0910 神楽の面棒

It is a pick-up held mainly by demons and arashigami in masked dances. It consists of a bamboo stick with paper sidé attached to both ends, sometimes with another sidé attached in the middle, and sometimes with two or three coloured papers wrapped diagonally around the whole bamboo stick. The dance is performed in a variety of ways, including waving it around, carrying it or using it as a walking stick. In Shiiba, during the Shiba Aragami and Tsuna Aragami performances of Tsugao Kagura and Okochi Kagura, the Aragami hand over the masked stick in their hands to the head priest after a long exchange of questions and answers with him. In this case, the masked stick is the demon's treasured staff and a symbol of the mountain's visiting deity. In the Kurinoo Kagura 'Mai-iri' of the Matsuo area, Arakami tells the story of the eight treasured staffs, the fourth of which is the Shihan staff, which is 'death against life', a staff of fertility and regeneration that revives the dead and gives vitality to life. In the kagura of the Chugoku region, the demon with this staff is called Arahira. In the kagura of western Japan, this staff is called oni no scepter, oni no stick, uchi scepter, tou no muchi, etc.