It's Festival Season!

Sunday was a busy day! We went to the Nada Festival which is very famous in this part of Japan. It was basically a more elaborate version of the neighborhood festival we participated in last weekend, except these portable shrines (I’ve learned they’re called yatai, I think) are much heavier, up to two tons. In fact, someone referred to the neighborhood’s festival as a children’s festival. At the Nada festival there were many men wearing fundoshi (loincloths), I guess because carrying that yatai is hot work. We started out with a bento box lunch – containing lots of shrimp and some raw octopus, and some unagi (eel sushi) (I thought of you, Lockett!). After lunch, we were led to the box seats owned by the city (that's Cecy and Trisha waving from our seats). The seats looked out over a large square in front of the shrine. These box seats are used only two days a year, so they’re very expensive. The mayor wandered through greeting people and a reporter came by and interviewed Heather for a newspaper article. The first part of the festivities basically consisted of each neighborhood bringing their yatai into the square. There was a whole ritual involved. Each neighborhood has a color associated with it, so the procession started with large pom-poms on sticks, and a large vertical banner, and sometimes a lion dance (see the lion below). All the men carrying the yatai were wearing a headband the color of their neighborhood and chanting yo-ya-sa. The yatai are so heavy that the men have trouble controlling which direction they’re going. In addition to the men carrying the yatai, there was also a leader clapping some bamboo pieces together to indicate what they should do and four men inside the yatai banging out the rhythm on a drum. This went on for several hours. Occasionally, there would be two yatai in the square at the same time and they would come together and mock fight. We wandered around a bit, checked out the fair food. It seems the love of food on a stick is universal! We noticed octopus dumplings, and cakes in the shape of a fish with red bean paste filling. After all the neighborhoods had made their grand entrance, they came back out of the shrine and paraded around together. There were seven neighborhoods (and yatai) in total, so the square was packed with people. We really enjoyed watching the swaths of colors move through the square. It was incredible the energy and momentum of the yatai. Many times the men on one side faltered and the yatai almost tipped over. On Monday was the real excitement at the Nada festival when they fought with smaller versions of these yatai. One yatai will be destroyed in the battle, and sometimes men are trampled in the excitement.

We left before the Nada festival was completely over because we wanted to visit a second festival at Oshio. This festival was the Lion Dancing Festival. A bit more information about these “lions” – they’re not really lions, particularly considering there have never been in lions in Japan. The mythical creature, a shishi, came from China and is more of a lion-dog. That would explain their sheepdog-like appearance. The costume is made of bear hair (it’s really long bear hair, I’m not sure what species of bear has that long of hair). It is good luck to be kissed by the lion, so we all got that blessing.
This is the story and progression of the lion-dog dance, as explained in the brochure:
1. Shishi (lion-dog) which lived in the dark cave unblessed by the deity goes out amused by the peony flower.
2. An allured shishi goes out and see the world for the first time where all living things flourish vividly and happily, and dance, for the joy of life.
3. Shishi which danced out into the fine and prosperous open space dances for the joy of the deities’ boundless gifts of nature.
4. Shishi which was filled with joy and thanks is in the peak of excitement.
5. Shishi which is violently dancing for joy of thanks is gradually getting tired.
6. Shishi which recovered its strength again rejoices over the Deities’ gifts and ends its dance with gratitude to the heavens.
(The dance appears to end with people tackling the shishi – not sure what this represents.)

Two men get in the costume to perform the dance. At times, there are three men – one on top of the front man’s shoulders. When they move through the crowd performing the dance, there are several men supporting the guy on top. They also switched out men while still dancing – very impressive considering the coordination and timing that took.
Again we were shown the royal treatment. We were admitted into the shrine building to go upstairs to the balcony for great birds-eye views of all the activities. Then we were requested to pose for a photo with Miss Himeji Castle! She, of course, looked lovely, while we were all in jeans and warm jackets! They treated us to another bento box dinner and then we went downstairs to see the action from street level.
Most of my photos didn’t turn out – it was quite dark and the shishi were moving quickly (they’re the large dark fuzzy objects!), but here are a few.