Yamambas Mountains

by Linda C. Ehrlich

Overview

Yamamba's Mountains by Linda C. Ehrlich

These writings are inspired by the medieval-period Japanese Noh play Yamamba, and by Ohba Minako's short story "Smile of a Mountain Witch" which contemporizes the Yamamba legend.Yamamba (sometimes written as "Yamauba") is an elderly figure who is alternately described as a "witch" or a "holy spirit."

The first act of the Noh play presents a priest and dancer on pilgrimage to Zenkoji Temple (literally "Temple of the Good Light") who encounter a powerful and ambiguous figure of an old woman in the mountain. The travellers comment on the strange changes in Nature that day, with the sky suddenly darkening. By the second act, the old woman has exited and returned to reveal herself fully as Yamamba, her true self, with matted white hair and a reddened face.

Yamamba is a paradoxical figure. She aids the woodsman and the weaver, but also hides the sun behind storm clouds and frightens the traveller. Stamping the ground, pointing to the center of the earth with her fan, Yamamba leans on her cane (decorated with evergreen leaves) and shares with us her journey as she traverses the mountain paths, in pain.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940162565543
Publisher:	ATBOSH Media ltd
Publication date:	02/04/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Dr. Linda C. Ehrlich has written extensively about art cinema, and about traditional theatre (of Asia). Her collection of prose poetry on world cinema Cinematic Reveries: Gestures, Stillness, Water was published by Peter Lang (2013). She has also published poetry in International Poetry Review, Southern Poetry Review, The Bitter Oleander, Literary Arts Hawaii, Puppetry International, and Tributaries, among other journals. Her poetry collections include: In the Breathing Time, Night Harbour, Bodegón/Still Life, The Girl who Turned into a Tree, and Yamamba’s Mountains (designed by Horse and Buggy Press, Durham, NC).

She has presented poetry readings in Spain, Japan, Hawaii, the Semester at Sea voyage, and the Innisfree poetry bookstore (Boulder, Colorado).

Her commentary appears on the Criterion DVD of the Spanish film The Spirit of the Beehive (El espíritu de la colmena, dir. Víctor Erice) and on the 25th anniversary Blu-ray of the Japanese film Maborosi (dir. KORE-EDA Hirokazu).

She has taught at Duke University, the University of Tennessee/Knoxville, Case Western Reserve University, and on two Semester at Sea voyages.

For more information, please see: http://braidednarrative.com