The next day we woke up bright and early at 5:30 a.m. I don’t remember the last time I actually saw 5 a.m., and when I do, I usually see it because I’ve stayed up all night. But we got ready and hopped in the car for the 2.5 hour drive to the Oga Peninsula.
On the way there somewhere in Akita the GPS told me to turn right in an intersection. I did, but then the GPS started freaking out. I must have taken a wrong turn (my guess is there were two streets to choose from on the right at that intersection and I chose the wrong one, although I didn’t see another road at the time.) I looked down at my GPS and the reason it is freaking out is because there was no road on the map where I was driving. That’s right, I was driving along a large highway that was not on Google Maps. There was no place for me to turn around, so we just continued on until the highway ended about ten minutes later in the middle of nowhere. The middle of nowhere had a town nearby, so when we got off the highway it found us on a local street and directed us from there. What was pretty amazing was that the ten minute drive along his unknown highway cut the time on our trip by about a half hour. Saving twenty minutes total. So, it’s a crying shame that Google doesn’t have that road marked on their maps because it could save people a lot of time. ((Update: Looking back on the history of my driving that day, It shows me that there is indeed a road there, but at the time of driving there was no road on my map. Take that how you will.))
When we got to the Oga Peninsula we saw gently rolling hills with some bigger mountains in the distance as well as the ocean to our right. We stopped the car and walked out to the beach. We walked down a gravel road where some men were working, and we made some small talk, and continued on. I was absolutely shocked when we got down to the beach how dirty it was! It was the most dirty, littered beach I have ever seen in my life. Probably the dirtiest patch of land that was not a city dump. In the video I took I stood in front of all the garbage so you can’t see it. The wind was blowing quite strongly and it was freezing so we didn’t linger too long.
After that we made our way to the Namahage Museum. Namahage is the name of the local Mountain Ogres (Oni) that are said to lie in the area. The story is that on New Year’s Eve they come down from the mountain to scare children and newly wedded women into behaving in the coming year. Every year men dress up as these Namahage with big masks and suits made from straw. They hold staffs, as well as knives (albeit papier mache or wooden ones) and buckets for flaying the skin from bad children.
They come up to the house asking “Are there any bad children here? They bang on walls and roar and create a big ruckus. They grab the children and attempt to carry them off up to their mountain caves. The parents eventually calm the Namahage down and invite them into the visiting room and offer them food and sake. The Namahage have a book with them where they read out all the bad behaviors of the children and wives over the last year, because up on their mountains they can see all that you do and they record these behaviors in their book. The parents plead with the Namahage to not take their children away this year, and that they will work very hard on fixing the children’s bad behavior. The Namahage eventually concede and give out threats to come again next year and take the children if behavior does not improve. This goes on all night as the “ogres” travel from house to house.
The word Namahage comes from the words meaning “to peel the blisters off.” This is because blisters and darkening of the skin will happen naturally if you spend too much time sitting in front of a fire. This means that if you develop these blisters, you are being too lazy, and that you should “peel off the blisters” and stop being lazy. This is another reason for the flaying knife that the Namahage carry around, to peel the blisters off the lazy children.
These mountain ogres have festivals all over Tohoku, but they often go by different names depending on the region. Akita has the most famous Namahage.
The museum had a spot where you could dress up as Namahage yourself.
It also had a man who was carving a Namahage mask.
It had a theater where you could watch a movie about the Namahage festival and see footage of the festival from a previous year (my guess would be the 1990s or early 2000s judging by the movie quality and dress of the people shown.)
There was also a large room where they had on display a bunch of namahage costumes and masks. In the photos you can see that some of the costumes are missing the masks and the masks have been replaced by pictures of that particular mask. That’s because the mask had been borrowed from the museum (I assume in preparation for the festival that night) and would be returned at a later date.
The highlight of the museum though, was a performance of the festival in a house behind the museum. It is performed every half hour at the museum so that people can see for themselves what happens inside the houses. This is, unfortunately the closest I could come to seeing the actually festival. This is because it is not performed in public, but in people’s homes. Could you imagine me trying to see the real thing? “Hello, I was wondering if I could hang out in your house tonight and see the Namahage performance. I promise I won’t make a sound. You’d never know I was even there.” It would be super weird, creepy and most likely result in a no. But that’s ok, because the Namahage Museum does a wonderful job in conveying authentic information in the performance, even with a room full of spectators.
