Goggle-eyed Dogu from Kamegaoka
Final Jomon period, about 1000 to 400 BC
A squat figure with enormous eyes stares out from its case, its body covered in swirling raised patterns and its hips and shoulders swelling like an inflated suit. The eyes are the first thing anyone notices: two great almond shapes divided by a horizontal slit, which reminded nineteenth century scholars of the slotted snow goggles worn by Inuit hunters, hence the name goggle-eyed figure. The figure has a tiny mouth, a crown like headdress and is missing its left leg, which was probably broken off deliberately long ago.
Dogu are clay figurines made throughout the Jomon period, the long era of hunter gatherer culture that lasted more than ten thousand years. This one comes from the very end of that era in the north of Honshu, when potters had developed extraordinary skill. Look at the surface: the patterns were built up by pressing cord into the clay and by carving, then burnished and originally painted red. The hollow body was fired evenly without cracking, no small feat. The exaggerated hips suggest a female figure, and many dogu are thought to relate to fertility, healing or protection.
It was excavated in 1886 at Kamegaoka in what is now Tsugaru, Aomori prefecture, a site that gave its name to a whole late Jomon culture, and it is designated an Important Cultural Property. Its missing leg fits a pattern seen in many dogu, which were often found broken, leading to the theory that they were ritually smashed to transfer illness or misfortune away from a person. The figure has become an icon of prehistoric Japan, and its goggle eyes have wandered into cartoons, mascots and science fiction.
Did You Know? Its goggle eyes were named after the wooden snow goggles of Arctic hunters, though what they really represent is still debated.
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