Kawamoto "civic centre" (inside)

The first part of this post can be found here

The musical instrument museum in Kawamoto is only a few metres wide, little more than a corridor running alongside the swimming pool, but is very tall and gives the impression of being a cathedral.

The complex of buildings were designed by Arai Chiaki, a local architect. The little museum is free, and worth a visit if you are in the area, but probably not worth a special trip unless you are really interested in musical instruments from around the world.

The benches are designed as piano keyboards and are a nice touch.

The foyer also uses height to increase the sense of space.

The auditorium has no particular features, though it was filling up with people for a concert so I wasn't able to wander around and find any interesting viewpoints.

Itsukushima Shrine, Matsubara, Hamada.

This branch of Itsukushima Shrine is located in the fishing village of Matsubara in Hamada at the base of the hill upon which stood Hamada Castle.

The head shrine is the famous Itsukushima Shrine on Miyajima, a World Heritage site. The kami enshrined in Itsukushima shrines is Ichikishimahime, a daughter of Susano "born" when Amaterasu chewed up Susanos' sword and spat out three girls. Ichikishimahime's head shrine is not in fact Itsukushima, but in Munakata in what is now Fukuoka Prefecture. Ichikishimahime and her 2 sisters were kami who offered protection on the sea journey between north Kyushu and the Korean Peninsular in ancient times.

There is a small secondary shrine to Inari in the grounds.

Also a small shrine to Ebisu, another kami with an Izumo lineage. His head shrine is at Mihonoseki.

Uzume mask

This is the smallest of all the Iwami Kagura masks and is the goddess Uzume. In the most well-known of the ancient Japanese myths, Iwato, it is she who was responsible for getting Amaterasu out of the cave and so bringing light back to the world. She performed a type of shamanic dance, and at the end she pulled down her skirt and exposed her genitals. The cheers of the gathered kami piqued Amaterasu's curiosity so she peeked out of the cave and was pulled out by Tajikarao. This dance is considered to be the mythological origin of kagura.

The kagura dance of Iwato doesn't include the striptease, and is usually a fairly sedate and stylized dance, but I did see one performance wherein Uzume danced frenetically around the stage with sacred sakaki branches and hinted at the shamanic nature of original kagura.

Kagura Mask Index

November harvest 2

Had a great taro harvest this year. I had never eaten taro until I came to Japan, and they have become one of my favorite vegetables, not least because they grow easily with little upkeep, and produce a lot of food. We probably picked 50 kilos this year. Taro is harvested in November, which is just about when the store of spring potatoes is running low, and taro can be substituted for potatoes in just about any recipe. Originally from India, Taro, known as satoimo in Japanese was cultivated by the Jomon people before the Japanese arrived.

Despite the raid earlier raid by the mountain whales, we still managed to get a crop of sweet potatoes. Called satsumaimo in Japanese, they were introduced from China and were very popular as they are very hardy and will produce even if floods or drought or poor soil produced famine. In my walks around the countryside I often see stone memorials to whichever individual introduced them into the local area.

Daisen

This is the manhole cover for Daisen Town, situated at the base of Mount Daisen in western Tottori Prefecture. It shows the town flower, sazanka, a type of camelia, and the town tree, kyaraboku, a kind of Yew, against a backdrop of the mountain.

Mount Daisen, at 1729 metres is the highest mountain in the Chugoku region, and is a volcano with 3 peaks. During the winter months climbers who are planning to climb Mt Everest come here to practise. The mountain was important as a center of Shugendo, and modern yamabushi can still be seen here on certain festival days.

Daisen is also mentioned in the ancient Izumo legend of Kunibiki. In the legend the Shimane Peninsular was formed by bringing pieces of land from Korea and other parts of Japan and was attached to the mainland by giant ropes anchored around Mount Daisen and Mount Sanbe in Iwami.

Shinto in History

Shinto in History: Ways of the Kami

Ed. John Breen & Mark Teeuwen

Univ. of Hawaii Press

ISBN 0-8248-2363-x

368pp


The word shinto is very problematical. I use it a lot in my blog, but am uncomfortable with it. Problem is there is no easy alternative word.

Shinto is often used to refer to an organized religion completely separate from Buddhism, and as such Shinto is a new religion created in the late 19th century which became the State Shinto of emperor worship. It's when shinto is referred to as "the indigenous religion of Japan" that the problems arise.