I have filmed most the entire performance. I stopped the video every minute in order to make it short enough to post here on the blog. So I missed a few things during the cuts, but most of the performance is intact. Please Enjoy. (But then I just uploaded it to Youtube and had no such time constraints, so, sadly it just has a lot of cuts.)
Isn’t the child crying just the cherry on top?! Perfect timing!
There is more to the Namahage story, but I’ll tell you that in a bit.
After the Namahage museum we walked to a shrine nearby called Shinzan Shrine.
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| Now that's a knife fit for a Stabby! |
It was a pretty, well-maintained shrine with some beautiful stone steps climbing the mountain beside the shrine and stretching into the forest. There was a nice Shinto Priestess there who talked to us and gave us directions to a shrine we were going to later.
We drove from there to a lookout point overlooking two freshwater lakes right next to the ocean. The lakes were created from a volcanic explosion which exposed a layer of fresh water under the earth to the air. It is an absolutely gorgeous site.
Next to the lookout point is an old building that used to be a restaurant but has since been abandoned. It was crumbling and looked terrible, but it was strangely beautiful. It was something that belongs on the /r/abandonedporn subreddit. Maybe I’ll post it myself.
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| Some abandoned Namahage effigies under the abandoned restaurant. |
After that we made our way down the eastern coast of the Oga Peninsula until we got to Akagami Shrine Goshado, which is where our story of the Namahage continues.
Legend has it that long ago Emperor Wu of China came to Japan with five oni, which soon took up residence in the mountain peaks of the Oga Peninsula. The oni would cause trouble by stealing women and crops from the villages.
The villagers came up with a wager to try and get the oni from stealing from them. They wagered that if the oni could build a stone staircase of 1000 steps from the village up to the five shrines of Akagami Shrine Goshado by dawn then the villagers would supply the oni with a young woman every year, but if they could not complete the task they would have to leave.
The oni accepted the challenge and started their work. They built the steps with alarming speed and efficiency.
Dawn was nearly upon them, and the ogres had completed 999 of the 1000 steps. The villagers grew afraid and came up with a plan. They asked a man to imitate a rooster’s call before the oni finished the last stone step. The oni heard the call retreated back up to their mountain caves believing they had failed.
These are the famous 1000 stone steps leading up to the five shrines at the top. While we were there, there were a lot of people making their way up the stone steps to pray at the shrine. It is a tradition in Japan to visit shrines and temples both on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
There was a well near the top that you could drink from.
There were some beautiful sights as we made our way up the mountain.
Here are the five shrines.
We saw the other people start at the shine on the left and work their way down praying to every one. We did the same. There is a small Buddhist temple at the base of the stone steps, but there’s not much to it so we didn’t linger to check it out.
By this point the sun was starting to set in the sky, so we went off towards our final destination before we returned to Aomori: Godzilla Rock. On the way we saw this giant statue of a Namahage Oni.
The rock is so named because it has been eroded by the wind and rain and now looks a bit like Godzilla. It was “discovered/realized” in 1995 and named soon after. Some guy looked at that rock and said “Hey, that rock kinda looks like Godzilla.” And so it was. Now it’s a tourist attraction.
The rock is even more impressive at sunset when you can align the setting sun with the “mouth” of Godzilla and it looks like its breathing its Atomic Breath from the movies. We were there around sunset, but it wasn’t in the right spot for such a photo op.
I took this opportunity to take some video and pictures of the beautiful Oceanside and rocks that we were currently walking around and parking on.
After that it was starting to get late and I still had a 2.5 hour drive back to Aomori to drop Sarah off at home before I drove an additional 3.5 hour drive to my hostel in Daisen, Akita. We talked and joked the whole ride back. She is really a nice and interesting person, and I hope I see her again one day.
This is a road sign that I saw on my way to Daisen. It is a “beware of foxes” sign on the highway. I was in a place where it was safe to pull over and take a picture. I saw others including deer, bear, tanuki, boar and Japanese Serow (a little goat-antelope.) In Fukushima I have seen the signs for monkeys, wild boar and tanuki.
