What is the shichi?
The shichi is an evil spirit told of in Okinawa Prefecture and the Amami Islands of Kagoshima Prefecture. In Okinawa and Amami, yokai and evil spirits are called majimun, and the shichi is also called “shichi-majimun.” It has been told of as one of the most fearsome of all majimun.
Legends and features
The shichi is said to appear in front of people walking on night roads in the form of a black wall or pillar. It may stretch high enough to connect heaven and earth or spread across the whole ground, and it is also described as cloud or wind with no clear shape, or a vague ghost-like form. People whose way was blocked could go neither forward nor back, and it was feared that once you met it, you could not escape. One tradition says it is the transformed spirit of a woman who died in childbirth.
A yokai that blocks night roads
Stories of the way ahead suddenly being blocked like a wall on a night road closely resemble the mainland legends of the nurikabe. Experiences of suddenly losing one’s sense of direction or being unable to move on a dark road may have given rise to such yokai.
