tengu
this creature is known as tengu today in this video we're going to explore one of the most
well recognized and easy to identify figures for many people who live outside of japan
this red-faced long-nosed creature is known as tengu tengu is considered to
be both the yokai which means spirit as well as a kami which means shinto god
they were believed to be powerful enough to cover the sun or moon during eclipses
the word tengu originally came from the chinese word tiangao which means a celestial
canine demon or celestial dog that came to earth from space just like a shooting star
however the word tengu first appeared in a piece of japanese literature
known as nihon shoki written in the year 720 a.d according to historical records a
buddhist monk saw a huge shooting star in the shape of a celestial doglike creature
however we don't know how this dog-like celestial gradually transformed into large birds of prey
they looked exactly like a cross between a human an eagle and a raven but over time they evolved
into bird-like men with a sharp beak two hunting eyes and a pair of beautiful but strong wings
later their beak evolved into an elongated nose just like pinocchio
now that we've described the tengu let's talk about its nature and behavior it is believed
that in ancient times the 10 goods lived in groups or clans in mountain and forest regions
they were very social beings each clan was thought to consist of roughly 250 thousand tengus however
the personality and behavior of tengoose varied drastically it is also mentioned that many tengu
used to live in shinto temples in the mountains and were considered to be full of wisdom
many of these tengus also punished evil doers and they were afraid of being tricked
they even help good people who accidentally lose their way in the forest on the other hand other
tengoose could be evil bird-like yokai and would kill prideful and arrogant people who were foolish
enough to enter their territories they also like to annoy monks and priests living near forests
according to some stories tengoose can be tricked by smart people once upon a time atengu met with
a smart gambler the gambler told the tengu that he was afraid of gold at which point the tengu
responded that he was afraid of thorny plants when the gambler learned this he made the tengu
afraid by showing him thorny plants and mocked the tengu for its fear to take revenge on the
gambler for this humiliation and mockery the tengu started to rain down gold coins of course the
gambler was not actually afraid of gold in fact he was grateful to tengu for making him so rich
aside from this funny story 10 goods were skilled warriors and masters in martial arts they were
supposed to be much better swordsman than the most skilled samurai alive historically tengu
fought in a lot of battles alongside humans and taught swordsmanship to the samurais they also
possess supernatural powers like flying in the air creating strong winds that could destroy anything
and teleporting from one place to another
and shape-shifting into animals or even humans
they also knew a type of illusionary deceptive magic known as genjutsu
which can be used to create illusions and manipulate time and reality to defeat enemies
as a result the tengu were not a yokai you would really want to mess with
you