The Tengu, there are few folk creatures as iconic in Japan as the Tengu. Seen throughout Art, film, comics and Television the Tengu is as characteristic to Japan as Leprechauns are to Ireland.

But I want to take a deeper look into what Tengu are and where they came from?

Tengu are creatures of folklore and that means what they are is fluid and decentralized, always open to the particularities of each instance of them. But we have to start somewhere so we will be focusing on two points in time. The earliest forms on Tengu that appear in the Late Heian Period and Early Kamakura period and their use in late 19th early 20th century Kokugaku rhetoric.

Today, we’re doing it all. History, Buddhism, Japanese Nationalism and at the center of it all, Tengu the bird people of Japan.