Matsuri da! (83): The iron chefs live!

LONG-TIME FRIENDS know that the Japanese can transform almost any behavior into an act of reverence at a Shinto festival, and here’s yet another example: Slicing and serving sushi.

The Sushikiri Festival (literally sushi-cutting) is held every 5 May at the Shimoniikawa Shinto shrine in Moriyama, Shiga, in supplication for a good harvest, health, and protection from disaster. It is now a national intangible cultural folk treasure.

Rather than professional sushi chefs, the slicing is done by two young men clad in traditional haori (half-coat) and hakama (divided skirt), as you can see in the photo. They use 20-centimeter-long metal chopsticks to hold the fish with their left hands while they carefully cut the fish with exaggerated motions using a 40-centimeter-long knife held in their right hands. (It is unusual to see metal chopsticks in Japan; most are wooden. The metal variety are more frequently seen in Korea.)

The fish on the menu every year is the funa, of which there are several varieties, none of which has a familiar English name (though many of them end in “carp”). The sushi is first cut for and served to the head priest of the shrine and the chairman of the local citizens’ association. In fact, they’re sitting in formal Japanese style directly across from the two men, though they’re not shown in the photo. (Try the second photo here to see them.) The fish is later distributed to the parishioners who’ve come to participate.

And this funa is not just the run-of-the-mill sushi; this treat has been fermented for three or four years before it’s served. The process originally came from China and has been used in Japan for about 1,000 years. The fermentation creates an odor that many people find unappetizing, but the dish has become a noted product of Shiga. (You can read more about it here and here. Those with a scientific turn of mind might find this to be of interest.)
　
The official story is that the festival, formally known as the Omi-no-Kenketo Festival (the sushi cutting is just one part of it) originated when funazushi was given to a divinity who drifted ashore to the banks of Lake Biwa on a raft 1,300 years ago.

But there are other stories too. Shimoniikawa is one of the six shrines in the country with Toyokiirihiko-no-Mikoto, the eldest son of the Sujin Tenno (emperor), as the enshrined deity. Some versions have it that the food was originally served to Toyokiirihiko, which would make the event closer to 2,000 years old.

Suijin is supposed to have been the 10th Tenno, but no one is sure that he actually existed. His reign years are given as 97 BC to 30 BC, which Japanese historians think is implausibly early. (His recorded life span of 119 years is just as implausible.) Accounts in the Nihon Shoki ascribe some of the same exploits to both the legendary first emperor Jimmu and to Suijin, which lead some to believe that the deeds of a Sujin who might have existed were attributed to Jimmu.

Incidentally, the Shimoniikawa shrine was in the news in March this year when it was confirmed that a Buddhist temple bell found in the storage area for the shrine’s mikoshi in May 2007 is the oldest example of a bell with both Japanese and Korean designs discovered in the country.

Cast in 1419, it is the sixth bell of this type to have ever turned up in Japan. Shown in the second photo, it is 40.6 centimeters tall, 23.9 centimeters wide, and weighs 11.2 kilograms. Reports say that it was used in the “Buddhist temple hall”, which suggests the shrine was once a joint Shinto-Buddhist facility of the kind that no longer exist, though that wasn’t explicitly stated. The Japanese decorations are the dragon heads at the top of the bell, while the Korean motifs are the plant and flower designs on the rest of the bell.

And that just goes to show: There’s no telling what you’re liable to stumble over when you start poking around in a storeroom in Japan!

Matsuri da! (82): The shrine gates are burning!

TORII ARE STYLIZED GATES standing on the path that leads to the main hall of a Shinto shrine. They both mark the sacred space and serve as symbols of the shrine itself. Where there’s a torii, there’s always a shrine nearby.

The reverse of that axiom is not always true, however. There are a few shrines that don’t have torii, and two are in Matsumoto, Nagano. The parishioners don’t mind, however—there’s a good reason for their absence, and they make up for it in a big way once every year.

About 60 of these parishioners conducted the traditional Toriibi, or torii fire, in Matsumoto for three nights starting on 16 April. They placed pine torches on the side of a mountain in the eastern edge of the Shimauchi district to create the outlines of the shrine gate.

The event is held by those two shrines without torii in supplication for a bountiful harvest and household safety. Both shrines have major festivals starting on the 19th, so the Toriibi also includes the symbolism of welcoming the divinity.

