Kaguhana head from a Dandatō staff

The fierce head shown here likely would have been part of a pair, male and female, mounted on a staff held by one of the 10 kings of hell. The 10 kings judged deceased souls, deciding which realm of rebirth they should be born into. A contemporaneous wood sculpture from the collection of the Tōdaiji Temple in Nara shows Taizan Fukun, one of the kings of hell, holding a similar double-headed staff, indicating the popularity of this convention during the Kamakura period.