Great Spring Festival at Taikodani Inari Shrine

 

Shunki Taisai translates to "Great Spring Festival," although, as far as I can tell, it is not a very common event.

In May 2011 we went down to Taikodani Inari Shrine in Tsuwano for their Shunki Taisai. As far as I know, they have not held one since.

It was quite a grand affair, with numerous priests, mikos, and representatives of the town dressed in samurai outfits.

I was very surprised to see some of the miko wearing swords.... don't think I have seen that before...

a Himorogi was set up in the shrines open courtyard. A himorogi is an area demarcated with 4 bamboos with shimenawa. It is believed this was the form shrines took in ancient times before they utilized buildings a la Buddhism.

First, the miko purified each other and then the townsmen.

Then it was the turn of the priests....

One of the great things about Tsuwano is that there are never crowds, so events such as this, or the Heron Dance or even Yabusame, you can get close to the action, not view things from a distance at the back of a crowd like at the major tourist destinations...

All the participants lined up and awaited the Guji, head priest.

The Guji arrives under the shade of a ceremonial parasol....

Then all the participants follow in procession and line up inside the himorogi...

Offerings are made and norito are read....

The guji then leads the procession up into the main hall of the shrine where further rituals are held.

later in the afternoon we watched kagura in a building half-way down the hill belwo the shrine...

The previous post in this series on Tsuwano was on the Taikodani Inari Shrine where this festival took place.

if you would like to subscribe by email, just leave your email address in the comments below. It will not be published or made public. I post new content almost every day, and send out an email about twice a month with short descriptions and links to the most recent posts.

Oki Islands Kagura

Oki Islands Kagura

I'm a big fan of kagura, the traditional performing art of japan that is the least well-known. In my area, Iwami in Shimane, kagura is hugely popular,but over the years I have been fortunate to see some different styles of kagura in Izumo, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Oita, and Miyazaki, and, as shown here, on the Oki Islands.

Nowadays normally only performed during the summer festivals, I was able to see a short performance of three dances put on for a group of tourists on Nishinoshima Island, and the style is Dozen Kagura as opposed to Dogo Kagura. One unusual feature of Dozen kagura that differed from all the others I have seen is the involvement of Miko, shrine maidens.

Miko Mai, or the dance of shrine maidens is probably the most common form of what was once kagura, though it is not usually called kagura nowadays.

The second dance was called Sakibarai or Sakiharai. The dancer represents Sarutahiko and the dance is a protective purification dance.

Traditionally Sarutahiko leads matsuri processions, purifying the path as he goes.

The instruments are the same as other types of kagura I have seen except there is no flute here.

The third dance was Kiribe, but unfortunately I know nothing about the character or meaning of the dance.

I don't know much about the technicalities of music, but a source says that here with dozen kagura it switches between 4/4 and 3/4 which is rare in traditional Japanese music but common in traditional Kprean music. Also worth noting is that the space the dancing is performed within is quite small compared to say Iwami Kagura.

The previous post in this series on the Oki Islands was on Uzukamikoto Shrine.

Goods From Japan

Saga Shrine & Matsubara Shrine

Saga Shrine & Matsubara Shrine

With lines of people waiting for their first shrine visit of the year, hatsumode, 5 full days already into the year, it is an indication of how popular Saga Shrine is with local inhabitants. It is also the main venue for Shinto-style weddings, car-blessings etc.

many miko, shrine maidens, were also in evidence. Mostly students hired for the new year period, the shrine's busiest, and most profitable, time of the year, major festivals may also see the hiring of temporary miko.

Saga Shrine is located just north of the moat of the old castle. The shrine is relatively new, founded in the Meiji period and enshrining the last two daimyo of the former Saga Domain, Nabeshima Naomasa and his sone Naohiro. A lot of the last generation of daimyo got themselves enshrined as gods, especially those daimyos who were pro-imperialist like the daimyos of Choshu, Satsuma, and Saga.

Immediately adjacent to Saga Shrine, and in reality not at all separate, is the older Matsubara Shrine, founded a century earlier, and enshrining the ancestors of the Nabeshima and their earlier generations.

Within Matsubara Shrine are many sub-shrines and other points of interest, but on this trip, it was so crowded and I just literally walked through. A few years ago while walking the Kyushu Fudo  Myo  pilgrimage I stopped in and explored more deeply, so will post much more later.

This was the end of my 56yj day walking the Kyushu pilgrimage, and I estimated that I had already walked more than 1500 kilometers, several hundred more than the whole of the Shikoku Ohenro, and I still had more of Saga, all of Nagasaki, and then back into Fukuoka before I would finish. Tomorrow I would head back home and return to Saga in February to continue on....

Miko Mai Rehearsal

While exploring Kagoshima Jingu I watched to miko practising for a ceremony later that night.

Miko Mai, or Miko dance is believed to originate with the dance performed by the goddess Uzume in front od the cave wherein the sun goddess Amaterasu had hidden herself.

It is often sid it is the origin of kagura. I have seen it performed by single miko and by groups of 4 miko, but never by 2.

An earlier post with video of 4 very young girls performing can be found here

The ceiling of the shrine was quite stupendous. The performance of the dance was a little surreal without any musical accompaniment.

Taga Shrine Nogata

Taga Shrine in Nogata is the main shrine of the area and when I visited just before the new year they were getting ready for the influx of visitors in the new year.

It is located on a small hill next to the railway tracks and near the local Coal Museum.

Two large, relatively modern, rather chunky, komainu guard the main path.

Housed inside the main gate are a fine pair of older, wooden komainu, the earlier form that komainu took before the exterior, stone ones that are  now most common.

It is not known for sure when the shrine was founded although it claims to go back to the "Age of the Gods". Certainly, in 717 it existed and was known as Hikaru Daimyojin after the mountain called Hikaruyama.

A couple of decades later it was referred to as Myoken Daimyojin. The more I learn, the greater it seems the Myoken cult was in ancient Japan.

The shrine was destroyed by war several times  and rebuilt and sometimes renamed. In the mid 17th century it was majorly rebuilt and called Myoken Shrine. In the late 17th century it was renamed Taga Shrine.

The main kami of the shrine are Izanagi and Izanami, and the crest is a pair of wagtails as it was by watching a pair of wagtails mating that brother and sister Izanagi and Izanami learnt how to procreate.

I visited on December 28th, day 4 of my first walk around Kyushu, and preparations were underway for the busiest time of the shrine year, New Year.

In one of the rooms in the shrine office many young girls, probably high school or university students, were taking a class for their part time job as shrine maidens for the new year period.

There were many sub shrines within the grounds.

Next stop was the nearby Coal Museum as this was a major coal-producing region of Japan until the mid 20th century