Japan in Motion---Pro-web casting from across Japan.

Namahage

It’s happened every New Year's Eve for centuries. After dark, a lone figure stalks up the snowy path to the front door of a house. Knocking on the door, he asks whether anyone in the house is ill, has died in the past year, or is newly married. If the answer to all three questions is no, the mysterious figure will ask whether the Namahage may pay a visit. For the lone figure is none other than the sakidachi, the point man for Akita prefecture’s most fearsome beings.

If consent is given, then moments later the door is thrown open and one or several terrifying creatures rush into the house, stomping through the rooms in straw boots and howling eerily. Their enormous blue and red faces leering out from beneath shaggy masses of hair, they snarl in the roughest Japanese, "Any crybabies in here? Haven’t you any lazy kids, or little good-for-nothings?" The male demon may brandish a wooden staff draped in strips of white paper. The females are more fearsome still, clutching a bucket in one hand and waving a large knife in the other.

For kids who are unprepared, or harboring guilty consciences, this is a good time to dive behind the furniture, or at least a parent. These are the Namahage, after all, mountain demons with a genuine dislike for naughty boys and girls, who may be carried away into the night, never to be heard from again.

Fortunately, parents or grandparents always stand up for them, insisting that they are good children, even if they don’t always clean their rooms, or study as hard as they might. It may take some further persuading, but somehow the Namahage are always pacified in the end, and take their places by the fire, where they are brought sake and snacks. After refreshing themselves, they warn the children to study hard, help their parents, and listen to their teachers. Then the Namahage offer blessings on the house, asking for safety, prosperity, and other boons before going on their way.
This ritual has taken place for as long as anyone can remember, so long that its origins can only be guessed at. The word Namahage probably comes from the word namomi, meaning a reddening of skin due to heat, and the verb hagu, to peel off. It’s thought the word refers to the shins of those who loiter too long by a toasty fire when there’s work to be done. At any rate, the Namahage demons, with their grotesque wooden masks, savage expressions and heavy skirts of straw or dried seaweed, are uniquely effective at making children rethink their priorities.

Though there are similar traditions in other parts of Japan, the Namahage is really a creature of Akita prefecture’s Oga Peninsula, and if you really want to see the Namahage at their best, there’s no better time than at the Namahage Sedo Festival. The festival takes place on the second Friday, Saturday and Sunday of February at the Shinzan Shrine in Kitaura, Oga City. After a ritual dance and drum performance, fires appear high on Namahage Gezan, a mountain adjacent to the shrine, and a long line of torch-bearing Namahage make their way down the snowy path to the shrine, the firelight illuminating their terrible faces as they approach. Arriving at the temple, they pass out pieces of sesame rice cake, which are supposed to fend off ill fortune.
A fascinating folk custom, the Namahage should be on the list of things to see for any traveler brave enough to wander past the Oga Peninsula in the deepest days of winter.

>>Access
Akita Airport====(65 min. by car)====Oga Namabage Museum

>>Open Hours
8:30 -17:00

>>Holidays
No holidays

>>Fee
Adult: 500 yen, Child (Elementary/Junior High/High school student): 250 yen

>>Website
Oga Namahage Museum (English)
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

-Matt Mangham