Small Hanya mask

This is a standard hanya mask in the Iwami Kagura style. I didn't embelish it in any way. I think that some of her sadness shows through her horrific visage.
I believe the hanya is the most popular mask bought as protection for homes against evil spirits.
The story and meaning of the hanya is here
It and all my masks are for sale.
Kagura Mask Index

Flying fish and squid

This manhole cover is from the same village as the bullfighting one, Tsuma on Dogo, the largest of the Oki Islands. This one shows a marine connection, a fairly common theme in Japanese manhole designs. It shows flying fish and squid.

The flying fish is the Prefectural fish of Shimane. The first time I saw some I thought I was watching a flock of small birds flying close to the water..... then they disappeared!!
A good place to see them is on the ferry over to the Oki Islands. If you stand in the bow and look forwards you will see them flying out of the way of the path of the boat, often flying for 50 metres. The world record flight time or a Japanese flying fish is 45 seconds.

The Japanese catch and consume a HUGE amount of squid. It's eaten raw as sashimi ( a little chewy but OK), dried and shredded as a snack with alcohol, boiled, grilled, fried,.... in fact any way you can imagine and probably a few ways you can't imagine. In the Iwami area it is a matsuri speciality (photo above), grilled with a sauce of sake and soy sauce.

More from the Oki Islands

Ichiki Shrine, Ichiki

Ichiki Shrine is approached up a narrow road and flight of steps that run up the hillside from the Yato River. It's a fairly big shrine with a nice "3-legged" torii. The main kami enshrined here is Ichikishimahime, and its possible the village was named after the shrine. Ichikishimahime is a popular kami and the most famous shrine to her is probably Itsukushima Shrine on the World Heritage site of Miyajima, though her "home" shrine is in Munakata in Kyushu. According to the ancient myths she was created in a contest between Amaterasu and Susano. Susano took some of Amaterasu's jewels, chewed them up and spat out 5 male children. Amaterasu took Susano's sword, chewed it up and spat out Ichikishima and her 2 sisters. The girls were taken by Susano, and the boys by Amaterasu. One of the boys is the mythical ancestor of Japan's Imperial line.

There are numerous secondary shrines within the grounds, including Omoto, Konpira, and an interesting one to Kanayago, a shrine connected to iron production and blacksmithing that suggests this area was important for its iron.

From the shrine there are fine views across the valley to the ski slopes of Mizuho Highlands.

Interestingly, it is often said that Ichikishimahime is a child of Amaterasu, cutting out mention of Susano, and yet it is never said that the Imperial line is descended from Susano. One more example of the "hyping" of Amaterasu at the expense of Susano.

Yabusame. Horseback archery in Tsuwano

Yabusame tournaments are held at various locations throughout Japan, but only one is held in an original yabusame ground, and that is the one at Tsuwano at the Washibara Hachimangu Shrine.

The course is 270 metres long, with a stone embankment running the length. The festival is held in April, and usually the cherry trees lining the course are in full bloom. Hachiman, the primary Kami of the shrine is, among other things, the god of archery.

Yabusame, like Sumo and Kagura, is primarily performed for the entertainment of the Kami, which is why it is properly held at shrines. The morning is spent with ceremony, ritual, and pageantry, and the medieval costumes of the participants combined with the cherry blossoms makes for a very colorful affair.

Horse, riders, and all the participants plus the grounds itself are all purified prior to the competition.

Once it begins, it all happens very quickly, the horse and rider taking just a few seconds to gallop down the course. The arrows have a heavy, rounded head so a loud "thunk" is heard if the target is hit.

View the complete Yabusame slideshow

Morning mist

Mist fills the valleys and burns off slowly once the sun rises.

