Kanzui matsuri

October means matsuri, and matsuri means kagura!! usually by the middle of October I have been to half a dozen all-night matsuris, but this year because Ive been spending a lot of time on Shikoku, when I am back home I have too much work to catch up with so matsuris have had to take a back seat. But last saturday I did go up into the mountains to Kanzui....

kanzui is actually only a few kilometers from my village as the crow flies. there used to be a path connecting the two villages, but it has not been walked for many, many years. By road its about 10 kilometers.

There is no "centre" to kanzui, no shops, its really just a scattering of mountainside farms along a narrow mountain valley. My kind of place.

I arrived about 10pm, and the dancing began a little later. At a usual matsuri the first dance is always a purification dance to purify the dance area in preparation of the kami to descend. usually this dance is the Shioharae, a ceremonial dance done without masks. Here at Kanzui the first dance was Akumabarai, a different type of exorcism/purification dance most commonly performed in the Bitchu area of Western Okayama and eastern Hiroshima.

It is danced by Sarutahiko, and consists of three sections. In the first video he is dancing with Gohei (wand) and fan. The objects carried by the dancers in kagura are called torimono, and traditionally they are objects through which the kami "enter" the dancers.

In the second video he dances with an Onibo, a "demon stick" usually carried by demons.

In the third video he dances with two swords. Ive read that in Bitchu kagura the sword dancing predominates and has developed into a wider variety of styles.

During the Edo period akumabarai would sometimes be danced at the head of a wedding procession to purify the road ahead .

Kuromatsu Matsuri part 2

This is a continuation of an earlier post. The flotilla of boats carrying the mikoshi headed out to the island to pick up the goddess............

 

Nothing much will happen on land for a few hours and we were lucky enough to be invited in to a party......

Once the sun had gone down the lanterns on the beach were lit.....

Eventually the boats came back, and did three circuits of the torii on the little islet just off shore...

Three of the small boats in the conoy were lit in the shape of kanji.....

 

The musicians on the boat carrying the mikoshi and priest keeps up the incessant rhythmn and now the musicians on the beach join in.....

 

Once the boats make it back to land the mikoshi is carried to the beach. First the children carry their mikoshi out of the sacred matsuri area to the local shrine....

later the men start to carry the much heavier mikoshi....... but they never get off the beach..... they go forward, start to stagger from side to side, stop, back up, and try again...... this goes on till the early hours of the morning....

Soreisha Tsuwano

A soreisha is usually a small shrine dedicated to the ancestral spirits of parishioners who have received a shinto rather than buddhist funeral.

Until 1868 shinto funerals were extremely rare, and only really came into existence with the separation of the buddhas and kamis in 1868.

Soresha were usually small and located in the grounds of the local shrines, and sometimes in private homes.

The daimyo of Tsuwano, however, decreed in 1868 that all of his subjects would receive shinto funerals.

From 1886 to 1945, soreisha became illegal within the grounds of regular shrines as they were deemed private and shrines were supposed to be public. Possibly this one in Tsuwano did not as everybody had to have shinto funerals, therefore the soresiha was public.

I have heard that to this day a large percentage of people in Tsuwano still have shinto funberals.

The daimyo of Tsuwano, and several other scholars of National Learning from Tsuwano were instrumental in creating the national policy of shinbutsu bunri as well as the persecution of buddhism. Anti-christian thought was also strong which is probably why "hidden christians" were sent here for "re-education"

Kuromatsu Matsuri

A couple of weekends ago was one of my favorite matsuris at Kuromatsu, a fishing village on the coast not far from here.

I usually experience the matsuri from one of the flotilla of boats that take part, so this year for a change I thought I would see it from the land.

The matsuri takes place on the beach in front of the local shrine....

Around 5 in the evening the mikoshi is brought down to the beach......

It needs to be taken out to a small uninhabited island offshore where the honden of the shrine is located so that the goddess can be transferred into it and brought back to the beach for the matsuri.....

The boat used to carry the mikoshi, priests, and musicians, is a purpose built boat just used for this annual trip.

Once all are onboard the boat joins a flotilla of fishing boats that will escort it out to the island and back....

but first all the boats do three circuits of a small outcropping of rocks a few hundred meters offshore on which have been placed 2 small pine trees with a bamboo crosspiece to for a natural torii...

