The Ghosts Matahachi and Kikuno

This three-panel print, or triptych, illustrates a tale of ghostly revenge by victims falsely accused. The samurai Mari no Kanemitsu (seen on the right) slept with the nun Kyodai (on the left), the widow of his brother, the local lord. Discovered by the lord’s loyal retainer, Matahachi, and the lord’s concubine, Kikuno, Kanemitsu instead accused them of an affair, and had the pair executed by tying them in a basket, which was plunged into a river. Their ghosts later appeared to haunt Kanemitsu and Kyodai, and are seen here rising in their basket from a painting of a river on a folding screen. Kyodai, wracked with guilt, later confessed, exonerating the ghostly duo.

The inscriptions on the print reveal an even more interesting tale. The triptych records an 1855 kabuki theater performance of the ghost story in which the actor Ichikawa Kodanji IV (1812–1866) actually played the three roles of Kanemitsu, Matahachi and Kikuno simultaneously, through clever staging.