Ritual Hoe-shaped Crests アイヌ鍬形くわがた

Description

The Ainu people of Hokkaido were adept at using materials obtained from the natural world and incorporating them into daily life. Representative examples include attus, or bark fiber coats with beautiful embroidered patchwork, and superbly-carved wooden trays.

The Ainu also obtained other materials and products such as glass and metal through trade with neighboring tribes or people from the rest of Japan. In their everyday lives, the Ainu made full use of the implements they produced and the implements made of glass and iron.

This artifact is one of these items obtained from the rest of Japan. It resembles the hoe-shaped crests that decorated the front of helmets used by warriors in Japan‘s main island. It is made of iron and decorated with silver fittings. These kinds of ritual hoe-shaped crests were known in the language of the Ainu as the treasure god with the ritual spatula or the treasure god with the horn. They were placed by the pillows of sick people to effect cures, for example, or employed as magical treasures to ward off evil.

As one of the most important Ainu treasures, they were used by village elders and other authority figures. It was believed the crests would incur divine wrath if left in someone‘s house, so they were usually hidden away in mountain caves or buried deep in the ground. As such, none were handed down directly to the present day, with all known examples instead the result of chance finds. This example is one of seven discovered stacked together in 1916 when farmland was being cleared in Kuriyama Town, Hokkaido.