Tengutake. – [Tengu | Yokai Bonsai]

Description

Tengutake. – Kanji: 天狗茸, Hiragana:てんぐたけ – Latin: Amanita Pantherina. – [Tengu | Yokai Bonsai | Mushrooms.]

• About: Tengutake (“天狗茸”) is the Japanese common name for a number of very dangerous, poisonous or psycho-reactive mushrooms in the Amanitaceae family (commonly known in English as the “Deathcap.” ) These mushrooms range in colour from brown, to yellow, orange to deep blood red. -If you eat a red Tengu-take; it will cause the runs, vomit, sweats, disorientation and hallucinations, it may cause unconsciousness, and in many more fatal cases; death!! (I really cannot stress this enough kids: if you come across a red mushroom with white dots: Do Not Eat IT!!!! (That said, there are some foragers who insist that if fermented & boiled properly, they make good pickles!–BUT, Regardless, I feel i gotta STRESS; I DO NOT recommend it as a D.I.Y! Please be careful!)

—Ahem! I digress & to the point: Fittingly, these deadly mushrooms get their name from the equally dangerous, folkloric Tengu. Who are known to inhabit the deepest mountain woods and who are also known for “Kamikakushi.” (Kidnapping people or ‘spiriting them away’ causing disappearances; much like what will happen if you eat this mushroom while out alone in the woods! (Think of the name choice like a warning! they’re both dangerous and red!)  

…An old haiku about Tengutake mushrooms was written in 1824 by renown haiku poet, Kobayashi Issa which goes…

此おくは魔所とや立る天狗茸

“kono oku wa masho to ya tateru tengudake” 

…Or;

Tengu-shrooms sprouting
at the dark entrance to these
scary haunted woods!

Poetically, treating these mushrooms like a warning sign that deeper down this path, the woods themselves are probably a realm haunted by Tengu or other Yokai! 👻

Meanwhile, the darker brown, “Ibotengutake“ (疣天狗茸, lit. “wart tengu mushroom”) likely gets its name from the folktale where-in a Tengu removes an old mans cancerous wart!

– [“Plants of the gods” 2001]

While this is Technically not a yokai; but i love a good pun, I hadn’t seen anyone else draw a (more literal) “Tengu-take” yet, and it seems the entire deathcap family is literally named after them, so i decided to take the opportunity to go ahead and do it, 🤷‍♀️ Similar mushrooms grow in Canada where i live, and we where warned like crazy growing up not to ever touch them or ELSE!!! (if the scary warnings dont get the idea of a yokai in your head then i dunno what will) …Obviously, i’ll take any opportunity to draw more Tengu and mushrooms. – For more mushroom related folklore & a noh play regarding mushrooms, see also: Obake Shimeji & the Buaku mask.

 

[Art sticker by @SamKalensky part of my Yokai Bonsai collection of stickers.]