Oga Namahage Legend

The Oga Namahage tradition is the visiting-deity (raiho-shin) rite carried out on New Year's Eve on the Oga Peninsula of Akita, in which young men in demon masks, straw kera capes, and carrying kitchen knives walk house to house calling "Are there any crying children? Are there any bad children?", admonish the idle and the wailing, and accept sake and food from the head of household before departing. The name Namahage is read from "namomi (skin-blister) -hagi (peeling)": the figure has come to peel off the blisters that form on the legs of those who idle by the hearth, a warning against laziness. Once a year, from the realm of the gods, the figures come to cleanse the home and bring peace to the new year, a defining case of the visiting deity. The rite is in three stages: the dusk preparation of mask and straw cape, the call and the visit to households, and the feast by the head of household with the entry in the Namahage book and the departure. Together with Paantu of Okinawa, Toshidon of Kagoshima, and Amamehagi of Noto, it stands at the head of national visiting-deity rites and was added in 2018 to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list as "Raiho-shin: Ritual visits of deities in masks and costumes." Sugae Masumi's travel diaries Oga no Samukaze and Oga no Harukaze (Bunsei 4, 1821), Yanagita Kunio's Santo Mintan-shu, Oga City Education materials, and Agency for Cultural Affairs Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property documents are the core references.