Matsuri da! (16): Japanese festivals can be sweetness and light, too!

LOOKING BACK on our recent festival reports, it occurs to me that you could easily come away with the impression that Japanese festivals are a marvelous melee of sex, sake, or some intense competition serving as a substitute for combat.

While a lot of that certainly does go on, it’s not fair to emphasize those aspects while ignoring other, more refined events. To provide a little balance, let’s take a look at the annual Marumage Matsuri held on Wednesday in Himi, Toyama Prefecture.

Dating from the Edo period, which ran from 1600-1868, the Marumage Matsuri features a procession of younger women clad in colorful kimono who parade sweetly through the town to express their wish of finding marital bliss. The female phalanx winds its way through the city’s commercial district and after an hour finishes at Senju-ji, a Buddhist temple that itself dates from 681. There, each woman offers an individual prayer to Kannon, the Buddhist goddess of mercy, to receive the blessings of happiness in matrimony.

The event started out strictly for unmarried geisha, who gathered on their only day off during the year to participate. They had their hair done specifically for the occasion in the marumage style, which was the hairstyle for married women in those days. The word is derived from maru, which means round, and mage, which is a topknot.

Over the years the event gradually died out as the geisha population declined, but it was revived to great popularity in 1987 when the geisha requirement was waived and any single woman could apply to join. Interest grew beyond the city, and young women throughout Toyama Prefecture competed for a spot in the procession, which now numbers about 100. Since then, the rules for participation have been relaxed to allow married women, and this year, seven foreign English teachers were part of the group—at least one of whom was married.

The photos here show the hairstyle itself, as well as the participants in last year’s festival. While this year’s rain dampened the enthusiasm, it also served to add another element of color, as the ladies carried traditional crimson Japanese umbrellas.

There is one concession to modernity, however. Not everyone these days has hair long enough for the marumage, and it would take quite a long time to dress the hair in that style—not to mention the time it takes to put on a kimono—so all the women wear wigs. Even still, they require hairdressers to put in place, and are reportedly quite heavy.

I don’t know how long the link will last, but you can find a filmed report of the festival shown on the local news here. Watch it and see for yourself that not all Japanese festivals are booze-fueled testaments to the power of testosterone!