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Yamamba as Muse: Three Poems by Noriko Mizuta

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Noriko Mizuta  and
Marianne Tarcov
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Abstract

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Japan's beguiling mountain witch, the yamamba, has inspired artists from medieval Noh actors to contemporary poets. She offers a fertile metaphor for a creative energy that exceeds boundaries and threatens disruption. For female artists in particular, the yamamba epitomizes the freedom of refusing gendered expectations as well as the consequences that befall those who do. Renowned scholar and poet, Noriko Mizuta, has long found a muse in the yamamba. This article is excerpted and adapted from the book Yamamba: In Search of the Japanese Mountain Witch, co-edited by Rebecca Copeland and Linda C. Ehrlich, which presents the surprising ways artists and scholars from North America and Japan have encountered the yamamba. Yamamba: In Search of the Japanese Mountain Witch is available June 22nd from Stone Bridge Press.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 19 , Issue 11 , June 2021 , e1
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2021

References

Works Cited:

Bullock, Julia. 2015. Burning Down the House: Fantasies of Liberation in the Era of “Women's Lib”. Japanese Language and Literature, 49 (2), 233–257.Google Scholar
Copeland, Rebecca, 2005. “Mythical Bad Girls: The Corpse, The Crone, and the Snake.” In Laura Miller and Jan Bardsley eds. Bad Girls of Japan. New York. Palgrave MacMillan: 15–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Emerald. 2008. “The Mountain Witch at the Train Station: The Yamamba and the Shōjo in Aoyama Nanae's Hitori Biyori.” Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies: 1–17.Google Scholar