Hanya Masks of Kunisaki

I did manage to find a few example of Hanya masks at the shrines on the Kunisaki Peninsular in Kyushu. Male demons were far more common though.

I have written earlier about hanya masks and what little is known about their meaning.
That, and some earlier posts with my hanya masks are here

I was fortunate to quite by chance meet up with a mask maker while there. He carved his masks in the traditional way and the standard hanya was one of his mainstays.

Giant Japanese Toad

I nearly trod on this when I went out to check some seedlings a few weeks ago.
It made no attempt to flee so I went inside to get my camera....

It was huge, half a kilo I would guess. I am almost certain it is a female Western Japanese Common Toad, Nihon Hiki Gaeru, Bufo Japonicus Japonicus.

Yoko reckoned it was an Ushi Gaeru, a Cow Frog, but that is the name of the American Bullfrog that was introduced into Japan in the early Twentieth Century as a source of protein.

A photo of one of those can be seen here

Vacation 2010 Day 12: Paddington Station

After a day in Cambridge I headed into London to catch the sleeper train down to Cornwall from Paddington Station.

Built in 1854 and designed by the great Isombard Kingdom Brunel who designed much of what used to be called the Great Western Railway. At night the place looked pretty impressive, though I'm sure caked in soot like it used to be in the age of steam it would look somewhat different.

I was looking forward to the sleeper. As far as I can remember I have never been on a sleeper in Britain, though I did spend a night on a Russian sleeper from East Berlin to Sweden and had enjoyed that.

I used to catch this same sleeper train every week from Exeter down to Truro but just had a seat for that short, last leg of its journey.

Monkey Stones

These 4 statues, located now at the tomb known as Kibitsuhime Kofun in Asuka, are known as Saruishi, Monkey Stones, as their faces somewhat resemble monkeys.

They were dug up in a field next to nearby Kinmei Kofun in the Edo Period, and may be what a 16th Century book referred to as demon statues located on the kofun.

There are numerous theories as to what they are and what they mean, but the bottom line is nobody knows.

They do bear a similarity to some other statues on the Korean peninsular, and the area around Asuka was known to be settled by many immigrant clans.

Their are many other mysterious stone objects in the Asuka area which also are unknown in their meaning or origin.

Oharetsu Mountain shrines

When I am planning my walks I usually spend quite a lot of time studying maps. I usuallu use a combination of Google maps and the Japanese geologic survey map

One of the things I look for are shrines that cannot be reached by car. For some reason I think that such places are likely to be more traditional, less likely to have been modernized, so some years ago when I was planning a walk in the Asuka area I was intrigued by 3 shrines up the northern slope of Mount Oharetsu.

The path begins off a narrow mountain road between the settlements of Kitayama and Imaidani which lie in the mountains east of Asuka.

The red color of the Torii is intiguing. Red torii usually indicate either an Imperial connected shrine or an Inari shrine. Usually, but not always. I have seen Atago shrines and Ebisu shrines with red torii.

There was nothing at any of the three shrines to indicate Inari, and if it was an Imperial shrine it would probably be listed in the Engi Shiki, a tenth century document, and I could not find them listed. There was no signboards or nameboards at any of the three, so I know absolutely nothing about them

This is something I have never seen before. Cutouts of tools used by forest workers. Obviously the people up here made their living from the forest, and as tools, until recently anyway, are considered to have their own spirit, they are obviously used in some ceremonial or ritual way. If any reader can shed any light on it I would appreciate it.

The path still existed and was not too overgrown, so the shrines were not abandoned, but probably not visited very often.

As can be seen from the photos, the forest on this mountainside seems to have been planted no more than 30 years ago, and is a typical post-war tree farm.

Japanese Camels

Well of course there is no such thing as a Japanese Camel, and as far as I can find out there never has been.

These first two photos are of the Bactrician Camel, now native to Mongolia and part of China, though their prehistoric origin was probably North America.

These live in neighboring Tottori at the prefecture's most well-known tourist site, the Tottori Sand Dunes, where they give tourists short rides in the sand. Before I came to Japan, knowing how much I loved the desert my wife tried to convince me that Japan did in fact have a small desert. Tottori sand dunes is what she meant!

There was also a Dromedary or Arabian Camel. When i was a kid we used to ride camels at the zoo, and one time some years ago I did get up before dawn and ride a camel out into the Sahara to watch sunrise from the top of dunes similar to the ones here in Tottori.

Okayama Castle

Okayama Castle was originally built between 1575 and 1597.

The main keep (donjon) was destroyed by bombs in 1945.

The current concrete reconstruction was completed in 1966.

With its black color it earned the nickname Crow Castle.

Kaminoseki Bridge

This draincover is from the town of Kaminoseki, a group of small villages scattered over a small peninsular on the south coast of Yamaguchi Prefecture. The bridge depicted connects the peninsular with Nagashima one of the small islands included in the town. The fish do not appear to be happy.

The bridge was constructed in 1969 and is 180 meters long and sits 23 meters above the sea.

Nagashima is where a new nuclear power station is under contruction, against the wishes of most of the local inhabitants. Iwaishima, the small island opposite the construction site is very opposed to the construction and for years the old fishermen of the island been practising non-violent civil disobedience using tactics similar to those used by Sea Shepherd in the campaign against Japanese "research" whaling in the Antarctic.

Whereas the Sea Shepherd campaign gets plenty of media coverage in Japan, instances of civil disobedience within Japan is virtually ignored by Japanese media. More information can be found here

The phallic stones of Asuka Nimasu Shrine

There is a collection of phallic stones at the Asuka Nimasu Shrine that I would guess have been collected from the surrounding area.

A few of them are paired with a "female" stone.

I think there is a good chance that these, or some of them at least, are Dosojin.

Dosojin, sometimes called Sainokami, were phallic stones placed at the roadside at community borders.

Often referred to as protective deities of travellers, their original use seems to be protecting the village from evil/pollution rather than protecting travellers.

Later the dosojin became rocks carved with a male-female couple, and later still Jizo statues took over some of their functions.

In some places Sarutahiko is associated with Dosojin.

Twins Momochi

Twins Momochi is an unusual building located, not surprisingly, in the Momochi district of Fukuoka.

The buildings looks like a single building, but there is a gap of a few centimeters between the East and West wings.

It was built in 1996, but I have been unable to find out who the architect was.

One wing is home to the Twins Momochi Hotel, and the other is home to offices.