Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I explore the conch trumpet in Japanese mountain asceticism and its contemporary significance

Paper long abstract:

The signature possession of a serious Japanese mountain ascetic is the hora gai or conch trumpet. It usually hangs from the neck by a bright red rope or is cradled, like an infant, in the right arm while the ascetic ascends upon the mountain for their austerities. In centuries past, ascetics would have had to purchase their conch from fishermen or shell distributors near the coast, then craft them into playable trumpets, but these days the hora gai can be ordered online through shops that buy them in wholesale from tropical countries in the Asia Pacific. When a skilled ascetic puts the hora gai to their lips and blows, it generates a piercing tone that rebounds off the surrounding mountain range as if it were a natural amphitheater. The various melodies of the hora gai are sounded by ascetics to mark transitional points in their pilgrimage and rituals, but it also serves as a visible sign of cultural capital between modern ascetics. In this paper, I consider how the hora gai, a millennium old religious instrument, is played with 21st century sentiments. I argue that as a musical relic of pre-industrial religiosity it symbolizes for nostalgic and eco-minded ascetics of the present, the sound of a "new return," to an imagined harmony with the earth that was lost in the wake of modernity.