Japanese Folklore - Kamikiri (Hair-cutting Demon)

The Kamikiri (髪切り) [kah-me-key-ree], meaning "hair-cutter", is a Yōkai that does exactly what its name implies, although not in the sense of a barber or hair stylist.

Kamikiri secretly cut the hair off of people's heads. In some cases, the hair is specifically mentioned as being the strands that are tied up with a motoyui (元結). Both men and women wore these strings to tie their hair at the time this Yōkai first started getting mentioned. If you have ever seen old samurai movies or depictions, you may see the men with a topknot (a little bit of hair tied up that sticks up or out from the back of their head). Often, people would not notice their hair was cut until later.

There are a few possible origins for this Yōkai. The most obvious one that many of you may be thinking is that it came about as a way to explain sudden hair loss, which can have a bunch of different root causes (stress, illnesses, genetics, etc.) that medical science at the time was likely not advanced enough to understand or figure out.

Other possible origins include troublemakers playing pranks and weirdos with a hair fetish (women were often the target of this). One possible explanation, although not with much evidence, is that it came about from marketing tactics. The idea was that wig shops were running around snipping hair off in order to drive up business. There were also side businesses created by the Kamikiri in the form of charms and talismans that were said to be able to ward them off.

From the 1737 picture scroll called Hyakkai Zukan ("Illustrated Volume of a Hundred Demons").