Furyū-men · Kashima, Saga — Kamenya Omote, Tokyo
For some four hundred years in southwestern Saga, dancers have put on horned oni faces and driven evil out of the village. The masks are carved by Sugicho, a wood-carving workshop in Kashima where the name Keiun has passed down five generations.
Enquire about a mask ↓Carved to order by Sugicho · Kashima, Saga · Ships worldwide from Tokyo
Men-buryū (面浮立) is a masked drum dance of southwestern Saga. Twenty to forty dancers — the kakeuchi — wear horned oni masks under a mane of shaguma horsehair, strap a small drum to the waist and beat it as they move, while gongs, flutes and one great drum carry the measure.
Tradition dates it to around 1530, at Tade-nawate in Kanzaki, where a hundred-odd retainers on the Ryūzōji side put on shaguma, routed a far larger army in a surprise attack, and danced afterwards still in that guise. Kashima's own account is careful here: the old records say shaguma, not masks. The masks enter the story later.
What the dance keeps is stranger than the battle. The oni fights the gods at the shrine, loses, changes heart — and then walks down into the villages as the god's messenger, carrying fortune from house to house. This is not an oni you throw beans at. It is the one you want at the door.
Men-buryū is danced as an offering — for a good harvest, for rain, at autumn shrine festivals. The Otonari and Hōgaura traditions are designated Important Intangible Folk Cultural Properties of Saga Prefecture.
The dance
Men-buryū is danced in the open — on cut grass below the cedars in autumn, and on the gravel in front of the shrine.
A pair, never one
The masks are carved female and male — the open mouth and the closed one, the first sound and the last. They are made as a pair and shown as a pair.
Mouth open wide with the tongue put out. The eyes sweep upward, the furrows of the forehead stream up with them, and the horns stay short.
Mouth closed and held. The eyeballs are large and round, the forehead gathers into knotted furrows, and the horns run long.
How one is made
Sugicho carves the decorative masks from kusu — camphor, the tree of Saga Prefecture. The finish is cut, not sanded: over a hundred chisels, and no sandpaper anywhere in the work.
Kusu, the prefectural tree of Saga — close-grained, and fragrant when cut.
Cut into blocks and left in the workshop until the wood has stopped moving.
The outline goes straight onto the block — front and side at once.
The face is brought up out of the block and finished with the chisel alone.
Two finishes
Paulownia · lacquered
Carved in kiri — paulownia, the wood Japan reaches for when something has to be light — and finished in lacquer. The workshop keeps these as light as it can, because they are made to be danced in. What they give up in heft they return as sheer force: this is the more imposing of the two.
Camphor · plain wood
Around Kashima the custom is to leave the lacquer off — a clear coat over bare camphor, and nothing else. Lacquer, the workshop says, makes a mask look no different from moulded plastic, and you stop being able to feel the weight of the wood. Left plain you get the grain, the smell of the camphor, and a colour that goes on deepening for years.
The workshop
Kashima sits on the Ariake Sea in southwestern Saga, and it is where men-buryū is densest — the two prefecturally designated traditions, Otonari and Hōgaura, are both from this stretch of coast.
Sugicho carves there. The carving name, Keiun, runs in the family: the fourth Keiun opened the Kashima workshop in 1975 and was certified a Saga Meister in 2002; the fifth, born in Kashima in 1981, trained under his father and has led the workshop since 2017.
Wood carving workshop Sugicho · Furueda, Kashima City, Saga. Alongside furyū-men the workshop carves helmets, nameplates, signboards and commissions.
Questions
A furyū-men (浮立面) is the horned oni mask worn by the dancers of men-buryū, a masked drum dance of southwestern Saga. Unlike the oni of most Japanese folklore, this one is protective: in the dance it is defeated by the gods, changes heart, and goes down to the villages as the god's messenger to bring good fortune.
Furyū-men are carved as a female and male pair — a and un, the open mouth and the closed one. The female mask has an open mouth with the tongue out, upswept eyes and short horns; the male has a closed mouth, large round eyes and long horns. They are traditionally displayed together, though a single mask can be commissioned.
Two traditions run in parallel. Masks made to be danced in are carved from paulownia and lacquered, and kept as light as possible so they can be worn. Masks made as decorative pieces are carved from camphor — the tree of Saga Prefecture — and take a clear coat only, no lacquer, which is the custom around Kashima: lacquer hides the weight of the wood. Plain camphor keeps its grain and its scent, and darkens gradually with the years.
Each mask is carved to order at the workshop, and the maker asks for one to three months. Pieces already finished and in stock can ship sooner. Everything is sent from Tokyo with tracking once it reaches us.
Order
Each mask is cut to order at the workshop — allow one to three months before it ships from Tokyo.
$1,864.50 USD · free worldwide shipping
$1,864.50 USD · free worldwide shipping
Carved in Kashima. Shipped from Tokyo.
Furyū-men are made to order, and Sugicho also takes commissions for masks of your own design. Tell us what you are looking for — a pair, a single mask, plain wood or lacquered — and we will come back with a price and a date.
Contact Kamenya Omote →Curious how the oni became both demon and guardian? Read our guide: The Oni Mask in Japanese Culture.
