Hyakki Yagyō

Sometimes an orderly procession, other times a riot, it refers to a parade of thousands of supernatural creatures known as oni and yōkai that march through the streets of Japan at night.

[4] Over more than one thousand years of history, and its role as a popular theme in traditional storytelling and art, a great deal of folklore has developed around the concept, making it difficult if not impossible to isolate any canonical meanings.

[5] According to another account in the Shūgaishō (拾芥抄), a medieval Japanese encyclopedia, the only way to be kept safe from the night parade if it were to come by your house is to stay inside on the specific nights associated with the Chinese zodiac or to chant the magic spell: "KA-TA-SHI-HA-YA, E-KA-SE-NI-KU-RI-NI, TA-ME-RU-SA-KE, TE-E-HI, A-SHI-E-HI, WA-RE-SHI-KO-NI-KE-RI" (カタシハヤ, エカセニクリニ, タメルサケ, テエヒ, アシエヒ, ワレシコニケリ).

[2] One of the oldest and most famous examples is the 16th-century handscroll Hyakki Yagyō Zu (百鬼夜行図), erroneously attributed to Tosa Mitsunobu, located in the Shinju-an of Daitoku-ji, Kyoto.

[2] For other picture scrolls, the Hyakki Yagyō Emaki (百鬼夜行絵巻), contains the details of each member in the parade from the Muromachi period.