Menpō (面頬): Samurai War Mask

Menpō (面頬): Samurai War Mask

A detail from the "川中島合戦図" depicting a warrior with a menpō in a battle.

Also known as Mempō (面頬), Mengu (面具), Men Yoroi (面鎧) or Menoshitabō (目の下頬), this particular and very discussed armor piece was a war mask quite iconic and often associated with the Samurai warriors of Japan.
In this article I will describe it, with some sketches of mine and I'll try to address the elephant in the room: was it really used?

Menpō are very mysterious objects; to add further confusions, beside having multiple names, they changed a lot over the ages and this make really hard to trace its usage or development. In any case, they are bounded to the other famous Japanese war mask called hanbō (半頬) which will have a dedicated article in this blog.
In fact, it's quite likely that these mask were modified hanbō, that were fitted with a nose piece in between the 14th and 15th century, the period in which the first (and one of the extremely few) depiction of a menpō appeared. In the early version, the nose piece wasn't removable; however, these masks didn't became common until the 16th century.

Although it's very "blurry", the warrior in the centre with an Oyoroi is wearing a menpō; the depiction is presumably of the 14th century, since the weapons and armors are from the late 13th/early 14th century as well as the style of painting.

The menpō is a metal (and sometimes made of nerigawa - hardened raw hide) mask that covers the face below the cheeks, as the name suggest it, and it is fitted with a nose (hana - 鼻), which is often removable through some pins or hinges; there is an open space for the mouth and a hole called ase-nagashi no ana (汗流しの穴) under the chin to let out sweat and condensation.

The ears were generally covered and had small holes for hearing, and in some masks the protections is extended to enclose the occiput zone, although this feature is very rare.

The side view of a very rare menpō with an additional metal plates to encase the head behind.

For tying the kabuto no o (兜の緒)), the cords of the helmet (which is the main feature of a Japanese war mask) tightly around the mask, it was mostly equipped with so-called odayori (緒便り) at the chin and with orekugi (折釘) at the cheeks, two types of prolonged anchor hooks. At some masks, the orikugi hook was replaced by a metal ring or by a narrow metal plate, the tachi-yoke (太刀除), which was used to stop incoming threats to the side of the face.
The mask could also be decorated with mustaches and various embossing; more of this below in this article.

A very approximate sketch of mine with the most important nomenclature of menpō parts.

The mask is often fitted with a Tare (垂), also known as Yodarekake (涎懸), of various rows of laced kozane (lamellar), plates, kikko brigandine or of mail sewn to a backing, that protects the neck. 

The Tare can either be connected directly to the mask or via a kōmori-zuke (蝙蝠付け) which is a leather band.  Sometimes, instead of a simple Tare, a Guruwa (曲輪), which fully enclose the neck, was used to increase the protection of the neck. 

Sometime the tare was directly attached to the breastplate instead of the mask, but this is an extremely rare feature.

A detail taken from 長谷堂合戦図屏風.

Was it used on the battlefield?

In recent times, the hypothesis of these mask being only ceremonial objects rather than being functional pieces of armor was advanced. This theory has various points, some of which are quite valid. I'm going to list them and I'll write my point of view on the subject.
This theory however, has a premise: everyone agrees that hanbō were used on the battlefield, since we have various sources confirming it.
So here goes the theory:

• Menpō cannot properly defend your face: if hit by an edged weapons or a percussive ones, the force could be transmitted to the whole face by the mask itself since it is very close to the head.
• They are usually very big for the face to fit properly: most of these menpō hardly fit the face of modern men, so it's very likely that they didn't fit back then.
• The nose piece restrict the ability to see, talk and breath: when fighting those are very valuable features you want to preserve as much as possible, hence why the nose piece was removable.
• There very few pre-Edo period depictions of Samurai using menpō: and even in the Edo period, there aren't a lot of paintings with Samurai using them. Someone has also claimed (erroneously) that they were never depicted wearing menpō at all, but this is simply not true since we have depictions of warriors using them.

Now, these points, as much as solid they might seem, have some flaws and problems that make easily "debunkable" the theory.

1) The first point is quite easy to address; although is true that blunt force trauma could actually be a serious problem with this type of mask, it is also true for hanbō masks, and yet we know that they were used according to depictions inside emakimono and literary sources. So it's quite nonsensical to claim that hanbō were used while menpō weren't even if they had the potential same problem.

2) While it's true that these Japanese war masks (hanbō included to some extent) were quite big for the face, this fact might be explained by the presence of padding layers; some hanbō are fitted with an internal layer of padded clothes, to reduce the impact of edged and percussive weapons; this could also be a very optimal solution to the problem discussed above.

3) It is also true that the nose piece restrict to some extent breathing, seeing and talking abilities; however, not as much as it is often portrayed. A nose piece is a very small area, which won't be a big hindrance; it could be removed, which turns the menpō into a hanbō, and for a little bit of restrictions, you are going to save your nose and the centre of your face to be cut or damaged. At the end of the day, is really a matter of preference and trade offs that our modern mind might not be able to fully understand.

