Out of the East: Reveries and Studies in New Japan by Lafcadio Hearn

Author:Lafcadio Hearn [Hearn, Lafcadio]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Curiously enough, the people spoke harshly concerning the mother of the boy—holding her to blame for the haunting.

I thought it very strange at first, not because I had formed any positive judgment as to the rights and wrongs of the case. Indeed I could not form such a judgment; for I could not learn the full details of the story. I thought the criticism of the people very strange, notwithstanding.

Why? Simply because there is nothing voluntary about the sending of an Iki-ryō. It is not witchcraft at all. The Iki-ryō goes forth without the knowledge of the person whose emanation it is. (There is a kind of witchcraft which is believed to send Things,—but not Iki-ryō.) You will now understand why I thought the condemnation of the young woman very strange.

But you could scarcely guess the solution of the problem. It is a religious one, involving conceptions totally unknown to the West. She from whom the Iki-ryō proceeded was never blamed by the people as a witch. They never suggested that it might have been created with her knowledge. They even sympathized with what they deemed to be her just plaint. They blamed her only for having been too angry,—for not sufficiently controlling her unspoken resentment,—because she should have known that anger, secretly indulged, can have ghostly consequences.

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