Unpolished Horn Sting Ray Skin (kairagi)

The meat is often used in food while the skin is used for leather or samegawa.  Our skins are of higher quality than most obtained from China or India.  They have larger naval knots (oyatsubu), more consistent and thicker skin (lower quality skin can be seen through and have holes, inconsistent nodes, discolorations).  These skins have been used to supply well known tsukamakishi in Japan, as well as the USA.

Kairagi is a special type of horn sting ray that is rare and expensive.  The skins have been used throughout history for sword furniture.  There was a point in Japan where wars were scarce and samurai spent their money on lavish sword furniture.  It was noticeably out of control, so the government of Japan banned kairagi.  However, that was many hundreds of years ago, and it is now used for sword furniture again.

It is a very rough, thicker skin than regular samegawa.  There is no prominent oyatsubu (naval knot), but instead larger thorny areas that have NOT been shaved down.