DODOMEKI

Lore

In the legends the Dodomeki is portrayed as a rather attractive woman, yet—like every yokai—she carries her own peculiar traits: in her case her arms are unnaturally long and covered with hundreds of tiny eyes. This anatomical anomaly is a literal visualization of the idiom ude ga nagai—“long arm,” which in Japanese means a tendency toward thievery.

Each eye is called a temoku, “bird’s eye,” the nickname villagers once gave the copper dosen coins with a hole in the center. According to the tale, every coin she stole in life sprouted an eye on her skin, turning her body into an eternal brand of the crimes she had committed. In early texts the curse is limited to her arms; later interpretations add pale skin and avian touches—feathers threaded through her hair, a nod to the magpie, emblem of theft.