The group members have their work cut out for them. The mountain rises at a 40º angle, so navigating the slope to create the roughly 60-meter-square pattern can be tricky. At 8:00 in the evening, the group of men spread out on the mountainside. After a seashell is blown to signal the start of the event, the men lift their torches and let out a loud “Oooh” to summon the divinities. They also set fires in the pattern of the kanji for 大 (large) and 一 (the number one).

The origin of this custom dates back more than 500 years, to the Warring States period that began in 1467 and lasted for about a century. Sometime in that period, members of the Ogasawara family built and defended a castle immediately to the south. This era is called the Warring States period because of the internal conflict that occurred throughout the country between local feudal lords and the military governors appointed by the Muromachi shoguns.

During one of the battles, an insurgent army attacked the castle from the northeast. As part of their attack, they set fires to besiege the castle walls and used a wind out of the north to accelerate it. The castle caught on fire and threatened the defenders. This fire eventually spread to the nearby torii, consuming one part of it in flame. When the torii fell, the wind suddenly shifted to the opposite direction, whipping up the fire and sending it toward the invading army. The castle defenders employed this stroke of luck to their advantage and routed the invaders. They believed that divine intervention caused the wind to shift and chose not to rebuild the torii. Since then, the residents’ creation of a torii out of burning pine torches is considered an act of reverence toward the divinities.

Well, that’s one explanation. Another is that people will seize on any excuse to make huge bonfires at night and have a party!

Matsuri da! (81): Marching to a different drummer

THERE MUST BE SOMETHING ABOUT THE WATER in Shiga that gets the folks there excited about taiko drums. Two weeks ago, immense taiko were the centerpiece of two festivals in the prefecture.

The first was the Hachiman Festival, held at the Himure Hachiman-gu (a Shinto shrine) in Omihachiman, Shiga, on the 15th last month. The main event of this nationally selected intangible cultural property is the Taiko Festival, in which the parishioners pound on a large taiko drum as they carry it to the shrine. That’s no easy task, as the drum, which has been decorated on the exterior with rope, is nearly two meters in diameter. The participants gather near the shrine before passing through the torii in a predetermined order.

Once inside, they have a grand old time parading around the shrine grounds, pounding the drum, chanting “Dokkoi sah no se” at the top of their lungs, and hoisting the taiko in the air over and over again in front of the main hall.

People who’ve witnessed the event say their body vibrates every time the drum is struck, and the spectators give a rousing cheer every time the drum is raised in the air.

Hey, there’s nothing like throbbing drumbeats to get the blood racing and rouse the primal impulses!

Incidentally, the site on which that shrine is located has been used for Shinto worship since at least 131. Yes, there’s only three digits in that year!

On the same day, the Taiko Tozan, or Taiko Mountain Ascent, is held at the Inamura Shinto shrine in Hikone in the same prefecture. In this festival the participants charge up the side of a steep mountain carrying a large taiko drum.

This traditional event is held to ask the divinities for a good harvest, and has been conducted continuously since the latter part of the Edo period (which ended in 1868). Parishioners from nine districts surrounding the shrine start by coming to the facility to dedicate the drum.

The drum itself weighs 1.5 tons. What do they do with it? This is a Japanese festival, so of course they do something breathtakingly difficult. The people from each of the districts take turns hauling it from the torii at the base of the slope up to the shrine itself about 430 meters away. This is no easy task, as there are outcroppings of rock, the mountain path is steep, and the differential between dips and rises on the plane of the path is as much as 60 meters. Those who take on the task of carrying that motherbruiser up the side of a mountain reportedly approach it with the typical Japanese masculine élan. They don happi coats, put their shoulders into it, and chant “Oisa oisa!” all the way up the mountain.

Of course it helps that more than a few of them are university students who, like all their brethren around the world, are up for any physical challenge as long as it involves free grog at the end!

To give you an idea of the sheer variety of festival events that occur every day throughout the country, by the way, take a look at the two photos on this Japanese-language page. That’s what they do in Omihachiman on April 14th, the day before the first taiko festival described here!

Matsuri da! (80): It’s good to be growled at!

THE SHISHI-MAI, or Lion Dance, is commonly performed at Japanese festivals today in more than 9,000 forms. According to this excellent site on the right sidebar describing (and selling) Japanese Buddhist statuary:

(It) is performed while wearing the headdress or various masks. Shishi masks take on many forms, some with horns, others looking like a dog, a deer, or a lion. This dance was probably introduced to Japan by or before the 8th century owing to frequent Japanese missions to China’s Tang Court during the 7th-8th centuries AD. Shishi-mai dances became widespread in Japan thereafter as both a form of festival entertainment and as a means to ward off evil spirits, to pray for peace, bountiful harvests, and good health.

