The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons: A Field Guide to Japanese Yokai (Yokai Series Book 1)

by Matthew Meyer

The hub of the wheel represents moral discipline, while the spokes represent wisdom to defeat ignorance. The rim of the wheel represents concentration, which holds the whole thing together. The revolving of the wheel represents the endless cycle of reincarnation.

Why wheels?

Female demons are not called oni, but are known by another name: kijo.

Japanese funerary rites are complex. As with Western customs, the body is carefully prepared, a wake is held, and finally a funeral. The body is cremated, and the bones are removed from the ashes by the family and interred in a grave. After the funeral, a number of memorial services are held. These occur on the 7th, 49th, and 100th days after death, and during the Obon festival. Other services are repeated on the 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 13th anniversaries, and many more times for up to 50 years after the person's death. These ceremonies help ensure that the deceased pass on to the proper realm of afterlife and do not dwell among the living, or suffer in one of the many Buddhist hells. Services are performed and family graves are tended to by their progeny for as long as the family line exists. Those who are not given proper rites might not pass on, and are often said to turn into yōkai. Or worse…

Japanese funerals