A dance offered to the mountain god. Hayachine Kagura comes from the foot of Mount Hayachine in Iwate, bound up with the old worship of mountains, and it has continued for more than five hundred years. UNESCO lists it as intangible cultural heritage. Two hamlets keep their own versions—Ohotsuguai and Take—looking up at the same peak but dancing in separate styles that do not mix. The masks are old: demon faces, god faces, wooden masks blackened with soot, passed down and worn in turn across the generations. The dancing is fierce—leaping, spinning, the floor stamped hard, as if to summon the deity. And the mountain is close. Beyond the edge of the stage you can see the ridgeline of Hayachine itself, and the kagura is danced toward it: not for the audience, but for the mountain. Which is why, to an outsider, it keeps a certain distance. And that distance is exactly right.