yamako
The yamako was an ape man from Chinese legends. In the Wakan Sansai Zue, it was an animal that read people's minds in Hida and Mino. There is the interpretation that this is what gave birth to the legend of "satori" as a different kind of yokai than the yamako.
↻ synthesized from 2 sources
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“A satori is depicted in Toriyama Sekien's Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki, but since this was modeled after the yamako (玃) in the Wakan Sansai Zue and other works, and since it even said, "there are yamako (玃) deep in the mountains of Hida and Mino" in the text along with it, it is said that Toriyama Sekien gave it the name "satori" since they are able to read (satoru) people's minds.”
#8655 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001
“They are sometimes seen to be the same as the yamawaro, spoken of in Western Japan, as well as the yamako in the Wakan Sansai Zue, and as it is thought that tree spirits would cause yamabiko to occur, they are also seen to be the same as the yōkai penghou that lives in trees.”
#8796 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001