Rating
Title	Murdered spouses, Japan
Alternative Title	Murdered spouses; Murdered spouse;
Genre	Legend -- People
Description	Aaron Drumm's transcribed interview of Nancy Arthur about murdered spouses in Japan. According to Arthur, a young woman named Oiwa was married to a young samurai and was pregnant. The young samurai fell in love with another woman and wanted to marry her. Oiwa was rich and he had no money, so he decided to poison Oiwa. The poison did not kill her, but it made her lose the baby and it changed her face. The samurai thought that Oiwa was dead because she was unconscious, and he went to his mistress. When Oiwa woke up she didn't know what had happened other than she had lost her baby. The samurai was stuck since Oiwa hadn't died, so he decided to push her off of a cliff while they were on a walk. With Oiwa dead, the samurai was free to marry his mistress. The night before the wedding the samurai saw Oiwa's face in a lantern. He struck the lantern, but her face remained. After seeing her face he, too, fell to his death from the same cliff. Now people go to the cemetery where Oiwa is buried to pray for her so that she may rest in peace.
Informant	Arthur, Nancy
Collector	Drumm, Aaron
Date of Original	2011-04-20
Contextual Information	Motif-index number E710.2 "External soul avenges murder"
Repository	Indiana State University Folklore Archives, Special Collections, Cunningham Memorial Library, Terre Haute, Indiana 47809
Coverage	Japan -- 2011
Subject	Legends People Homicides Spouses Murder victims Supernatural Ghosts
WV3 Subject	Folklore
Type	text
Material Type	Interviews
Date Digital	2011-06-14
Technical Metadata	image/tiff 300 dpi; Epson GT-20000; Epson Scan
Copyright	Digital image copyright c 2011 Indiana Folklore Collection.
Item ID	isuf-MurderedSpouses009

Murdered spouses, Japan

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