Kawado Suijin Matsuri. part 1

Most years on May 5th we cross over the river to the Suijin Matsuri in Kawado. This year we went instead to our local Suijin Matsuri in Tanijyugo.

Like all matsuri, the kawado Suijin Matsuri begins with ceremonies in the local shrine.

Earlier in the morning the kids had their own Enko Matsuri.

The priest told me that this is the most important ceremony of the year. Kawado is built in the fork of 2 rivers, the Yato and the Go, and has suffered from devastating floods, most recently 50 years ago, so pacifying the god of the river is important. 2 other priests from villages upriver also take part.

The procession with the mikoshi descends the steps from the shrine on its short journey to the riverbank.

Kawado is not much bigger than Tanijyugo, yet the matsuri here is still well supported by the people of the village, though I hear complaints that every year there are fewer and fewer people.

To the accompaniment of flute and drum the parade heads for the riverbank where the boats wait for the next stage.

In the procession there are a couple of Hanakasboko, a parasol-like object with colorful attachments. I have been unable to find out anything about them, though later this week I'm going to a matsuri that has especially large ones, so maybe I can discover their origin and purpose.

The last 100 meters along the rocky riverbank the mikoshi is put on a trailer and pulled.

October means Matsuri. Matsuri means Kagura. Part 5

After Ichiyama matsuri we stopped in at Kawado, the village just across the river from mine, for the last matsuri of the night.

I've watched hundreds of kagura dances, and yet am still learning something new almost everytime I see a dance. Every village has developed their own variations on the dances and stories, and I suppose I have also become more knowledgable about details.

The last dance we watched was Shoki, a 2 person dance with Shoki and a single demon.

Shoki was a "demon-quelling" Chinese God who has become equated with Susano in Japan. The Susano and Shoki masks are interchangeable, though here at Kawado Shoki did not where a mask at all.

I learned an interesting thing about Kawado's version of Shoki. The person chosen to play Shoki is not set. It is chosen each year by the group depending on whoever has had good fortune that year. Usually that means someone who has gotten married or had a child. This years dancer had recently celebrated the birth of his fourth child.



In this video there is something I hadn't seen before. After the demon has pranced about the stage, Shoki climbs up and starts shaking the tengai over the demon. The tengai is the canopy over the kagura stage, and the kami descend through the paper streamers to possess the dancers.

Children's Matsuri

Today, May 5th, is Children's Day in Japan. In Kawado, the village across the river, it is also the day of the year's most important ceremony and matsuri, the Suijin Matsuri, and in the morning the kids have their own parade.

It begins in the local shrine, where a longer ceremony will take place this afternoon.

The kids are purified and the Kami invited to attend.

The float pulled by the kids has a family of Kappa, or Enko as they are known locally. Soon I will get around to posting the local story about Enko.

The kids taking part are young as the local schools have baseball matches today, and for many young boys baseball is more important.

The birthrate in the countryside is fairly healthy. It's the people of the cities who are having few babies. Hardly surprising.

After the ceremony the lightweight "mikoshi" is carried down to where the float waits and the procession heads off around the village.

Kamimukae: welcoming the gods.

Last week was the childrens kagura festival over the river in Kawado. The video shows a part of the second dance performed at kagura events, the Kamimukae. The first dance, Shiohare purifies the stage area in preparation for the kami, and the kamimukae invites and welcomes the kami to the performance.

Kamimukae is usually danced by 4 dancers, but if the kagura group is small then 2 or even 1 dancer can perform it. Like Shiohare, the dance revolves around the 5 directions (north, south, east, west, and centre) and so indicates the Taoism that is at the heart of much of shinto.

What was nice about this performance was that one of the dancers was a girl, something that is becoming more common, but is still not usual.

Women were forbidden from performing on stage in Japan at around the same time as in England, and Iwami Kagura being a folk tradition in a remote area has been slow to change.

Of course, the mythical originator of kagura was a woman, Uzume, and kagura by miko is also normal.

Kagura season is in full swing!

This is a scene from the Kakko-Kirime dance performed last night at the shrine in Kawado.

In the opening part of the dance an inept priest bumbles and fumbles his way around the stage in an attempt to find the correct spot to place a drum for a sacred ceremony. I saw this dance performed by 2 different dancers last night, and though both dances differed they both stressed the comedic element.

It's October, the rice has been harvested, and until the middle of November it is now Kagura season in the Iwami area. Every village will be holding it's annual matsuri, and here in Iwami that means all night kagura performances. Some places have a Kagura-den, a seperate building like an outdoor stage specifically for kagura, but most places round here perform it in the Haiden, the main hall of the shrine.

Last night we had the choice of 6 different shrines less than ten minutes drive away that were having all-night kagura. If we wanted to drive 20 minutes the number increases to 20 or so. I like to visit different shrines and see how the different groups interpret the dances, and there are still plenty of dances I haven't see yet.

The photo above is the Ichiyama shrine, where we went first. One of my friends is a kagura dancer there, so we've been often, but still I saw a dance that I hadn't seen before. For everyone attending there was also free food... piping hot bowls of oden, uden, and later onigiri.

The next shrine we stopped at was in Kawado. There will usually be a bonfire going all night at the matsuri,... something the kids like to play with and around. This is one of the few nights of the year when kids are allowed to stay up all night, though many crash out at some point only to wake up for the finale at dawn, the Yamata No Orochi dance.

If you've never seen Iwami kagura, then you've missed one of the most exciting of all Japan's traditional performing arts, and if you've never been to an all-night village matsuri, then you haven't experienced what I consider to be one of the defining experiences of life in Japan.