Mishima's Kasedori

Mishima no Kasedori: The Night the Bird-Spirits Visit Saga

On the second Saturday evening of February, the farming hamlet of Mishima, on the eastern edge of Saga City, waits in the dark. After sundown a dry, scraping rattle begins to move along the narrow lanes between the houses. It is the sound of split green bamboo dragged across cold ground. Two young men appear, their bodies hidden inside straw rain-capes, their faces bound in white cloth so that only the eyes, nose and mouth show, with conical sedge hats pulled low over the top. These two are the kasedori. When they reach a house they do not knock. They run straight in through the entrance and beat their bamboo poles against the floor until the room is loud with the clatter.

Kasedori is a raihoshin rite, a ritual visit by deities who come from outside the human world to bless a community at the turning of the year. It belongs to the season of Koshogatsu, the "Little New Year" once kept around the first full moon of the lunar calendar. The word kasedori is written with characters meaning "helper bird" (加勢鳥), and the two figures are understood as a male and female pair of birds sent by the gods. Their visit asks for one year of safety in the household and a good harvest in the fields.

The rite takes place only in Mishima, a cluster of houses in the Hasuike district of Saga City. Fewer than seventy people live there, and the hamlet has long counted twenty-three households. Everything about the event, from the costumes to the route through the lanes, is arranged by the residents themselves through a body called the Kasedori Preservation Association.

A Castle Town and a Shrine Against the Plague

Hasuike sits in the middle of the Saga Plain, one of the most productive rice-growing regions in Japan, where the Saga and Jobaru rivers run down toward the Ariake Sea. The land here was once tidal flat reclaimed from that sea. In 1639 the Saga domain established a branch domain at Hasuike, and its first lord, Nabeshima Naozumi, laid out a castle and a castle town, opening up farmland around it.

The new town had a problem. Seawater seeped into the wells, and epidemics returned every summer. Local tradition holds that Naozumi invited the deities of the three Kumano shrines of Kii Province to be enshrined here, building a Kumano Gongen shrine as guardian of the district, after which the sickness ceased. The Kasedori rite is said to have begun soon afterward, as a further prayer for the protection of the community. Mishima has kept it up for more than three hundred and fifty years.

For most of that history the rite fell on the fourteenth day of the first lunar month. Today it is held on the second Saturday night of February, a fixed date that suits the modern calendar while keeping the event in the depth of winter.

Why Kasedori Was Designated

On 20 February 2003 the Japanese government designated Mishima no Kasedori an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property. That category recognises customs that show, in a clear and representative form, the basic patterns of everyday life among the Japanese people. Kasedori qualified as a leading example of the Koshogatsu visiting-deity rites of northern Kyushu, with strong regional character in the way the bird-spirits drive off misfortune.

In November 2018 the rite gained wider recognition. It was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as one of ten events grouped under the title "Raiho-shin, ritual visits of deities in masks and costumes." Among its companions on that list are the better-known Namahage of Oga in Akita and the Paantu of Miyakojima in Okinawa. What links them is the figure of the visitor from beyond, masked or disguised, who arrives once a year to admonish, purify and bless.

Kasedori stands a little apart within that group. Its visitors are not demons or ogres but birds, and they keep silent throughout. The drama lies not in fearsome words but in sound and movement: the rattle of bamboo, the low crouching posture, the sudden rush through a doorway.

What to Watch on the Night

The two kasedori are chosen each year from unmarried young men of about twenty who live in the hamlet, one taking the male role and the other the female. Both wear the straw cape, the white head-cloth and the sedge hat, with hand guards, shin guards and white tabi socks. Each carries a length of green bamboo around two metres long. The lower half of the pole is split lengthwise into fine strips, and cord is bound at two points to form a grip. Struck against a hard surface, it gives off a sharp, scraping clatter.

Other roles fill out the procession. Lantern bearers walk at the front to light the way; because the part usually goes to an older youth who has already served as a kasedori, the lead lantern bearer is also called the "instructor." There are bearers for a pair of tengu masks, one red and one blue, a bearer for the gohei wand of paper streamers, and carriers for the basket that holds the account book left at each house along with the gifts received in return.

The night begins at the Kumano Gongen shrine, where the costumes and ritual objects have been set out as offerings. After dressing, the two kasedori wait outside the shrine gate. At a signal they run into the worship hall, the male first, dragging the split tips of their bamboo along the ground, then crouch low and beat the poles rapidly against the matting. The sound is said to imitate the wingbeats of a bird taking flight, and also to scatter evil spirits. The pair then circle the shrine three times clockwise and return once more to the hall before setting out into the hamlet.

At each house the procession halts. A lantern bearer goes ahead to greet the head of the household and announce that the kasedori have come. When the family has gathered, the two birds rush in through the entrance and beat their bamboo at the raised wooden threshold. In earlier times they would climb up from the earthen-floored entrance into the tatami room; today they more often stay near the doorway. After a while the household offers them sake or tea, which they accept while staying crouched and faceless. To catch sight of a kasedori's face, it is said, is to be granted good fortune. A final burst of bamboo, and the procession moves on to the next gate.

Around Hasuike

Mishima is a working hamlet rather than a tourist site, so anyone who comes for the rite should treat the lanes and houses with care and follow the guidance of the preservation association. Hasuike itself rewards a daytime walk. Hasuike Park occupies the grounds of the former Hasuike castle, with ponds and pine plantings laid out in the manner of a daimyo garden, and it is one of the better-known places for cherry blossom in the area.

The centre of Saga City lies a short drive to the west. There the reconstructed main enclosure of Saga Castle houses a large history museum devoted to the Nabeshima domain, with free admission. The city is also known for its long association with hot-air ballooning, and the international balloon festival held along the Kase River each autumn draws visitors from across the country. Saga is reached easily by limited express train from Hakata in Fukuoka, and Mishima sits in the rural country east of the city.