S P O T ／ SPOT-287

Matagi Museum (Hall of the Bear Hunters)

マタギ資料館またぎしりょうかん

Deep in the Ani mountains of northern Akita, where the snow piles meters high in winter, a small museum guards the memory of the Matagi—the traditional bear hunters of Tohoku. Attached to the Uttou Onsen 'Matagi no Yu' hot-spring inn, it lays out the gear of a vanishing livelihood: long hunting guns, broad mountain knives, the woven straw capes called kera, and trapping tools, arranged around a diorama where a full-sized taxidermy black bear rears up mid-encounter. The Matagi were never ordinary hunters. They moved through the forest in disciplined bands, spoke a secret 'mountain language' forbidden in the lowlands, worshipped the mountain deity with strict ritual, and lived by codes that demanded every scrap of a killed animal be used. The Ani Matagi were famous as tabi-matagi—itinerant hunters who carried their craft across Tohoku and into Hokkaido. Today the museum pairs its displays with reservation-only experiences—hunting-lore storytelling, guided mountain walks, and a bowl of bear hot-pot—so a culture that is slipping out of living memory can still be seen, heard, and tasted.