Japrocksampler

Japrocksampler: How the post-war Japanese blew their minds on rock n' roll

Julian Cope

Bloomsbury Press

ISBN 978-0-7475-8945-7


Books about music are especially problematical when the music in question is not known. Such is the case with this book. How many people know the music of Speed, glue, & shinki, or Flower Travellin' Band? Cope's book on the genesis of Japanese Rock music is fascinating nonetheless and offers insights into post-war japan.

Like his earlier book, Krautrocksampler, the former front man for The Teardrop Explodes explores how Japanese rock music was no mere copying of American & English rock, but was subject to a whole variety of cultural, commercial, and political influences.

Particularly fascinating to me was the influence of avant garde musicians such as John Cage and Karl Heinz Stockhausen, and in this regard, Yoko Ono's first husband makes many appearances. The pervasive influence of Jazz on other forms of post-war japanese music is also surprising. Politically, Japan's reaction to the Beatles, Japan's drug policies, the closing of the musical Hair, and the band connected to the terrorist group Red Army, all provide insights that help build a more coherent picture of the "scene" in Japan.

Cope's writing style I found sometimes too "hip" and frenetic, and the earlier part of the book is more interesting than the latter as there is a lot of repetition, but this an exteremely well-researched book, and gives a lot of information that previously wasn't available in English.

June harvest (part 2)

Here's a further look at what we have been picking from our gardens in June.

Green peppers are one of the plants that do so well that people allow them to rot in the garden as there are just too many. I bought 2 freezers to keep all our excess vegetables available year round, so we don't let them rot. Called "pima" in Japan, they were introduced by the Portugese in the 16th Century, although did not become popular until after WWII.

Another plant that usually produces more than people need is the eggplant/aubergine. Introduced from China about 1,500 years ago, the Japanese word for them, 'Nasu", means grows quickly. My favorite way to preserve the excess is with a Sri Lankan pickle recipe.

I tend to favor veggies that grow easily with little maintenance, and green beans/French beans fit that description. Known as "ingen" in Japan, apparently named after a zen monk named Ingen who introduced them to Japan in the middle of the 19th Century.

June Harvest part 1

Typical Japanese Landscape 2

Earlier I posted a typical Japanese landscape, but that may be what Japan mostly looks like, but a small percentage of Japanese live there nowadays. So here are a couple of pics of a typical Japanese landscape from where most Japanese live, the cities and towns.

Shimane Art Museum (outside)

Located on the banks of Lake Shinji in Matsue, the Shimane Art Museum opened in 1997.

The 93,000 sq.m. building, designed by Kikutake Associates, houses a permanent collection including works by Monet and Rodin, as well as temporary exhibitions.

There are several large sculptures in the grounds of the museum and on the bank of the lake. There are also exhibition spaces available for use by private groups.

Entrance is 1000yen, but like most tourist sites in Matsue there is a 50% discount for foreigners.
Between March and September the museum stays open until 30 minutes after sunset, and it is a great place to watch the sunset over the lake.

After recently visiting London, where fantastic museums are free, I am loath to pay the entrance fee for what is essentially a provincial museum, but the lobby and ground floor exhibition spaces are free and sometimes the exhibitions there are OK.

Inside Shimane Museum of Art

Amaterasu

Amaterasu. Acrylic on paper. 2006

I'm a painter as well as a mask-maker. This is my version of Amaterasu, the "Sun-Goddess", and though I use some shinto symbolism it also owes much to Changing Woman, one of the Navajo deities.

Any introductory text on Shinto will say that Amaterasu is the most important kami in Japan, but that is only true of contemporary shinto which is closely related to the emperor-centric State Shinto created in the late 19th Century.

Amaterasu is the kami that the current Imperial family claim descent from and that is why she is now pushed as the "head" kami. Before the 20th Century there were actually very few shrines dedicated to her.

The most well known myth of Amaterasu is the Iwato story wherein she hides herself in a cave and plunges the world into darkness and is later tricked into coming back out. The above shot is a scene from an Iwami Kagura performance of Iwato.

You can see a small selection of my paintings from the past 38 years here