Onigawara at Tokyo University of the Arts. Photo by Haragayato (CC BY-SA 2.5) via Wikimedia Commons.
Both anthropomorphic drain spouts (gargoyles) or funny creatures decorating buildings (grotesques) are pretty international – by no means limited to the European Middle Ages they’re most famous for. Here’s a great example of that.
Onigawara are monster-headed relief sculptures sometimes found on the pitched roofs of Japanese buildings, specifically at the ends of the central roof ridges in traditional Japanese home and temple design. Their name comes from the Japanese word oni, which refers to a demon, goblin, or ogre; onigawara means something like “demon [or ogre]-faced tile”. From what I understand, these words don’t have the same negative connotations in Japan as their equivalents do in the west.1 With their highly-expressive faces, onigawara look a lot like Japanese theatre masks, and the word seems to appear rather frequently in Japanese literature as well. Decorated ridge end tiles come in many decorative motifs, including flowers and animals. They go by many names and haven’t necessarily had faces in all periods of Japanese architecture.2
It seems like onigawara are apotropaic devices, meaning that their presence was originally believed to protect their buildings on some level. While we clearly should not assume that the same meanings apply to similar forms across cultures, it’s interesting to remember that European medieval gargoyles and grotesques are also believed to have had this same function. In both cases, the idea seems to be that putting something scary-looking on the outside of a building will somehow stop scary things from entering the building. The location seems to have spiritual or symbolic significance, too, since installing the main ridge beam at the apex of a newly-completed Japanese house or temple is an occasion for a blessing ceremony.3
- https://www.goteamjosh.com/blog/rinzai ↩︎
- http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/onigawara-goblin-tile.html ↩︎
- https://meguri-japan.com/en/knowledge/20210627_1697/ ↩︎