4) Lastly, I would say that there are very few depictions of 15th and 16th century Samurai in general. This is the real problem here. The most famous, like the Osaka siege screen or the Sekigahara battle screen, were made in the early Edo period and often follow rules of iconography that doesn't necessarily represent the reality of the events. Some warriors are depicted with 11th century armors, and in some battles there are no guns at all, which seems to be unrealistic for the time period.
So if we are going to accept Edo period artworks, due to the lack of period depictions, we see menpō being used; some of those depictions are found in this article, but there are even more. However, I have always found this point quite weak; art in general, when studying the material culture of the past, shouldn't be taken as valid as modern day pictures.

Honda Tadakatsu depicted with a menpō in the "長篠合戦図屏風".

In addition to that, there are few small evidences that menpō were used on the battlefield.
In the history of Otani Yoshitsugu on several records it is said that he wore a full menpō, to cover his face. Then there is the aforementioned depiction of a Samurai wearing a menpō and they are depicted with early 14th century arms and armors, as well as several others later depictions.

Portrait of Satake Yoshinobu with a menpō and a full set of tosei gusoku armor.

There are also several menpō of the late Muromachi and Momoyama period that survived until nowadays, some of them with a kuruwa neck guard, which is something really practical and functional.In addition to that there are several reasons why a warrior would want to have a full mask: further protection, personal preferences, psychological war ( to intimidate and to hide the warrior's true emotions) and to tying the helmet cords. It is also worth mentioning that several war masks were used all over the world, by the Romans, the Cumans, the Tibetans warriors and even the Chinese and the Mongols.

So if I had to take a position, I'll say that there is no reason to believe that menpō weren't used on the battlefield, but instead, it is very likely that these masks saw some battle use.

A detail taken from "長谷堂合戦図屏風", which has a good number of warriors depicted wearing menpō.

While there are some valid points on both opinions, I think that Sakakibara Kozan in his masterpiece, "The Manufacture of Armour and Helmets in 16th Century Japan" got the point by writing this:

"(...) hence the introduction of the half-mask affording protection to the nose and lower part of the face only; moustaches were added to enhance the imposing appearance of the warrior. But the obstruction to the breathing, the smallness of the angle of vision and the difficulty of looking down at the feet as well as of speaking in a loud voice, led to the making of the nose-piece separate so that it could be taken off when the wearer was not in action."

With this description, we could see that the nose piece had a very similar role to the visors in European helmet, with a less restriction/protection impact, and the author suggests to remove it when not in action, which imply using it while fighting.

Styles and decorations 

The earliest styles of menpō were quite plain and pragmatic; it was until the mid 16th century that we start to see a proper aesthetic development in line with the kawari kabuto tradition that was very common among wealthy Samurai.
There are several styles of menpō, each of them with a proper name that is often used interchangeably by collectors and antique sellers; this fact add further confusion to the study of armor masks; anyway, I'm going to list them and explain their features to clear some of that confusion.

Some of this style are fairly common, others are quite rare, but they indefinitely add a unique appearance to the wearer.

The most iconic and famous design is the resseibō (烈勢頬), the fierce war mask which depict an angry man with several wrinkles on the cheeks and mustaches or beard and it is one of the most common style.
Another very common design is the ryūbubō (隆武頬) which represent a brave man and is a more gentle version of the ressei one, often without mustaches or bears and no wrinkles but a smooth surface on the cheeks and chin.
Even more gentle there is the oiebō (御家頬) which is hairless and usually has a very subtle tapering towards the chin and a bulbous nose; this style is also very common too.

From left to right, a ryūbubō, a oiebō and a  resseibō; these are sketches of mine so they are extremely approximate (after all I'm not an artist!)

Among the less common styles we can find the bijobō (美女頬) with more feminine features, the emibō (笑頬) with a laughing expression (also called daikokubō, 大黒頬), the ubahoho or ubabō (姥頬) which represent the face of an old woman, or its counterpart the okinabō (翁頬) which represents an old man.
Also in use were masks representing the fierce deity Fudō-Myōō (Fudōbō, 不動頬) at which the upper and lower row of teeth does not match or tengu masks (tengubō, 天狗頬) with a long pointy nose or a beak.
Variant of the tengu mask were the so-called tobibō (鳶頬,“black kite mask”) which represents a karasu-tengu (烏天狗, crow tengu) with a pointy beak or the Garuda mask (karuramen, 迦楼羅面) which represents the man-bird deity of the Hindu-Buddhist myths.

Again some sketches of mine to illustrate some of these minor styles; from top left to bottom right:  bijobō, emibō, ubabō, okinabō, fudōbō and a tengubō.

The surface of the mask could be further decorated with leather covering, fur covering or rasha (羅紗) covering. They can also be decorated with sabiji, sabiji with yasurime (鑢目), with iron cut-out applications, lacquered or with maki-e.The sabiji finish was chosen because it enhances the look of the forged iron but it was also used to hide damages, forging or other faults, like a fire damage.
To further embellish the appearance of these masks, various styles of ears, noses and facial hairs were adopted; the latter where often made horse hair of a bay or a roan, bear, boar or yak hair.
It is easy to understand that, with all of these decorative features, some of these masks were used as a form of heraldry; they were fixed to a pole with ha helmet, used as type flag on the battlefield.
It would be impossible to describe all the various combinations but for those who would love to explore more of this fascinating world, the book Mei Kinoe Zukan - 名甲図鑑 has several pages about menpō and hanbō models that could be seen in the link above.


After this long reading I hope that the role, style and function of these war masks is a little bit more clear.
I hope that you have liked this article; if so, please consider sharing it, and for any questions feel free to post a comment below!

Gunbai