A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
Overview
In Lafcadio Hearn’s “Ingwa-banashi,” a dying daimyō’s wife professes affection for the nineteen-year-old concubine Yukiko and asks to be carried into the garden to see the cherry blossoms. As Yukiko offers her back, the wife slides her hands beneath the young woman’s robe and seizes her breasts, revealing that the desired “cherry-bloom” meant her rival’s beauty. She dies in that position. The attendants cannot free Yukiko: the palms have inexplicably united with living flesh, rather than merely holding it between the fingers.
A Dutch surgeon advises cutting the hands from the corpse at the wrists because removing them from Yukiko would be dangerous. The amputated hands darken and dry, yet continue to move, compared by the narrator to grey spiders. Each night they torment her from the Hour of the Ox until the Hour of the Tiger. She takes the religious name Dassetsu, becomes a mendicant nun and carries a mortuary tablet for her dead mistress, repeatedly performing Buddhist services and seeking pardon. The tale reports continuing torment for more than seventeen years; after her account at Noguchi Dengozayémon’s house in Tanaka village in 1846, nothing further is heard of her. No successful cure or final death is supplied.
Hearn’s introductory note locates the title and narrative in a collection called Hyaku-Monogatari and explains ingwa through a Buddhist account of karmic consequence. That is the author’s explanatory frame, not independent evidence that the victim deserved abuse or that a medical condition could produce the described event. His note on cherry-blossom imagery clarifies the wife’s verbal trap. The mistress’s mortuary name is given as Myō-Kō-In-Den Chizan-Ryō-Fu Daishi; her ordinary personal name is not stated. This is one literary revenant episode, not a newly inferred class of Japanese hand spirits.
Origins & earliest records
Japanese ghost narrative mediated through Hearn’s English account
Records & interpretation
Complete Ingwa-banashi and all four notes read; Hearn names Hyaku-Monogatari, not independently collated here.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
In Ghostly Japan — Ingwa-banashi
Complete chapter and notes1–4, located by chapter anchor in Gutenberg8128. Boston:Little, Brown and Co.,1899 verified by National Diet Library record000006423509; no original print-page claim.
Family & connections
A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.
Primary records and illustrations
In Ghostly Japan
Lafcadio Hearn; Boston:Little, Brown and Co.,1899 (NDL edition record). Ingwa-banashi, complete chapter and notes1–4; HTMLchap12
Cache hearn-ghostly-ingwa-banashi.txt,8676characters; masterhearn-ghostly.html. Full dying-wife request, palm fusion, Dutch surgeon/amputation, continued movement, nightly torment, Dassetsu mortuary rites and1846last-report ending read. Ordinary name absent; kaimyo not birth name. Hearn’s Hyaku-Monogatari attribution not direct Japanese witness inspection. FootnoteOx2–4am retained only as source note, no universal clock conversion claim.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Historical English narrative transcriptionHearn, In Ghostly Japan, Ingwa-banashi and notesResearch access: 2026-10-05
- National library edition and author recordNational Diet Library, In ghostly Japan (1899), bibliographic recordResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.