Tauebayashi: planting the rice

The 4th and final post on last weekend's Tauebayashi Matsuri.

The Tauebayashi Matsuri was originally a religious festival. Rice was life, and fertility was the concern of many religions. Nowadays the matsuri is kept alive as a "folk art", but the religious aspect is still vital. The 4 corners of the paddy have gohei in the 4 colors, and in the centre is a sacred tree representing the kami of the rice paddy. Ritual sake has been poured around the tree, and the bottle left as an offering. After prayers, the planting begins.

The planters were originally "saotome", possibly translated as "virgin", but also with elements of fertile maidens. Nowadays the maidens are aged up to 80 years old, and also some young men planted as well.

To the accompanienment of the song and drumming, which is supposed to strengthen the rice but also functions as a worksong, the line of planters gradually move backwards across the paddy planting as they go.

There were actually a couple of saotome in the group.

Finally a short video of the scene.

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Rice Planting!.... the musical!

The third post on the Tauebayashi Matsuri we went to on Sunday. This time a look at the musicians who play the worksong during the rice planting.

This character has no name, though he is wearing a Hyottoko mask. He keeps time for the music with a pair of small "changara", which is the local name for small hand cymbals.

There is a single flute player in the ensemble, and a group of 3 kodaiko players. The kodaiko is carried vertically and only the top is hit.

There is one player of the dora, a kind of bell/gong.

Most of the musicians play the okedo taiko, and it provides the meat of the sound. It is carried horizontally and both heads are struck.

For the first half of the planting the music was performed by the childrens ensemble, playing a smaller okedo taiko.

A short video of the lead singer.

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Faces from a Matsuri

Another series of photos from the rice-planting matsuri we went to yesterday, the Tauebayashi, in Kawahira.

I don't feel very comfortable taking photos of people, so I'm not very good at it, but in the context of a matsuri, where everyone is taking photos, I do try.

The only masks to be seen were on the farmer and his Ox that led the procession and then did a ritual circuit of the rice paddy accompanied by suitable mooing.

This is the lead singer of the musicians. He sings of what a beautiful day it is and how much fun it is to be out in the paddies planting rice. easy enough for him to sing as he is not bent over all day actually planting :)

The matriarchs of the village look on, critically one suspects.

It is supposed to be maidens that do the planting, but there are very few maidens in rural Japan, most having moved to the cities. However there were a couple of young beauties among the mostly middle-aged planters. Most photographers seemed to congregate at their end of the planting line.

For the first half of the planting it was the children who performed the music.

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Rice planting the old way. Tauebayashi Matsuri

Spent a great morning today downriver in the village of Kawahira for the Tauebayashi matsuri.



Tauebayashi is a rice-planting worksong from this region of Japan, and kawahira is one of a handful of villages that still perform it. They performed it at last summers Horanenya Matsuri in Gotsu Honmachi

In this first of four posts, the sequence of photos show the procession to the rice paddy to be planted.

It was a full matsuri, with lots of tasty local food at cheap prices, no crowds, and very friendly people, all attributes of village matsuri's that I enjoy.

I'll post more photos over the next few days.

If your only experience of matsuri has been at some of the big, famous, city-based matsuri's, then you have missed a really wonderful part of Japan.

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Tauebayashi (Rice-planting song & dance)

Yesterday was the Houranenya Matsuri in Gotsu Honmachi, the old town of Gotsu at the mouth of the Gonokawa.

Before the procession started a group from Kawahira, a village between Gotsu and my village, performed a folk dance, the Tauebayashi.

The gentleman with the cool hair-do was leading the dance. His mask appears to be a version of Hiotoko, but may be another character.

Both men and women performed the dance which accompanied rice-planting in earlier times. It's purpose was to strengthen the rice.