The first record of the word shinto in Japanese is referring to state rituals of the 8th Century which were of predominantly Taoist origin. Many researchers question if there is anything at all left if one strips away the influence of Buddhism, Taoism, Yin Yang theory and Confucionism from early Japanese religious practises..

All the chapters in this book look at different strands of Japanese religious history, and the book is organized chronologically. The contributors are a who's who of researchers and historians specializing in Japanese religion, and all the contributions are of a high quality.

A book for those who wish to get beyond the simplistic ideas that dominate so much and cause the rich diversity and complexity of Japanese history to be overlooked.

Iki-Iki Matsuri

Iki Iki Matsuri

This weekend was the local "Lively" Festival (Iki Iki Matsuri). The highlight on the second day was the parade. The ladies dance the town dance. Each village that makes up the town have their own "happi" coats with different designs and colors.

2 streets are closed off and stalls and a stage are erected. The festival is a "civic" matsuri, created to instill a sense of identity when the town was created out of widely scattered villages. It's similar to a County Fair in the states.

On the stage there are of course performances of kagura. Also the local Taiko troupe perform, as well as various folk dances. This year instead of a karaoke contest there was an eating contest.

There are exhibitions and displays by all the local arts and crafts societies. I'm always interested to see what the other maskmakers are up to.

There are lots and lots of food stalls, as well as local produce, cheap Chinese toys, tools, a few games, and of course beverages.

Being a rural town there are displays of the latest agricultural machines.

more cool links!

I recently had my computer crash, and while I was able to retrieve most of my data, one thing I lost were my web bookmarks. In trying to refind them I've come across these useful websites that I have added to the links on the right of this page.

Contemporary Japanese Architects is a photographic database of modern architecture in Japan. Search is by an index of each architects name. The photos are excellent quality, though there is no other information other than location and date. The collection is mostly focussed on Tokyo. I found this site while researching for my own humble architecture posts.

JAANUS stands for Japanese Architecture and Art Net Users System, and calls itself a dictionary, but is more like an encyclopedia. The database is searched by keyword, and I often come to this site when researching obscure aspects of shrine architecture.

Japanese Old Photographs is a huge collection of photos of Japan from the library collection of Nagasaki University. You can search for photos by location, subject, or photographer.

Old Photos of Japan is a blog I found thanks to Quirky Japan Blog. There is a daily post of an old photos with extensive details and information about the subject of each photo

Susuki, Japanese Pampas Grass

If there is one plant that symbolizes Autumn in Japan it is Susuki. Miscanthus Sinensis Andress is called Chinese Silver Grass, or Eulalia in English, though it is more commonly known as Japanese Pampas Grass.

Growing to a height of 2 metres, it is a common sight this time of the year along riverbanks and roadsides.

The reeds were formerly used as thatch for roofing.

Susuki appears in many haiku as it is the plant that symbolizes Autumn.

Sotoura Konpira Shrine, Matsubara, Hamada.

Sotoura is a small settlement at the head of a small inlet by Matsubara in Hamada. The small Konpira Shrine is built on top of a rocky outcropping.

The roof of the honden is odd!... the chigi (cross pieces) are aligned at 90 degrees to each other. I've seen this one time before, and if memory serves me well it was also a Konpira shrine. I have no idea if it means anything, but am still trying to find out.

Konpira is a very popular kami, known mostly as a protector of journeys, kind of like St. Christopher. As most journeys in ancient Japan were by sea, it's not surprising that they can often be found in coastal villages..

Like most Japanese Kami, Konpira has gone through many identities and forms. Originally a Hindu god, for most of the past Konpira was a Buddhist god. In the late 19th Century when the government created the new state religion of Shinto they changed its name to Kotohira, though most people still use the name Konpira. The government also decided that Kotohira was really an ancient Japanese Emperor, ... a lot of emperors werte enshrined by State Shinto, though that was not traditional.

November Harvest Persimmons

November Harvest Persimmons

Been picking what's left of the persimmons. The monkeys took most of them. I don't begrudge them their food,... so much of the Japanese forests have been replaced with sterile tree farms that have no food for any species.

The rounder shaped species of persimmon is called amagaki in Japanese, and these can be eaten straight from the tree. I'll peel them and slice them then dehydrate them for later use.

The more oval-shaped persimmons are called shibugaki, and they are too astringent to eat without first hanging and drying. Then they become similar to dried figs. Strings of them hanging are a common sight in the countryside now.

