The word oni existed in Japanese folk belief before Buddhism arrived, naming something closer to an invisible, malevolent presence than the horned club-wielding figure familiar today; much of that later appearance comes from centuries of contact with imported religious imagery rather than an unbroken native tradition. Buddhist cosmology brought a detailed picture of hell, jigoku, staffed by tormentor beings who punish the wicked, and Japanese folk belief merged its own indigenous oni with that imported hell warden and, through a shared Chinese character, with the Chinese concept of gui. The result by the medieval period is the oni everyone recognizes: red or blue skinned, horned, fanged, dressed in a tiger skin loincloth and carrying an iron spiked club, the kanabo, so heavy a Japanese proverb still describes an already strong person made stronger as an oni with an iron club. The most famous oni narrative, the tale of Shuten-doji, shows the type at its most dramatic: a drunken oni chieftain leads a band from a stronghold on Mount Oe, abducting people from the capital, until the warrior Minamoto no Yorimitsu and a handful of companions infiltrate the mountain disguised as monks, ply the oni with drugged sake, and behead Shuten-doji as he sleeps it off. A gentler domestic ritual keeps oni out of the house: Setsubun, marking the change into spring, centers on throwing roasted soybeans through the doorway while chanting oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi, demons out, fortune in, an exorcism performed today in homes, schools and temples as seriously as centuries ago. A related but gentler figure, the namahage of Akita, borrows the same fearsome oni appearance for the opposite purpose, visiting households at New Year to frighten children into good behavior and bless the year.