When I arrived in Daisen, the owner of the hostel invited me along to participate in the New Year’s traditional festivities with him and his friends. I gladly accepted. It was quite foggy when I arrived. You could only see about ten meters or so in front of your car while driving. The hostel owner told me that this was normal because there are great temperature changes every day during the winter months, which creates the thick fog. This gave the entire night a surreal feeling.
First we headed over to the Buddhist temple where there were a lot of people hanging around outside next to a fire in a barrel. The monks were dressed warmly and were heating little cans of soup (the kind from vending machines that can be consumed once opened) in a pot of boiling water over the flames. They gave me a choice of which one I wanted and I chose an anko soup.
There were people standing around the big bell that you see at all Buddhist temples. We waited a minute for those people to come down before we climbed the stairs and went to go ring the bell. Here are some pictures and video.
The reason you ring the bell is because it is believed that the loud sound of the bell will scare away the bad spirits and bad thoughts that have been following you around for the past year. This essentially leaves your mind a “blank slate” so you can continue on to the next step: the Shinto Shrine.
Before we left we stood around talking to a few of the Buddhist monks. I learned that the head of this particular temple used to be an English teacher and he used to work with JETs around twenty years ago when they were still new. It was pretty interesting. I told him that I used to play video games with a person who was a JET around 25-20 years ago somewhere in Tohoku, but I didn’t know exactly where she was placed. How funny would it be if they knew each other back in the day?
After the temple we went to the local Shinto Shrine. It was a tiny, unimpressive little shrine, I probably wouldn’t have bothered stopping if I had driven past it. But instead of doing the normal praying and ringing the bell, we went inside the shrine.
The hostel owner gave me a little bag of rice and told me to hold onto it. We greeted two men inside the shrine. I assume they were Shinto priests. (I did ask permission before taking any pictures inside the shrine.) They weren’t dressed in ceremonial garb, just nice, semi-formal clothing. We came in and sat on some cushions that were on the opposite side of the tiny room. We bowed and the priests spoke to us. I don’t know what they said, but afterwards the hostel owner got up moved to the center of the room facing the altar. He placed his bag of rice in a box. He bowed twice, clapped twice, said a small prayer (two seconds tops) and bowed again. He then moved back to his spot. I watched his two friends then do the same thing. Then it was my turn and I just copied what they had done.
The hostel owner then explained to me that on New Year’s day, instead of praying with money, you offer mochi, rice or money. Back in the day rice was used as currency, and mochi rice was a nice food offering. On New Year’s, you give an offering to the gods. The best offering is mochi, the next best offering is rice, and finally money. He didn’t have time to make mochi, so he gave us all bags of rice to offer to the gods.
After our offerings the priests offered us a small cup of sake. We knelt in front of the priests and bowed. They gave us a small cup and filled it with a small amount of sake. The hostel owner declined because he was driving.
After that the hostel owner told me about all the different decorations and symbols inside the shrine. He told me that a lot of the artwork in the shrine were gifts from local people. Many of them were decades old.
This picture shows an old painting that was given to the shrine.
This picture shows a wooden board (The black one in the corner) that the priests made in the 1930s. It means success in war, or something like that. People and soldiers would come to the shrine and pray to that wooden plaque for success during WWII. It also shows some more pictures that were offerings to the shrine. Look how worn they are, these are probably around 150 years old, if not more. They couldn’t tell me exactly how old they were.
This picture shows multiple cloth sacks that are hanging from a rope. These sacks are full of beans. Women who wanted to have children would make these little sacks and fill them with beans. They would then give them to the shrine and pray for fertility.
He explained to me that the main altar in the shrine was a metal disk supported by a wooden plaque/altar. He said that the gods were too glorious and powerful for us humans to see, so they are “behind” the altar. They can see us and hear us, but they don’t come into our presence because we can’t handle it. So we pray to the altar instead.
We returned to the hostel and hung out in the common area for a while drinking sake. The hostel owner pulled out some photo books that he had made that told about all the fun things to do nearby. It had pictures of scenery, festivals and events with descriptions. Akita really looks like an amazing place to go during the warmer months. Maybe I will be able to return before I leave Japan.
Around 2 am we went to bed. I was exhausted and slept like a baby.
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