A villager going to work stands before a scarecrow looking like an old lady straightening up her back after working in a farm field in Seki, Hyogo Prefecture.
Takuo Fukumoto
An old man smiling with his friend, a farmer working in a field, an old lady sitting on an open corridor and a man trying to open the door of a warehouse – they are some of the 95 scarecrows put up in a small mountainous village with 20 residents.
Known as Okuharima Kakashi no Sato (the Scarecrow Village of Okuharima), Seki district in Yasutomi, Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture attracts visitors with humorous stuffed characters in work clothes and straw hats standing here and there in farmyards and farm fields, looking just like human beings.
Masato Okaue, 61, who was born in Seki and now lives in Takarazuka, Hyogo, began creating and setting the scarecrows in 2010 with the help of residents to promote his hometown.
Okaue made the scarecrows so that their facial expressions and postures match the pastoral atmosphere of the village. He used Japanese cedar lumber to build their basic structure, covered them with crumpled newspaper and pieces of cloth, and shaped them using wires. Residents provide clothing for the scarecrows, which are dressed differently according to different seasons.
“When you stroll around the village and you see the scarecrows, you mistake them for villagers for a second,” Okaue said. “That’s what makes them funny.”
(July 28, 2013)