Mountain Tengu Mask

天狗の面 (tengu no men): "the tengu mask."

In Edo-period Japan, when a child vanished without a trace, people often said a tengu had taken them: tengu-kakushi, hidden by a tengu. Now and then one came back with a story. In 1820 the scholar Hirata Atsutane sat down with Torakichi, a teenage boy known around Edo as the tengu boy, who said a tengu had carried him off to the mountains and trained him there. Hirata wrote it all up as Senkyō Ibun, strange tales from the realm of the immortals.

Everything hangs on that nose, long and straight and rounded at the tip, set in a red face creased with wavy lines across the forehead. Black brows sweep up over gold eyes, and gold teeth show under black whiskers. A white braided cord runs through both sides.

Hang it by the cord over a doorway or a desk and the nose points straight into the room, which is half the fun. It also makes a red face nobody forgets at a festival or a con, and it holds its own on a wall of oni and hannya masks.

• Type: decorative tengu mask, full face
• Material: resin
• Colors: red, with black brows and whiskers and gold eyes and teeth
• Nose: long and straight, rounded at the tip
• Cord: white braided cord through both sides
• Use: display, cosplay, costume and photos