On throwing beans and personal demons

This week I’ve had another one of those experiences that touches the heart, making one of those memories that will make leaving this sort of home I’ve made for myself here more difficult.  First, I put on a demon mask and got pelted with candy and beans, and then I threw a bunch of them at a drawing I specially prepared.

鬼 The mask of an ogre/goblin.

There used to be four Setsubun holidays in Japan celebrating each of the transitions from one season to the next, but nowadays most places seem to celebrate just the one on the Third of February.  Some temples have festivals to go along with the holiday, but most people tend to stay home, perhaps because it’s really about driving evil spirits out of one’s house, literally and metaphorically, and bringing in good luck.

It’s on each of the Setsubun days that 鬼 no (goblins or ogres, lesser demons) and possibly other troublesome beings come out to bother the human population.  Thus it becomes everyone’s prerogative to fend them off, which oddly enough is done by throwing beans at them in a tradition called 豆まき mamemaki. Generally a member of the family dresses up as an no whilst the rest pelt them with beans while shouting “Onis out! Luck in!” in a ritual to purify the homestead.

Mamemaki beans are actually roasted soybeans, and following the pelting session they are gathered up and eaten.  These days they are kept in bunches in little plastic bags for the throwing and then individual consumption.  One is supposed to eat a number of beans corresponding to their age plus one to ensure themselves luck for the year, a fun example of obsessive compulsion.

My favourite and small towniest junior high school is a little out of the ordinary because they actually have a little Setsubun celebration of their own, and I was lucky enough to be around when it happened.

Following my morning classes and lunch, one of the teachers handed me a simple oni-goblin mask and another gave me a light plastic baseball bat, and we all went upstairs to the common area and attacked the students in a sort of reverse haunted house kind of way.  Though I think they were afraid to throw beans at me, other teachers definitely got hit while those uncostumed filmed, photographed, or sat back and observed.

Afterward, the students gathered up the thrown items for later consumption and I walked over to the elementary school for my afternoon class.

I showed up and put the mask on just before entering the staff room, giving the few people around a little chuckle, after which it was business as usual.  Then, suddenly one of the sixth graders came bearing a recycled paper of A4 size folded in half, and after showing me the example of his own asked me to draw the face of an oni-goblin and below it put my “bad point” as translated by his homeroom teacher.  Granted I had no clue what it would soon be used for, I used the little time before class copying the design from my mask.

My demon: Not going to bed early and getting up early.

Since the teacher didn’t seem to think it was important to discuss the class before we were in the middle of it, which she later realised, we pretty much winged it though it was just a review of the school subjects unit we had been studying.  It went well, and I’m actually pretty impressed with the flexibility of the students as I challenge them to use some more grammar forms than is required by our curriculum.

Once class ended, all the students pushed their desks back and put their chairs into a semicircle facing the front, where two of them led an activity for Setsubun.  Everyone’s respective papers with oni-goblin faces drawn and coloured, and personal demons written below, and each was taped to a black box.  One-by-one we each introduced our demons with some background explanation, acknowledging our bad points and that we wanted to extinguish them.

In the back of the room everyone had pseudo-origami made paper baskets full of peanuts and wrapped candies.  I was handed one specially prepared for me, and we all stood in a circle around the box moved from the podium-desk to the floor, where it Bullered in fear (as much as a box could) waiting for a certain onslaught.  The teacher told everyone to target their demon cards, and then all hell broke loose as we screamed 「鬼はそと！」(“Oni wa soto” — “Goblins out!”) and threw our ammunition.

The aftermath of our attack on evil spirits...

In the aftermath, I stood on the floor of a classroom strewn with the battered remains of a thousand goblins and the unshelled peanuts and candies used to pummel them.  To tell the truth, the papers all seemed pretty much intact as we moved onto the second stage, gathering up all the thrown items and shouting 「福は内！」(“Fuku wa chi!” — “Luck in!”) For some reason or other, being included in this odd bit of culture was quite heartwarming.