These handheld drums are known as as Hatsutsuzumi or ponpachi, and were made at a workshop adjacent to the Kagoshima Shrine.

Hatsutsuzumi are items with 400 years of history. They are made to support musical performance during the Hatsuuma festival, and depict a horse (uma) dressed for the celebration. A form of mobile drum (a ‘denden taiko’), beans tied by thread make a sound on impact which gives the object its alternative name of ‘ponpachi’.

These larger versions feature a horse image on one side, and a depiction of the Kagoshima shrine on the other.

They are 30cm big, and 9cm wide at the widest point. Each ponpachi weighs 7g.

About Kobo Miyaji

Folk toys have been sold at the Kagoshima Shrine for longer than anyone can recall. The shrine itself has an association with the 8th century Emperor Jinmu of semi-legend. The items made in the small workshop adjacent to the shrine: Kōbō Miyaji, are connected to Jinmu’s mythical back story, and with festivities in the calendar. There are three main items. Wheeled wooden fish, which in legend once ate the magic hook of Yamasachi-hiko (the grandfather of Jinmu). There are also Kōbako boxes as were once the property of Jinmu’s grandmother Toyotama-hime, herself the daughter of Watatsumi, deity of the sea. For the horse festival early each year, there are small portable drums known colloquially as ponpachi. In Japanese religions, gods can be everywhere, and both a benevolent and malevolent presence. It is as well to play with them. And hence the enduring tradition of handmade folk toys. Their bright designs and forms, say something about the communities in which they were made.