Boro-boro Ton - [Yokai|Tsukumogami]

BoroBoroton - 暮露々々団,  暮露暮露団 - [Yokai | Tsukumogami] - Aka: “Beat up Bedding”

• About this Yokai: A tattered & torn, patchworked kotatsu comforter which after decades of collecting dust, sprang to life & destroyed its framing. Its beat-up stuffing spilled out forming into limbs, out of the moth eaten holes rolled new empty eyes. It's thought to have once belonged to a Komusō monk who used it to meditate daily in an attempt to reach Nirvana. Perhaps it was the built up empty feelings brought about by their failure to reach this 'true emptiness' is what brought this futon to life. Now, these ragged covers rise and roam, seeking vengeance against its empty hearted owner who threw it away! The tattered futon is said to often venture out at night and to strangle dreamers in their sleep! Tangling and suffocating them with its torn up, shredded sheets!

• Origin: “Boro-boro-ton” is yet another Tsukumogami earliest named and illustrated by Toriyama Sekien in his Gazu Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro (1784) Toriyama’s description & illustration are as follows:

"A Monk of the Fuke sect of Zen Buddhism is called a "komuso" [Nothingness monk] They believe this nothingness means the emptiness of Nirvana, and are also known as "komoso" [straw mat monks] for their propensity to sit and meditate on straw mats wherever they go. Their title in the “Poetry Contest Among Professionals” scroll can also be read as Boro-boro.  Thus perhaps this creature is the boro [worn out] futon coverlet once worn by someone who has renounced all worldly things. So I dreamed" -  [Translation: Japandemonium 2017.][Boroboroton as it appears in Toriyama Sekiens - Gazu Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro (vol 2). [1784] - Image source: Smithsonian]

As mentioned, Komusō monks are vagrant Buddhist-Zen monks who have renounced all possessions and worldly things including their egos- which is why they travel with straw baskets over their heads called “Tengai” (天蓋). As they travel they perform sacred music with their shakuhachi flutes and chant sutras wherever they go in exchange for donations for their temples.

The yokai’s name “Boroboro” also has a double meaning. Firstly, it’s old slang for the ‘Boronji’, the older predecessors of the Komusō monks who lacked the social status of the Fuke sect of established Buddhism at the time. These boronji monks are often described as being unruly & scruffy; often sleeping on the ground & starting fights. (Put a pin in that, we’ll explore a bit further below.) “Boroboro” is also a homonym for a word meaning “old, tattered, patch-worked or beaten up” a description which both matches how those unruly monks supposedly acted and it also describes the state of the ‘beat up bedding’ in question. (Toriyama sure did love his puns!)

The poetry contest that Toriyama mentions is an example from an Edo Period genre of illustrated scrolls called an “Uta-awase-e” (歌合絵) depicting a poetry contest amongst professionals, everything from court nobles to fishermen to monks! Each has a picture of the professional in question with a written poem to go alongside it. One of these poems describes a “boroboro” monk sleeping outdoors in the grass under the stars. (The poem is highlighted in this video & further explained & elaborated on by @TairyuShakuhachi.) 

[A snippet of a scroll featuring a komuso playing a flute. Image source.] 

Although Sekien does not mention it outright it in Boroboroton’s write up, several other entries in Sekien’s Gazu Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro can be linked to those included in “Tsurezuregusa” (14th century, “Essays in Idleness”) One of the passages (Passage #115) is also about Boroboro monks and hypocrisy. - In the story: a ragged travelling monk shows up to a remote sect seeking a duel in revenge for his slain master, to which the local monk accepts. The two go by the river and wind up killing each other. The author then says, "...These men [Boroboro/Medicant monks] act as if they have abandoned the world, but have strong worldly attachments; they seem to be seeking the way of Buddha, but they make a business of quarreling...” - [Translation: Donald Keene, 1967]

Admittedly, it’s quite difficult to pinpoint exactly why in modern times it is said that Boroboroton is “vengeful and will venture out to strangle its previous owner in their sleep.” Where exactly that began is difficult to say. One could say the lore was added in more modern bestiaries such as Shigeru Mizuki’s yokai encyclopedias and other such books, taking creative liberties &/or adding embellishments to the folklore over time. Just how folklore tends to evolve, nothing wrong with that!

• The antique in question: 

The broken pieces of wood strewn about behind the yokai in Toriyama’s illustration are likely remnants of a kotatsu’s framing; which implies that Boroboroton is not just a futon comforter but a kotatsu cover! (Nearly the same thing as a futon really, but perhaps just a little bit more distinct!) During the Edo period kotatsu were much smaller than they are today and were only big enough for maybe one or two people. These tables would be placed over a charcoal hearth that was built into the floor.

However, the connection to Komusō monks and mention of straw tatami mats has led some contemporary scholars to theorize that the Boroboroton is actually meant to be a tatami mat. Komusō were known to carry tatami with them to sit and play their flutes on. So these scholars theorize that the yokai’s checkered cloth pattern could be from the different types of straw used to make it. While admittedly it makes some sense that a monk who’s given up all worldly things and spends his time traveling, would be more likely to own a tattered straw tatami rather than a lavish kotatsu blanket, the illustration looks too much like a torn blanket leaking stuffing to be anything else. If it’s not stuffing why would Sekien choose to make it so blobby instead of giving it the gangly monster limbs he gives most of his yokai? Also, as far as I know, tatami patterns generally don’t look like that. Maybe the theory is that it’s an old tatami that’s had to be mended with different grasses over time but then there’s the dark squares inside the grid. Why would woven grass look like that? And finally there’s the kotatsu framing right next to it. You can even see what is likely supposed to be metal hibashi chopsticks (used for moving coal) in the wreckage!  Unmistakably, it's gotta be a Kotatsu!

[An Antique kotatsu frame and Hibashi chopsticks]

[A couple sit under a kotatsu, a Cat sleeping on top. (1769) by Suzuki Harunobu.]

• Similar yokai: There are, of course, plenty of Tsukumogami which are said to possess or be made of bolts of cloth, clothing or rags. A few others by Toriyama Sekien include: 

• Jatai - A kimono sash that acts like a wriggling serpent, it suffocates those sleeping.

• Kosode-no-te - A kimono with ghostly arms in its sleeves.

• Hatahiro - The vengeful spirit of a jilted woman who came back as a length of cloth from her loom to take revenge on her former husband.

• Eritate-Goromo - Living robes belonging to Sojobo, the tengu king.

• Kinutanuki - Either a living bolt of Hachijō silk in the form of a tanuki, or a tanuki in disguise as that.

• Shiro-Uneri - a filthy mop rag, turned into a tiny dragon.

and of course, there is also the ever popular Ittan-momen. 

…whenever I see this yokai all that I can think of is the modern day: "smelly futon incident."

[Art sticker & Writing by @SamKalensky (yo, that's me!) Editing by @Cattype. Part of my Hyakki Yagyo Night Parade of 100 yokai sticker series. Follow & check my shop out for many more!]