Burial Mound in Kibi Plains, Okayama taken during my cycling tour around Japan 2014.
There are several Onizuka 鬼塚 kofun 古墳 burial mounds located throughout Kyushu island in Japan. The reason why they were named this way got me a curious and so I have been researching possible reasons why the name 鬼塚 was commonly used to name these kofun burial mounds. It seems strange to name burial mounds after a mythical demon like figure. My very short and unreliable research (which you can take with a grain of salt) indicates that the 鬼 "oni" kanji meaning has changed over time, and that the oni figure was something symbolic that helped to turn invisible unknowns in the unknown world they lived in into something they can see.
The first thing to discuss is in the meaning of the Japanese kanji characters used to write Onizuka 鬼塚. The first kanji 鬼 pronounced most commonly as "oni" means demon ("Ki" is another way of reading 鬼 by the way, and so it could also be read as "Kizuka" or "Kitsuka.") The "oni" is a mythical demon like figure in Japanese folklore culture often portrayed as a fierce evil figure. However, the kanji meaning prior to the common meaning of demon appears to have been far less intimidating.. The kanji 塚 pronounced "zuka" or "tsuka" is pretty straightforward and it means mound.
The origin of the kanji 鬼 "oni" appears to be 穏 which means "calm, quiet, and gentle." The 和名類聚抄 Wamyō Ruijushō, which is a Japanese dictionary of Chinese characters from 938, lists the meaning of 鬼 as something invincible and formless which makes sense when you consider that these burial mounds were built as a memorial for people who had died and passed on to the other world. So perhaps the reason why they were named Onizuka kofun is because it translated into roughly "heaven mounds."
The oni figure in the Heian period 794-1185 was likely created to explain all things evil such as illness, natural disasters, things that were invincible, unknown, and unexplainable, into something people can see. During the 14th century the Tale of Mount Ōe in Pictures and Words 大江山絵詞 "Ōeyama Ekotoba" was drawn and still exists today in a museum. In this artwork, the 酒呑童子 Shuten-dōji is believed to be the first oni to be illustrated into something visible.
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