South of the main Japanese islands lies the Ryukyu group of islands, which stretches from Kyushu to Taiwan itself. The largest of these is Okinawa Island.
The area is known for its beautiful landscapes and virtually untouched beaches. And also a mysterious creature from the category of cryptids, which has been seen for many hundreds of years, but so far no one has proven its reality.
This creature, outwardly described as a hairy and bipedal monkey, bears the name Kenmun or Kijinuma in the southern regions. It was most often observed on Oshima Island in the northern part of the Ryukyu Archipelago.
According to the descriptions, Kenmun's height is 1 meter or 1.3 meters, from about a five-year-old child, but the creature is not frail at all, but with developed muscles and is covered from head to toe with curly reddish or black hair that looks dirty and matted. Kenmun's face is described as a monkey's, but sometimes as a dog's.
It is reported that this creature hunts at night and has red eyes. It walks on two legs, while the arms are much stronger and longer in comparison with the legs (approximately like that of an orangutan). The creature is described as being very strong and capable of climbing trees dexterously.
In general, according to the description, Kenmun looks like a not yet discovered species of a large primate, but he not only deftly climbs trees, but also loves to swim in the ocean, which not every monkey knows how and loves. Because of its love for water, it lives in the coastal zone and hunts octopuses, crabs and fish during the voyages.
It is easy to find a Kenmun's dwelling by the heaps of shells under the trees, he loves to eat shellfish while sitting on a tree and throw empty shells down.
Kenmun is not considered dangerous to humans, but he has fame as a disgusting fetid creature. Its smell has been described in various ways as the smell of a goat, the smell of a horse or rotten yam. This smell presumably scares away other animals from Kenmun.
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In 1973, a local cow owner said that he was going to take his animals to pasture, but they suddenly froze and flatly refused to go out into the field. They behaved in a frightened manner and the farmer had never seen such behavior in his cows before. A little later, the farmer smelled a thick, pungent and strange smell on the field, apparently the cows were afraid of it. When the smell disappeared, the animals calmly went out into the field.
Similar behaviors have been reported for dogs and horses.
Kenmun is widely reflected in local folklore. There he likes to challenge people to a fighting duel, and also steals their fishing rods from fishermen. Sometimes he is aggressive and can start throwing stones at a person.
There have been cases of people observing Kenmun. One night on the beach one man saw a small dark figure sitting on stones, which he took for a child. But when he came closer and spoke to the "child", he saw that it was a hairy monkey. The monkey started throwing stones at him and even chased him to his house.
In 1986, one man saw strange rounded footprints on the shore and even photographed them (the photo is available in very poor quality). The track of footprints stretched for 500 meters.
Outwardly, kenmun was most often depicted as a hairy version of the kappa, the Japanese aquatic.
