demon, who roams the mountains. The enigmatic personality of Yamauba is apparent in the wide variety of masks used to represent the role. The gaunt features, wrinkled brow, and pale coloring of the Hōshō 宝生 school mask, attributed to the 15th-century carver Tatsuemon 龍右衛門 (see *jissaku 十作), presents a realistic portrayal of an old woman wise to suffering and very human. The ruddy, weather-beaten yamauba mask in the Mitsui 三井 Memorial Museum and attributed to the 15th-century carver Tokuwaka 徳若 has a balance of power, wisdom and sensitivity in its strong, muscular cheeks, flashing eyes and fleshy lips. The Kanze 観世 school mask is a more elfin version of the Mitsui mask, with lighter coloring, more delicate features, but the same open energy and slightly bared teeth. The Kongō 金剛 school owns a mask attributed to the 15th-century carver Shakuzuru 赤鶴 that appears demonic with bright vermilion flesh, and close-knit eyebrows hovering over protruding round eyes, yet has abstractly rendered wrinkles lining the cheeks and forehead to suggest old age. Finally the Umewaka 梅若 branch of the Kanze school owns a yamauba that emphasizes the demonic aspects of the role, being modeled on the serpent mask *ja 蛇, with a gaping, leering mouth dominating the lower half, a pointed nose, and large ears. Despite these wide variances, all the yamauba masks share having small, round metallic irises indicating demonic nature, and all but the Umewaka mask share the representation of hair and eyebrows with alternating lines of white and black, typifying an old woman.