Egrets

Egrets are notoriously difficult to photograph without a strong telephoto lens, as they will fly away if you appraoch them, or even if you stop to take a picture, so I was pleased to get these shots the other day in the river at hamada.

There are several species of egret in Japan, lesser, intermediate, great, etc, and I believe they are a type of heron, though the common grey herons are nowhere near as skittish as egrets.

You see them everywhere, in rivers, ponds and lakes, and once the rice paddies are flooded and planted they congregate there.

Typical Japanese Landscape 10

The "beach" at Gotsu

kawamoto "civic centre" (outside)

Kawamoto is a small town upstream of my village on the Gonokawa river. The population is around 4,500, a mere quarter of what it was 50 years ago, yet on the hill overlooking the town is quite a grand civic complex.

There's a heated indoor swimming pool, a library, a musical instrument museum, and a full-size concert hall. I went to the concert hall for the first time a couple of weeks ago to see the world famous taiko group Kodo on their world tour.

The town has a reputation as a "music town", and until recently a full-time music teacher was employed at the center which also has recording studios.

The complex was designed by architect Arai Chiaki, another homegrown Shimane architect, and opened in 1998. The complex does get used by local people, but I wonder if the money would not have been better spent on a decent hospital (nearest big hospital is an hour away) or installing a mains sewage system?

"hime" Iwami kagura masks

Here are 2 versions of "hime" masks in the Iwami Kagura style.

Hime is commonly translated as "princess", although it meant a woman of high birth.

Nowadays, in terms of masks at least, is simply means female.

There are several female characters in Iwami kagura, and often the same mask is used for all of them, but the commonest is Amaterasu in the Iwato dance. Most kagura groups use the same mask for Uzume, the other female character in the Iwato dance, but we use a slightly different mask which I will post next.

Kagura mask index

Giant Radish

The Daikon are now big enough to start being harvested. Daikon literally means "big root", but it is commonly called Giant Radish in English. Originally introduced from Asia, I remember seeing it in Asian shops in England when I was a kid where it was known as Mooli.

When I first came to Japan I really didn't like daikon, but once we moved to the country, and received daikon from neighbors on an almost daily basis, I came to love it. It grows easily, and quickly, and is used in an astonishing number of dishes in Japan.

Dakon hanging in the sun to dry is a common site now anywhere in the countryside. After a couple of weeks they are then turned into takuan, the yellow daikon pickle in just about every bento.

The young leaves are used as greens, and the older leaves turned into another kind of pickle.

Raw, grated daikon is the bed on which sashimi is served, and is also added to the dipping sauce for tempura. There are also a variety of salads using daikon.

Big chunks of daikon are found in Nabe and Oden, the 2 types of winter stew.

Our surplus we peel, slice, and then dry until rock-hard. Stored in airtight containers it stays usable for years. My neighbor dries them, then reconstitutes and cooks them in a mix of sake and soy sauce, and then dries them again.

Comfort town

This is the manhole cover for Koryo Town in Izumo. It is actually a new administrative town,.. really it's just a collection of villages scattered over a wide area near Jinzaiko (Lake Jinzai) southwest of Izumo City. The design shows swans on Jinzaiko.

The wording around the outside of the cover says "Nukumori no konforto taun" which means "Comfort town of warmth", and is obviously the town slogan meant to entice people to live there.

I spent a day wandering around visiting all the shrines in the area, and it's the kind of place I enjoy exploring. Quiet and friendly.

God's Music

Gods' Music - The Japanese Folk Theatre of Iwami Kagura

Terence Lancashire

Florian Noetzel

351 pp.

ISBN 3-7959-0890-6


As is obvious by reading this blog, I am a big fan of Iwami Kagura, and there is precious little information about it in English.

However 2 weeks ago I came across this book published in 2006 and had to have it even though it's expensive, like all academic publications.

I devoured the book in one day, and will re-read more slowly several more time for sure.
It is almost like an encyclopedia, with a full list of the dances, words and texts to the songs, as well as musical notation for all the pieces. As reference material this alone is worth the high price of the book.

The book is really outstanding when it comes to history. The Iwami kagura tradition is transmitted orally, so the further one goes back in time the less sure we can be of anything, but as well as thoroughly surveying all the literature on Iwami kagura in the Japanese language, lancashire also applies his own research to other older materials. He looks at all the other kagura tradition in Japan and where they might have come from, as well as setting kagura within other musical and theatrical and religious practises.

