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Forget the Boogyman, meet The Namahage - PHOTOS

10 March 2010 [16:15] - TODAY.AZ
Loud, obnoxious, and naughty children are the bane of many parents’ existence. Thankfully for the parents in Japan’s Oga Peninsula, Akita Prefecture in northern Honshu, Japan, there is a solution: the infamous Namahage.
Namahage is an annual ritual in which dozens of young hotshots dressed like Namahage demons descend upon a village in the hope of scaring its prepubescent residents into total parental submission. It’s basically a Scared Straight program for naughty Japanese children.

Each Namahage actor is adorned with an eerie demon mask (red: female, blue: male), a straw raincoat, and a waistband. Plus they all carry some type of scary tool—like a wooden knife or pail.

They begin a door-to-door sweep of the village immediately after their arrival, threatening to drag any disobedient children into the snow-covered mountains along the way.

Upon barging into each home, the tiny tot resides within typically begin roaring in agony, prompting the parents to sooth their worries by assuring the Namahage that they’ve been behaving as is expected of them.

The Namahage then encourage the children to keep studying and working hard, after-which they’re treated to sake and mochi rice cakes by the parents prior to their departure.


The event is geared toward only local residents, but tourists seeking to plant the fear of Namahage in their children can also take part by staying at a participating inn.

If you ever visit Oga Peninsula and decide to participate, just be wary because the Namahage themselves sometimes like to misbehave, such as in January 2008,  when a drunken Namahage actor strolled into a public bath facility and proceeded to rape several unsuspecting women.


/Weird Asia News/

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