page_title: Makuragaeshi
section_title: Legends by area
hierarchical_section_title: Makuragaeshi / Legends by area
caption_attribution_description: Makura-gaeshi(反枕) from the Gazu Hyakki Yakō
context_page_description: The makuragaeshi is a Japanese yōkai. They would come at night to one's pillow side and flip over the pillow. They are also considered to change which direction one's head or feet are facing. They are often found in many actual stories from the Edo Period to the modern period, and they are often said to appear as a small child or a bōzu, but there are no clear-cut accounts of how they look. In the Edo Period collection of yōkai pictures, the Gazu Hyakki Yagyō, they are depicted as a miniature Niō.
context_section_description: Besides being seen as a yōkai, it is also thought that people who died in a room would become that room's makuragaeshi. There are stories about wealthy travelers who come and take lodging (including zatō, Buddhist pilgrims, pharmacists, which differ by the area in which this is talked about, but all travelers that go to these lands) and get tricked by the owner of the house and have their money stolen, after which every night, the traveler's spirit would move the pillows of the people who lodged there, among other stories.
  In the Tōhoku region, it is often said that makuragaeshi is a prank pulled by zashiki-warashi. The folklore researcher Kizen Sasaki notes in Tōno no Zashiki-warashi to Oshira-sama (遠野のザシキワラシとオシラサマ, The Zashiki-warashi and Oshira-sama of Tōno) that besides flipping pillows, they would also press on people's bodies as they sleep, lift up tatami mats, and left small footprints behind. This same book goes on and notes that in South Samuraihara, Kunohe District, Iwate Prefecture (now Kuji) and in Mukai, Miyako town, Shimohei District (now Miyako city), there is a mysterious pillar, and it is said that if one sleeps while facing this pillow, one would have a run in with makuragaeshi, making sleep very difficult.
  In Omoto, Shimohei District, Iwate Prefecture, it is said that once in a certain house, a deceased person was put in a coffin and left in the residence, whereupon a fire burned the coffin and tatami mats, and despite changing all the tatami mats after, those who sleep on top of this tatami would have a run in with makugaeshi. There are several theories on what is truly behind this makuragaeshi, such as being the work of a tanuki or monkey, among others.
  In Higashiagatsuma, Agatsuma District, Gunma Prefecture, the makuragaeshi is said to be the deed of a cat turned into a kasha, and it is said that when people sleep facing east, it would turn them to face west.
  There are also regions where a yōkai with the appearance of a child is called makura-kozō (枕小僧). In the Iwata District, Shizuoka Prefecture, the makura-kozō has a height of around 3 shaku (around 90 centimeters), and it is said to do pranks such as turn over the pillows of those who sleep alone.
caption: "Makuragaeshi" (反枕) from the Gazu Hyakki Yagyō by Sekien Toriyama
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