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Aizu

Matsuri
(Festivals)

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Japan is a country of festivals, or even the country of festivals It is one of the fascinating and beautiful characteristics of Japan and one of the things that I enjoyed most when I was living there. It seams every little town, village, subsection has a number of it's own so called matsuri spread all year round. As being a fairly traditional area in the Aizu region people from a very young to a very old age are getting involved in it and I think it is one of those things that have a very integrating effect on the society. How things work in the other places I do know not, because I never really saw a festival there, but I imagine it works similar.
Festivals come in all kinds of shades and forms with the most common one probably involving an omikoshi (portable shrine) being carried around. Other festivals center around fireworks, parades in historical costumes, horse races or even almost naked man running through the snow and climbing afterwards a rope of a temple bell ( the latter one I will describe later).

As I said festivals with omikoshi are very common, even the small subdivision I lived in had it's own. Once I was invited to part take in the festival and it was a lot of fun (somewhere I should have some pictures, but I can't find them at the moment). As far as I know the omikoshi represents a god and by carrying it around the neighbourhoods are asking for divine protection, a good harvest, good business etc. At the beginning of such a festival the shrines and the bearers are blessed by shinto priests, sake and/or beer is distributed for good strength and the procession gets on it's way. The shrine is not carried around in a way that could be considered solemn, quite to the contrary it gets thrown up into the air constantly only to land on the shoulders of the carriers again which shout Yoi-Sho while doing so. To make sure that the procession has enough vigour "animators" frequently stand on the shrine's handles and spur the bearers on to an even more energetic behaviour. After the shrine reached it's final destination everyone is going over to the relaxed part of the festival with drink and food. These festivals are a very god opportunity to meet Japanese which are often on such an occasion in very good cheer and relaxed.

The second kind of matsuri I want to describe are a special sort of winter festival. They don't include a portable shrine but man only wearing a loin cloth running through the snow. In Yan-Aizu's temple they added a special twist which supposingly is unique in Japan. The participants run into the temple which is packed with spectators and try to climb the bell rope. The man are organised in teams as far as I understand but I could quite make out why or with what consequences. Fact is, when someone jumps on the rope and tries to climb it others try to stop him by shaking the rope or pulling at him. The only exception is if a young boy tries (or is forced by his father) to climb the rope. As usual with such a festival the age span ranges from very young to very old. So if a young boy is on the rope everyone is trying to help him by pushing him up from below or pulling him up from the top. I once saw how one man shook the rope while a kid was climbing it and everyone got really mad, he was lucky not to get beaten up. Not all participants climb or even try to climb, for many it is just a fun affair. But if you make it to the top it is supposed to bring good luck for the coming year.

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This page is part of the Colorful Fish
by Ralph Wittkopp

For more Pictures please on Matsuri please click here!