For his research he was based in the Masuda City area, and so concerns himself most deeply with kagura as it is practised there, but writes frequently about the other traditions in Iwami, including the area I live in with its' older Omoto Kagura tradition as well as the kagura traditions in neighboring Izumo, Hiroshima, and Yamaguchi.

The only minor quibble I have with the book is that the pohtos used don't really do justice to the dance.

Suga Shrine, Matsubara, Hamada

Tucked away against the hill is the Suga Shrine in the little fishing village of Matsubara.

The shrine grounds were being used as a car park, and the place did not look like a very busy shrine.

It has a fairly large honden though, leading me to think it was a more important shrine in earlier days.

The Kami enshrined in Suga shrines are Susano and his wife Kushinada. Within the shrine grounds are smaller secondary shrines, Hachiman, Atago, and a Mishima shrine enshrining Oyamazumi.

The original Suga shrine is located in the mountains of Izumo, and is believed to be the site of the "palace" built by Susano after he slew the serpent Yamata no Orochi and married Kushinada. Susano then wrote a poem....

Many clouds rise up
clouds appear to form a fence
holding this couple;
They form layers of a fence
Oh, the layers of that fence.

This is considered to be the first example of a Tanka in Japanese history.

October Harvest 2

With no sign of a frost yet, the garden is still producing tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers, and the first of the winter carrots too.

Spinach, called horenso in Japanese is harvestable now too. Horen is Chinese for Persia, and so means plant, so the Japanese name means "Persian plant", Persia being the area it originated from before being introduced into Japan from China.

Lettuce, retasu in Japanese, are also being picked. I planted 3 kinds with seeds from England. Lettuce was introduced into Japan from the U.S. after WWII.

A protracted and theatrical death.

In this final video from the recent annual matsuri in my village. In this ending sequence to the dance, the hero, Yorimasa, and his sidekick dispatch the evil demon. The demon is hit by arrows at least 6 times, hacked and stabbed with swords, and still manages to keep fighting!!

The Yorimasa story is set in the 12th Century, with the Emperor being afflicted by an evil spirit inhabiting a dark cloud. Minamoto Yorimasa is summoned and he dispatches the monster with a single arrow shot into the cloud. In the story the monster has the face of a monkey, the back of a lion, the tail of a fox, the feet of a badger, and the voice of a bird.

Monkey Attack (comedic interlude)

Continuing with videos from the annual matsuri in my village last week. A couple of weeks ago I saw 2 kagura groups use the Kakko dance to inject a comedic interlude into the all-night performance, but the Tanijyugo group uses the Yorimasu dance for this purpose.

After a bit of stand-up comedy, the hapless farmer is harassed by a troop of monkeys who serve a demon. This is the dance that uses the baby monkey masks. The monkeys chase the farmer through the audience, stopping sometimes to pose for the cameras. Kids, and sometimes adults in the audience will also be grabbed and dragged on stage. I've seen very young children grabbed and be absolutely terrified, much to the delight of their parents.

Demon's entrance

Continuing with some videos of kagura performed by my neighbors at the village's annual matsuri.

It's usually dramatic when an Oni (demon/ogre) makes it's appearance on the stage. In this sequence Hachiman, the God of war based on the semi-mythical Emperor Ojin, is dancing alone on the stage. Amid clouds of smoke and brandishing a firework, the demon arrives and begins the battle with Hachiman. Good versus Evil, and Good of course wins.

Though a traditional folk art, Iwami kagura is notable for having adapted over time. Smoke machines and fireworks were first used at a performance of Iwami Kagura at the World Expo held in Osaka in 1970. Now their use has spread and most kagura groups utilize the technology. Radio mikes are now also standard equipment.

Tanijyugo kagura group dance in the 8-beat style.

Jingi Daiko

Last weekend was the annual matsuri in my village, Tanijyugo, so I'm going to post several videos of the all-night kagura performed by the villagers.

This first piece is called Jingi daiko, and is local to Iwami Kagura. It's not very common, I've only seen it performed once in Ichiyama, and they did a different version than this one from my village.

The 4 drummer dancers represent the 4 seasons.

If there is one sound that represents Japanese music to me it's the sound of the Taiko, the big drum.

Typical Japanese landscape 9

In Kerr's "Dogs & Demons" he writes of some first-time visitors to Japan driving into Osaka from the airport through this section of the city. The son commented "so this is where the poor people live." "No! this is where everyone lives." was the reply.