The Nirami Shishi-mai is thought to be a forerunner of the Shishi-mai, and is still performed in Takaoka, Toyama. KBS TV filed this report of its performance on the 18th. Jump on it–who knows how long the link will last?

Here’s what the announcer is saying, translated into English.

The Nirami Shishi-mai, said to be roughly 700 years old and the original form of the Shishi-mai (Lion Dance), was offered at the Keta Shinto Shrine in Fukushiki Ichinomiya, Takaoka, on the 18th.

The Nirami Shishi, which originated roughly 700 years ago at the Keta Shinto Shrine in Takaoka (Toyama) and is characterized by relaxed movements, is a homespun version of the Shishi-mai. The participants wear simple costumes and there is no appearance of the Tengu to tease the lion.

That’s why it’s thought to be the original form of the Shishi-mai, and has been designated an intangible cultural folk treasure of Takaoka.

During the festival, the Nirami Shishi dance is offered in front of the main hall of the shrine after the lion leads the mikoshi (portable shrine) around the shrine grounds. The lion, which is more than seven meters long, then performs the old and unique ritual.

Legend has it that being glared at by the lion will drive away evil. The onlookers were thus overwhelmed by the powerful impact of the lion as they offered their prayers.

For a look behind the scenes, here’s a YouTube video showing two men practicing the dance without costume.

Matsuri da: Repeat play city!

FREQUENT POSTER KEN sends along a note about the Takayama Festival in Gifu:

One of said 3 most beautiful festivals in Japan has begun as follows.

There was an Ampontan post about that same festival last year at this time. You can see the report with links to other photos and more information here.

Matsuri da! (79): The elegance of autumn

ELEGANCE SEEMS TO HAVE BECOME the theme for cultural posts this week, which reminded me that I still had a couple of stories I wasn’t able to fit in before. Better late than never!

The first involves a samurai parade from a Shinto shrine to a Buddhist temple under a canopy of fall foliage. That was the 18th Sekigan-ji Autumn Leaves Festival at the Sekigan-ji, a Buddhist temple noted for its attractive fall colors, in Tamba, Hyogo. (Here’s a nice photo of the temple itself.)

The participants were recreating an event from the early part of the 14th century. Ashikaga Takauji, the first Muromachi shogun, and his son Yoshiakira took refuge in this temple after suffering a defeat in battle. Here’s a good summary of Takauji’s career, during which he fought to restore the direct rule of the tenno (emperor), and then changed his mind two years later and backed another guy instead. This was, if I’m not mistaken, the last gasp for direct Imperial rule in Japan.

The parade was led by two people on horseback in the roles of Takauji and Yoshiakira. Following them were 50 people dressed as samurai and warrior priests. The two men and their retinue walked the three kilometers from the Hiyoshi Shinto shrine to the temple.

The scene of men wearing 14th century armor walking underneath a tunnel of autumn leaves surely delighted more than a few photographers and spectators.

Meanwhile, the Kumano Nachi shrine in Nachikatsuura-cho, Wakayama, held its own autumn leaves festival on 14 November. The shrine’s chief priest and about 20 parishioners dressed up in Heian period garb and gathered at the Mongaku falls downstream from the larger Nachi falls. They also recreated a historical scene involving the Chrysanthemum Throne, but this was more literary in tone than martial.

The group set afloat on the Nachi River some leaflets containing waka, or Japanese poetry, creating an autumnal tableau with the colors on the river surface echoing those of the trees.

This custom originated when the Kazan tenno abdicated the throne after ruling from 984-986 and became a Buddhist monk. Kazan, who is thought to have been mentally unstable, was conducting ascetic practices on Mt. Nachi when he was moved by the autumn leaves. This inspired him to write some waka, which he then collected and wafted onto the river.

Is that not an aesthetically overwhelming image?

A final ineffable sigh…before I go off in search of a good old-fashioned mikoshi wrecker for the next matsuri report!

Note: Be sure to click on the link for the Kumano Nachi shrine!

