Shakōkidogū

by Rachel Polus

The shakōki dogū are Japanese figurines dating back to the Jōmon era. Dogū are made of clay and range from 3 cm to 40 cm tall. They were created in the Jōmon period, which spanned from approximately 11,000 to 400 B.C. There are multiple types of dogū, but pseudoarchaeological beliefs center around the shakōki dogū, or "goggle eye" type.

Artifact

Shakōki dogū were only produced in the final period of the Jōmon era, from approximately 1,000 to 300 B.C. They are most commonly recovered from multipurpose sites with storage, dwellings, and burials, and most of the figures are found discarded in refuse. Many figures feature exaggerated hips and breasts, sometimes with swollen abdomens. For this reason, researchers believe that they are made to represent female forms and fertility, but religion in the Jōmon era was likely highly variable between regions and time periods, so it has also been suggested that interpreting all dogū in the context of fertility may be imprudent.

Context

The Jōmon people are believed to have been hunter-gatherers, though some evidence for small-scale plant cultivation exists.

At least 10,630 dogū were documented by 1991, but the shakōki dogū type is relatively rare. There are a few other types of dogū that were produced in the same era, though the types produced in each time period within the era were slightly different. These include the pregnant woman type, the heart shaped type, and the horned owl type. Each have distinct body characteristics.

It is believed that the dogū had a personal ritual significance, as no evidence has been found of public ritual use. Figurines are often found broken with an arm or a leg commonly missing. Because of the frequency with which they are discovered broken, it is believed that breaking the dogū may have been part of a ritual.

Pseudoarchaeology

Deconstruction

Von Daniken's response to the shakōki dogū demonstrates a key theme in much of his work: the principle of the inkblot test. In an inkblot, the viewer describes what they see in a pseudo-random pattern. Von Däniken is a major proponent of the belief in ancient aliens and their intervention in human history, so he is predisposed to see a space traveler in artifacts that have strong and well-understood contextual background. The shakōki dogū are not the only artifact that has been subjected to a similar treatment by von Däniken, but it provides an excellent illustration of the habit in the pseudoarchaeological community to take one type of artifact out of a series of similar artifacts, decontextualize said artifact, and use it to support the notion that early humans were visited by aliens or that early humans were capable of space travel.

Additionally, most of von Däniken's argument stems from the head of the figurines bearing resemblance to a space helmet. However, it has been shown that the head is not the most important characteristic in human representation. In fact, the torso is the most important feature in representing a human, not the face. Early dogū do not have any facial features, but detailed torsos. As the Jōmon era progressed, arms, legs, and facial features were added to the figures. Therefore, because the head does not bear as much significance in the dogū, so artistic liberty could be taken with facial features.

The large eyes are interpreted in a modern sense as snow goggles, a stretched membrane applied to a frame. However, in the geographic region in which shakōki dogū are found, such goggles would probably not be needed. Instead, they might be interpreted simply as exaggerated eyes, with eyes being connected directly to the soul.