Ouni
The ouni (苧うに) is a yōkai depicted in the Gazu Hyakki Yagyō by Toriyama Sekien.
It is a yōkai with a face like that of a demon woman (kijo) torn from mouth to ear, and its entire body is covered in hair. There is no explanatory text from Sekien, so it is unclear what kind of yōkai this is. The "o" (苧) in "ouni" refers to the ramie plant or to bundles of string made from ramie, hemp, among others, so it is said that Sekien gave it the name "ouni" because it conjures up the image of a yōkai with head and body hair made of layers of this "o".
In the Hyakkai Zukan (1737, Sawaki Suushi), a yōkai emaki from the Edo period, it is given by the name "wauwau", and Edo period yōkai emaki would usually present it under that name. However, these presentations consisted of pictures, so it is not known what characteristics they had. In another instance, there is a drawing in the Hyakki Yagyō Emaki (Oda Gōchō, 1832) from after Sekien's era where it is depicted under the title of "uwan uwan", and it is thought that likewise the ouni is a yōkai that Sekien drew while referring to earlier emaki.
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