Matsuri magic

The video I posted a few days ago probably seems bizarre and unexplicable to many of you, but let me just say that the happenings on film are completely normal behaviour during a Japanese matsuri (festival)! Festival-hopping is one of the joys of summer here, and every city, town and village have their own unique version. As crowds are not really my thing I jumped at the chance to check out a tiny matsuri in the village of Kusano, held last Saturday. Yasuko's friend Ikumi grew up there and invited us over for the day, which made two of my wishes come true: visit inaka (countryside) and finally enter a bona-fide Japanese home. Both the village and the hospitality of Ikumi and her mum far exceeded my expectations, with Kusano having an amazing old-style feel to it (complete with traditonal houses and gorgeous mountain scenery) and Ikumi's mother producing a food feast I'm still dreaming about :-).

Ikumi & Yasuko at the start of our food extravaganza (the yakitori were followed by pumpkin soup, home-made tempura, fried eel, eggplant in miso sauce, fish eggs, garden salad, rice, peaches & watermelon!)

Around 7pm we walked over to the town center to witness the matsuri parade, held to pray for a successful harvest and in praise of the deity Susanoh-no-mikoto. According to Ikumi most residents of the village were either participating or watching, yet there were only about 200 people there. I absolutely loved the proximity to the locals and definitely prefer this smaller scale to more famous events frequented by thousands of people. Being the only foreigner there I did get a lot of stares of course, but that came as no surprise! The whole evening was absolutely magical to me and would without a doubt be one of the highlights of my first year in this country. Vaughan was unfortunately unable to come because of a bad cold but I hope we can share similar experiences next summer :-).

The mikoshi (portable shrine) got carried around the streets by men in loincloths and at certain times they stopped so people could offer some money and walk underneath it (this brings good luck). We did it too, wait and see if I got blessed sufficiently...

This scene can be watched on the video I shot and is a frantic struggle between the guardians of the deity and two Shishimai (lions) who try to stall progress to the final destination, the Shinto shrine. Most of these men had consumed a decent amount of alcohol and got really into the action!

Once at the shrine we were confronted by two demon figures, Dagomen, who succeeded in frightening children (and me!) with their large bamboo sticks and scary masks. The paper in their hair is considered a charm against evil so we did our best to grab some. Turns out the guy in the mask was Ikumi's 24-year-old neighbour, not so scary after all...