Henporai and his photos

HENPORAI is involved with the production of a Japanese-language website on festivals that I sometimes visit. He also has a blog that he uses mostly for photographs of smaller festivals and other events and scenes that he finds interesting.

I can recommend the blog even to those who can’t read Japanese, because the photos are excellent. Most of the photo blogs I’ve seen have been created to show off the artwork of the photographer. The photos here might not be of the type that are exhibited in galleries, but Henporai has an excellent eye and his pictures are always worth a look. I especially recommend it to people who want to see what Japan looks like outside of the big cities.

The main page for the site is here.

Matsuri da! (77): How low can you go?

Don’t move that limbo bar
You’ll be a limbo star
How low can you go?
- Limbo Rock (Jon Sheldon, William E. “Billy” Strange)

HOW’S THIS for a bright idea? Religious institutions where they encourage people to have some playground fun!

That seems to be the motivation for the Shinto shrines in Japan which have what are called mini-torii. The torii is the distinctive shrine gateway, and it serves as both the marker of the sacred space and as a symbol for the shrine itself. It’s usually erected near the start of the path leading to the main hall.

But just because something’s sacred doesn’t mean it can’t be used for amusement. One example is shown in the first photo, which is a scene from the Flower Festival at the Awashima shrine in Unzen, Nagasaki. (You might remember that Unzen was the location of some severe volcano eruptions in the early 1990s.)

In addition to the regular torii at the front of the premises, the Awashima shrine has three mini-torii. It’s a festival custom for women to try to crawl through these gateways. Successfully squeezing through all three is said to bring several benefits, such as safe childbirth, the rearing of healthful children, and a happy marriage. (Perhaps I should rearrange the order of those benefits!)

The torii are made of stone and have inner dimensions of 33 centimeters, 30 centimeters, and 27 centimeters. The women pass through the largest one first and then go on to the smaller ones in succession, which is supposed to represent the process of childbirth.

Meanwhile, the Awashima shrine in Uto, Kumamoto (this Awashima is written with different kanji), bills itself as having the number one mini-torii in Japan, as you can see from its Japanese-language website.

They also have three mini-torii that people crawl through, though all three have 30-centimeter-square openings.

Since mini-torii are the shrine’s specialty, the parents in the district asked the authorities to create some special ones so their kids could crawl through in the hope of helping them pass school entrance examinations. That’s how the shrine’s chief priest came up with the idea for the one he’s modeling in the photo. The shrine has assembled it during the testing period during the past two years, and this year it was left up until March 31.

The pencils are 60 centimeters high and have a diameter of 10 centimeters. The inner opening is also 30 centimeters square. Pencils usually have six sides, but the priest must have been divinely inspired to make these with five. The word for passing a test in Japanese is gokaku, with a slightly elongated o sound. Make the o sound shorter, and the word can mean “five angles”.

It might not be so easy for some women—or bigger students—to pass through those torii, but it’s got to be easier than a camel passing through the eye of a needle on the way to heaven!

Matsuri da! (76): Hoi! Hoi! It’s a hanami and matsuri both!

SOME FOLKS ARE CULTURAL PURISTS: for them, the value of traditions lies in maintaining them in the same form year in and year out. But that overlooks the many traditions that are born as hybrids to create something that isn’t inherently pure to start with. The Japanese, whose traditions are older and more diverse than most, often merrily mix and match from their vast cultural storehouse to come up with all sorts of marvelous creations.

One of those marvelous creations is the Minamisanno-sai, the spring festival held every 4 April at the Hie Shinto shrine in Hino-cho, Shiga. The sheer variety of events that are the centerpiece of Shinto festivals in Japan are a testament to the human imagination, and the Minamisanno-sai is no exception. What makes this festival unique?

A hanami, or a party while viewing cherry-blossoms! This time of year, friends and relatives throughout the country gather in public parks or private plots, large or small, day or night, to enjoy their favorite food and drink while sitting under cherry trees in full bloom. If it seems that a hanami is the type of pastime that would have appealed to the aristocracy centuries ago, then your cultural antennae are sensitive indeed. These elegant spring picnics were popular with the nobility during the Heian period (794-1185). Several centuries later, during the Edo period (1603-1867), the amusement spread to the public at large.

It was at that time that the common folk in Hino-cho came up with the idea to combine the pleasant diversion of a hanami, which has no religious significance whatsoever, with a Shinto festival. During the festival, the flowering cherries are symbolically offered to the divinities in supplication for a bountiful harvest. But how can entire trees become a religious offering every year?

