Namahage Are Not Demons — The Idea of the Visiting Deity

The most interesting thing about the namahage is this: they look like demons, yet nobody chases them away. They're welcomed as guests. At Setsubun, the bean-throwing festival, demons (oni) are pelted with roasted soybeans and driven out of the house. But when the namahage arrive, the head of the household invites them in, serves them sake and food, and talks with them politely. Same horns, same frightening faces, completely opposite treatment. Follow that puzzle far enough and you arrive at an idea called raihoshin, the "visiting deity."

Demons are driven out, namahage are invited in

On the Oga Peninsula in Akita Prefecture, it's said that on New Year's Eve the namahage, wearing masks and straw costumes, make the rounds of the houses in each village. They stomp inside shouting "Any crybabies here?" and the children burst into tears and cling to their parents.

But scaring people isn't really the point. The host entertains the namahage and tells them how the children have behaved over the past year. The namahage warn the kids not to be lazy and to listen to their parents, bless the household, and move on. For the family, the namahage are guests they want to come.

Raihoshin: gods who come from outside at the turn of the year

A raihoshin is a deity who arrives at a fixed time of year from "somewhere else": beyond the village, across the sea, deep in the mountains. They bring good fortune, scold bad behavior, and then leave. The folklorist Shinobu Origuchi called such visiting gods marebito, "rare visitors," and built much of his thinking around them.

These gods don't normally live among the villagers. They show up only on special nights, like the turn of the year. In Japan, the boundary between the old year and the new has long been thought of as a time when unseen beings pass back and forth more easily. The namahage's New Year's Eve visit is said to belong to this tradition.

Why the scary faces?

So if they're gods, why do they look so terrifying?

A god from outside was expected to look different from ordinary villagers, strange and unfamiliar. That strangeness is exactly how you know it's not a neighbor in a costume but a god. The fear is a sign of power.

Their name points the same way. It's said to come from namomi-hagi, "peeling off the namomi," the blotchy heat rashes you get from sitting by the hearth all winter. In other words, they come to peel away laziness itself. Being scolded is scary, but afterward you can start the new year fresh. Fear and good fortune are wrapped up in a single figure.

Cousins of the namahage around Japan

Masked gods visiting homes aren't unique to Oga. On the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa, there's the amamehagi, whose name also means peeling off hearth rashes. The Koshiki Islands in Kagoshima have the toshidon, and Miyako Island in Okinawa has the paantu, who go around smearing people with mud for luck.

In 2018, these traditions, including the namahage, were inscribed together on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list as "Raiho-shin, ritual visits of deities in masks and costumes." The names and looks differ from place to place, but the basic shape is the same: at a turning point of the year, a fearsome god comes from outside, scolds people, and leaves good fortune behind.

Compare them in the Zukan

On the Namahage page of our Zukan (the yokai picture book), you'll find the mask and straw costume in pixel art. In the same Zukan, the Onibaba is a figure whose story is about a human who became a demon. Both look frightening, but one is a god people welcome and the other a demon people fear. Side by side, they show that a scary face can mean more than one thing. For more on where the line falls between yokai and gods, see "Yokai, Ghosts, and Gods."