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.