They aren’t uprooted and transplanted because the trees are man-made. Each of the 22 districts served by the shrine makes a tree by attaching pink and white paper flowers to four-meter-long bamboo branches, called hoi, which are attached to five-meter-high bamboo poles. These representations of trees are then erected on the shrine grounds.

The paper and bamboo cherries are called Hoi Nobori, which has to be an intentional play on the term koi nobori, or carp streamers, the large tubular pennants resembling carp that will be hung next month to commemorate Boys’ Day on 5 May.

As you can see in the photo, cherry trees in bloom in the spring provide a good excuse for Japanese to camp underneath and start eating and drinking, whether the flowers are real or not. This year, there were about 400 happy campers in Hie-cho. Lucky for them that wasn’t a paper sun in a crayon blue sky!

Try this page for some more excellent photos of the event. It’s in Japanese, but don’t let that stop you from paying them a visit—the pictures do the talking.

Matsuri da! (75): Putting a happy face on Sado

IF ANY PLACE IN JAPAN is star-crossed, it just might be Sado Island. The country’s sixth largest island, located 22 miles from Niigata, Sado became the Japanese equivalent of Siberia during the Heian Period (794-1192). It was there the rulers in the Kyoto capital exiled political troublemakers, as well as poets, Buddhist monks, and even one Tenno (emperor).

The poet Hozumi no Asomioyu was the first to receive this punishment, finding himself on the slow boat to the island in 722 after criticizing the Tenno.

Rank did not have its privileges, however. One member of the Imperial house wound up on the short end of the Sado stick himself: Juntoku Tenno was dispatched to Sado after helping his father, the nominally retired Go-Toba Tenno, in an attempt to overthrow the Kamakura Shogunate during the Jokyu Disturbance of 1221. He lived there for 21 years, writing poetry criticism and the Kimpisho, a work on court ceremonial procedures. (His father, also a poetry lover, was sent to a different island.)

The last exile of a troublemaker to Sado occurred in 1700, almost 1,000 years after the first. But that was a century after gold had been discovered, which brought a different class of undesirables to the territory. The discovery did not create a gold rush for prospectors and prostitutes; the gold here was the property of the Tokugawa Shogunate, and the people doing the digging and sifting were convicted criminals and the homeless. They were ill-treated drones in de facto slavery, and being sent to toil in the Shogun’s mines was another form of permanent exile.

When people weren’t being brought to Sado against their will, they were being taken away by force. Soga Hitomi was 19 years old when she and her mother were abducted by North Korean agents and taken to that country for a life of involuntary exile and teaching in the Japanese language and cultural education program it had set up for spies. That tells you all you need to know about the country’s desperate living conditions: the Japanese just have to overpay for underqualified foreigners to work as teaching assistants in their school system. Pyeongyang had to kidnap them.

It was in North Korea that Ms. Soga met and married Charles Jenkins, a deserter from the American army. They and their two children were eventually allowed to leave, and Mr. Jenkins finished serving out his time by spending a month in the brig. Now they’re all back in Sado—home for Soga Hitomi, exile of a more amenable sort for Mr. Jenkins.

This unpleasant history notwithstanding, the islanders enjoy themselves as much as any Japanese during their traditional festivals. One was held earlier this year at the Kobiei Shinto shrine. Called the Ta’asobi, or Playing in the Rice Paddy, it might be more accurate to describe it as the annual reenactment of a comic sketch based on the hardships of agricultural work. Many similar festivals are held throughout Japan before planting season arrives.

In the Sado City event, a mock rice paddy is set up in front of the shrine’s main hall. A small group of men mime the tasks carried out during the year, starting with the preparation of the paddy and ending with the planting of rice.

Their labors are complicated by the appearance of several other men impersonating moles and magpies, whose roles call for them to literally act their part and disrupt the men at work. They go so far as to paint the faces of the hapless farmers black, as you can see from the photo, and tie them to trees with ropes.

The festival is offered as a form of supplication for a good harvest in the fall. The zanier the moles and magpies behave, the louder the spectators cheer, and the better that year’s crop will be. The event originated about 160 years ago—life had become easier without the threat of exile or working in the mines—but was discontinued in the mid-1920s. The local residents (Sadomites?) restored it about 25 years ago.

Considering the history of the island, the best part of the festival might be that after the actors are untied from the trees, everyone is free to go home.