Habitual place - habit

These are houses, forests, and fields that are believed to bring misfortune to their owners or farmers. They are also called cursed land, sick fields, mountains, sacred mountains, punishment mountains, cursed land, and mountains that people should not enter, and are distributed throughout the country. Many of these places are accompanied by legends that the owners or people who worked there died from unexpected injuries, or that successive owners died in strange ways, and as a result, they have usually been abandoned for a long time. These are so-called "fateful" lands, and it is believed that the grudges of those who died strangely remain there and cause various strange events, and there are also legends that such misfortunes have actually occurred one after another. Related to this is the legend of abominations against unusually shaped fields, farms, and houses such as triangular rice fields and triangular houses, and it is also a common custom to abhor old burial grounds and the sites of abandoned temples and shrines. In any case, it was believed that the "vengeful spirits" of those who died in unfortunate disasters would remain on the land and bring their "old grudges" to future generations. It was also widely believed that the sites of houses where large fires had occurred or where unnatural deaths had occurred were to be left as "vacant lots" for long periods of time.

[Toshimi Takeuchi]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

所有者や耕作者に不幸をもたらすと信じられてきた屋敷や山林・田畑。祟(たた)り地(ち)、病田(やまいだ)、とし山、斎山(いわいやま)、罰(ばち)山、呪(のろ)い地、入(い)らず山などともよばれ、その分布も全国に及んでいる。多くは、その所有者やそこで働いた人が、かつて不測のけがを受けて死亡したとか、あるいは代々の所有主が次々に変死したとかいう伝承を伴うもので、通例そのために久しく放棄されてもいた。いわゆる「因縁づき」の土地で、変死した人の怨念(おんねん)がそこに残って種々の異変を引き起こすと信じられ、またそうした不幸が事実続発したといった伝承を伴ってもいる。三角田、三角屋敷など異形の田畑屋敷を忌む伝承もこれに関連するところであり、また古い葬地や廃寺廃社の跡地を忌むのも一般の習俗となっている。ともかく不慮の災厄で死去した者の「怨霊(おんりょう)」がその土地にとどまって、のちのちの人にその「宿怨(しゅくえん)」を及ぼすと信じられてきた。そして大火の「火元」や変死の相次いで起こった家の屋敷跡を忌み嫌って、久しく「空き地」のまま残す習俗も広くみられた。

［竹内利美］

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