Key Points

- Spirit that appears as an old man but sounds like a baby crying. 

- Becomes very heavy when picked up and crushes the victim to death

Brief Bio 

The Konaki-jiji is said to be able to take the appearance of an old man or a baby. In either case, the spirit lures an unwary passerby towards it and allows him or her to pick it up. After the spirit is picked up, it suddenly becomes a heavy stone that crushes the victim to death. In some versions of Konaki-jiji stories, the spirit is that of a baby left to die in the wilderness.

The Konaki-jiji can be traced back to family records in Shikoku where the term was used to describe an old man who sounded like a child when he cried. The term was eventually used in a national encyclopedia of yōkai and became a nationally known phenomenon.