A guide to the Noh mask
Chichi-no-Jō[父尉]
The father among the sacred elders.
A stern face in the Okina ceremony, offering blessings of prosperity and long life. The eyes carry the authority.
Name & identity
The father among the elders
- Name
- Chichi-no-Jō 父尉
- Meaning
- Father Jō
- Family
- Okina masks
- Blessings
- Prosperity and long life
Chichi-no-Jō’s sharply tilted eyes give this sacred elder a formidable expression. His name means “Father Jō,” and his concerns are auspicious ones: prosperity and long life.
He belongs to the Okina group of masks, associated with a ceremonial tradition older than the developed Noh drama. Here, the masked figure offers blessings through sacred dance. The mask carries the presence and authority of a deity.
Reading the face
A father’s face
The eyes are particularly useful for recognizing Chichi-no-Jō: their almond-shaped openings rise sharply towards the outer corners. The familiar white Okina, Hakushikijō, has crescent-shaped or peaked eye openings and a more expansive smile.
Chichi-no-Jō’s toothless mouth and firmer expression give him the gravity of a stern patriarch.
Construction & detail
The jaw joins the family
The family resemblance is clear in the deeply patterned wrinkles, prominent applied eyebrows and separate lower jaw. Cords join the jaw to the upper part of the face, allowing it to move as the performer moves his head.
Facial hair needs a little more care. Chichi-no-Jō commonly has no beard on the chin, and Nakamura describes a thin moustache above the upper lip. Individual masks vary, however: the example catalogued by Marvin has chin hair. The absence of a beard is therefore a useful tendency, rather than a rule by which every surviving object can be judged.
Kinship & blessing
Whose father is he?
The title “Father” leaves room for more than one family relationship. Chichi-no-Jō is commonly understood as the father of Enmei Kaja, his youthful companion. Another historical interpretation makes him the father of Okina himself. The surviving performance texts leave the relationship uncertain.
Nakamura describes an older pairing in which Chichi-no-Jō appears with his son, Yotsugi Okina. The father’s blessings concern household prosperity and descendants; the two generations appearing together heighten the ceremony’s auspicious character.
History & evidence
Old wood, a longer life
- Change in performance15th century, or possibly earlier Changes to the Okina sequence replaced Chichi-no-Jō with the young, unmasked Chitose and removed Enmei Kaja.
- Kanze revivalMid-18th century The Kanze troupe revived Chichi-no-Jō Enmei Kaja and Jūnigatsu Ōrai, in which the old masks were worn again. These appearances remained occasional.
Chichi-no-Jō’s place in performance has changed considerably, but the form reaches back much further than the eighteenth-century revivals. Marvin identifies a surviving Chichi-no-Jō with a reliable inscription dated 1316 on its reverse. The date establishes that the mask already existed by then; it need not be the date of carving. Such evidence matters because an archaic-looking face can also be reproduced in a later copy.
A different example in Marvin’s catalogue shows how complicated the life of an old mask can be. Its finish has worn away, leaving patches of white ground, while its eyebrows, horsehair and cords have been replaced more than once.
An ink inscription on the reverse, legible under infrared light, reads jūninshū, which Marvin interprets as referring to village elders or religious wise men. He suggests that the mask belonged to a shrine and was worn for Okina Sarugaku performances and other rituals.
Kurokawa Noh
A continuing ritual
Chichi-no-Jō also has a distinctive place in Kurokawa Noh. At the Ōgisai festival, a specially designated performer of the upper troupe dances Tokoro bussoku no Okina with this mask.
For the evening performance at the festival lodge he wears white; the following day, at Kasuga Shrine, he wears a patterned robe. The chant has a pronounced Buddhist character.
Within Kurokawa’s Okina tradition this performance has an especially high ceremonial standing, giving the stern elder a place in the community’s most important festival.
A formidable face.An auspicious presence.
Reading & reference
The accounts below describe the mask’s appearance, its older ceremonial setting and its place in Kurokawa Noh.
- Marvin, S. E. Heaven has a face; so does hell: The art of the Noh mask (2010), vol. 1, pp. 153–157; vol. 2, p. 71.
- Konparu, N., Masuda, S., & Kitazawa, S. Nōmen nyūmon (1984), pp. 42–43.
- Nakamura, Y. Nō no men: Butai ni miru (1969), pp. 4, 10–11.
- Watanabe, K., Shigeta, M., & Shōda, N. Kurokawa nō kyōgen hyakuban (2000), p. 24.