Then everyone heads out to the island to pick up the goddess....

The second part of this story can be found here...

Washibara Hachimangu

Washibara Hachimangu is a couple of kilometers outside of the town center of Tsuwano, so doesnt get as many visitors, which is a shame as its quite a beautiful shrine, especially in the cherry blossom season.

The thatched gate is very unusual.

The shrine was founded in the 13th century when Tsuwano castle was first built.

The kami, Hachiman, is the god of war and the protective deity of the samurai.

The shrine does get hundreds of visitors in early April when Yabusame, horseback archery, is performed. In the grounds of the shrine are the only remaining yabusame grounds from the kamakura period.

Tsubame Japanese Swallows

The local railways station, (5 trains a day in each direction) is a small wooden structure that is home to a colony of swallows.

From late spring its enjoyable to stand and wait for a train while watching the swallows acrobatically swooping around catching bugs to feed to their young safely ensconced in the numerous nests in the waiting room and under the platform roof.

They may be barn Swallows, Im not sure, but I believe they are not migratory.

I quite like the impresionistic effect that is created by photographing them at a slower shutter speed.

Taikodani Inari Shrine

Its possible to drive up to Taikodani Inari Shrine in Tsuwano, but its better to walk up through the more than 1,000 torii that make a tunnel that switchbacks up the hillside.

The shrine is modelled on the famous Fushimi Inari Shrine near Kyoto, the head shrine of all Inari Shrines in Japan.

It was founded by the local Daimyo Kamei Morisada in 1773 to protect Tsuwano's castle from the NE, the direction of evil. It was a private shrine until the 1870's when the public were first allowed in.

Most of the shrine is of modern concrete construction, but one of the secondary shrines is still made of wood.

There are numerous smaller shrines, all dedicated to different Inaris.

This where we came to the Shunki Taisai Festival earlier this year.

Yasaka Shrine, Tsuwano

The Yasaka shrine in Tsuwano is a branch of the Yasaka Shrine in Gion. Originally known as Mototakimoto Gionsha, it was part of the importation of kyoto culture by the lords of Tsuwano.

Its located on the riverbank below the castle and the Taikodani Inari Shrine. For most of the year it seems to be abandoned and not much goes on there. There is a wonderful huge tree in the grounds though.

The shrine is the home of the Sagimai, the heron dance, and that is when the shrine comes alive and is bedecked...... though the dance is now held a few hundred meters from shrine in the main street of the town

The main kami enshrined here is Susano, though many of his family are also enshrined here. the full list can be found in the post of the original Yasaka Shrine.

Hasumi

Hasumi is a small village up in the mountains south of here towards the border with Hiroshima. There is nothing of note in the area, though the residents obviously feels that fireflies and cherry blossoms are worth putting on their draincovers.

Hasumi has now become part of Onan City, so maybe the draincovers will eventually disappear.

It was up in the area around Hasumi that I began one of my spring bike rides.

The neighboring village of Asuna is home to the kasaboko matsuri that I posted videos of earlier

Maidens planting rice

Here are some more photos of the Tauebayashi festival down in Kawahira last weekend.

Someone asked if in the olden days the saotome, planting maidens, used to be virgins, and I have been unable to find out for sure. I suspect it may have been the case sometimes, but rice-planting rituals varied so much from region to region that it was probably not a universal thing.

Was talking with a friend recently who had just finished planting his rice and he said that according to his father during the Taisho period (1920's) it was the women who planted the rice. The men did the preparation of the paddies. Since the war the rice planting has become mechanized and the men do it mostly, though I often see old ladies out in the paddies afterwards planting on the corners where the machines can get to.

I believe in premodern Japan the whole family would have been involved in the planting.

When I first came to Japan I was told several times that all the old women I saw who walked bent over at 90 degrees were that way because of a lifetime working in the paddies. Like many things I was told it turns out to be a myth. There are millions of old women bent over who have never been in a rice paddy in their lives. It is caused by calcium deficiency. Prewar japanese diet was very poor. High mortality and low longevity were the norm until the postwar period.

Anyway, the matsuri was enjoyable again this year, though I missed the young kids playing the music.

The men, of course, have things to do..... lots of supervising and encouraging the women :)