October means Matsuri. Matsuri means Kagura. Part 2

For our next matsuri we headed up into the mountains to Mizuho, near the border with Hiroshima. Sekai Daijingu is a "New Religion", an offshoot of Omottokyo, and the head shrine is here in Iwami.

I don't know a lot about this religion, but one of the priests spent an hour chatting with me and the 2 points he stressed were that the kami worshipped are the "old" kami of Japan, the Sun, Moon, and Earth, and he stressed a disassociation from Shinto which he considered a version of the State Shinto which he linked strongly to the war.

Unlike a usual matsuri, here there were many groups each dancing once. The first up was Miho Kagura Dan, from northern Hiroshima. Hiroshima Kagura developed out of Iwami Kagura, but the costumes are a little different, and for the "good guys" Hiroshima Kagura doesnt use masks but make-up.

The dance they performed was Akko Den, another name for Kurozuka, a famous story taken from the Noh repertoire.

Its a popular dance especially among kids as it involves an evil white fox that devours people.

The dance involves several mask and costume changes as the fox transforms from its human form as a beautiful woman into its true form.



Before the kagura began there was a performance of a Taiko group from Oda.

Princess Yakami

Yakami Hime was a beautiful princess ( as all such princesses must be) in the land of Inaba, now western Tottori. She appears in the old myth The White Rabbit of Inaba.

In Izumo, Okuninushi's 80 brothers, known as the Yasogami, head off to Inaba to try and win the princess's hand. Okuninushi was relegated to baggage carrier for his brothers.

On a beach they discover a sick rabbit, and the yasogami are cruel to it. When Okuninushi arrives he helps the rabbit, and seeing his kindness, Yakami hime falls in love with him.

Eventually Okuninushi marries her, but later dumps her so he can marry one of Susano's daughters.

The photos are from the kagura dance Yasogami, performed here by the Tsuchi Kagura Group at last years Gotsu kagura Festival.

A view of Izumo Dome from the mountain

More pics of the dome here

Yamane Family home.

On Sunday afternoon we were walking along the waterfront at Nagahama on our way back to the van after visiting the sailship Nadezhda. I stopped and took a couple of photos of some nice, old, empty houses. A man in the garden of the house inbetween asked me why I took the photos. I told him I liked these old buildings, and he asked me if I'd like to look inside. I though he meant inside the empty buildings, but what he meant was inside his house.

Mr Yamane is the 18th generation of his family to live here. I didn't think to ask how old the house was, but the beams and some of the floors ( 5cm thick slabs of wood) looked to be at least 200 years old.

The house was filled with family heirlooms, most seemed to be from the Edo Period.

There were 2 huge Kamidana.

Lots of weapons, including this thing that was attached to a 2 metre long pole. Not much up on samurai and such so I doin't know what its called.

There were lots of old dolls, and this lovely pair of statues of Daikoku and Ebisu.

My favorite object though was this miniature set of samurai armor.

On the way out through the covered courtyard between the buildings Yoko remarked that the 2 huge stone sinks reminded her of a sake brewery and Mr. Yamane told us it was a Soy Sauce brewery. That was has the family became wealthy. I mentioned that if his house was in Kyoto it would be open to the public for a hefty entrance fee. He laughed and said "everything in Kyoto is expensive"

I wondered if he had a son that would continue on living in the ancestral home, but I kind of think probably not. His kids probably live in a big city now.

Last years October moon

When I posted about the matsuri at Imada I was reminded of a photo from last years Tanijyugo Matsuri which occurred also on the full moon.

Tallship Nadezhda

The 109 metre sail-training ship NADEZHDA out of Vladivostock is making a courtesy visit to Hamada this weekend.

When we got there on Sunday afternoon they were already almost finished furling the sails,

But there were still lots of crew up in the rigging.

There was a very festive atmosphere with local people putting on kagura and folk songs,

And the crew reciprocating with Russian songs and dancing.

We were allowed to wander around onboard, but weren't allowed below decks.


I spent an afternoon sailing on a similar boat a few decades ago when I lived in Falmouth while it was hosting the Tall Ships Race. Coincidentally that boat was also built at the Gdansk Shipyards in Poland.

October means Matsuri. Matsuri means Kagura.

At least it does in my neck of the woods.

We decided to head to the matsuri at Imada. Imada, like my village, is not a place you pass through on the way to somewhere. It's out of the way, small, and quiet.

It was a nice warm evening, and the full moon shone through the mantles of mist that lay upon the mountains around the shrine.

As soon as we arrived 2 cold beers were pressed into our hands. Later we were given steaming bowls of oden and more beer. I like village matsuri's :)

The atmosphere was nice and relaxed and there was plenty of space in the shrine to seit. Outside local people had octopus balls, yakitori, and oden cooking. Lots of kids running around as this is one of the few nights of the year they get to stay up all night.

We spent a good hour chatting with Mr. Yamanaka, a local councillor and a trove of information on local history. Several times he grovelled on the floor to show just how low in the social hierarchy Imada was. He seemed curiously proud of how the local people were historically the bottom rung of the lowest class. He also was able to fill me in with some details of a local shinwa. He was very interested in reintroducing the old ways of growing rice and food, in symbiotic relationship with animals, wild and domestic.


The kagura was good. Imada plays the older 6-beat style, and Mr. Yamanaka bemoaned the loss of traditions in the newer more popular 8 beat kagura.The group only perform once a year, but played consientiously.


This short video is from the Iwato dance and Uzume is dancing to entice Amaterasu out of the cave.

The Candid Bride

I was in Hiroshima's Shukkeien gardens last spring and a couple were having their wedding photos taken there.

I'm not usually very comfortable taking pictures of people, but it was a public place, and my camera has a decent zoom, so.....

Busy, busy, busy...

Millet hung up to dry.

Been very busy this past month. I don't grow any rice, so I haven't needed to harvest that like everyone else round here. Have been receiving bags of really fresh rice from friends and neighbors though.

I've been busy dealing with the surplus of tomatoes, peppers etc, so been doing a lot of canning.

And now the matsuri season begins. Harvesting mostly done all the village shrines will be having their annual matsuri this month. Tomorrow, saturday, we have eight matsuris going on within a ten minute drive of our place.

Busy, busy, busy......

In the wake of Lafcadio Hearn. Part 3

"Then we advance, picking our way very, very carefully between the stone-towers, toward the mouth of the inner grotto, and reach the statue of Jizo before it. A seated Jizo carven in granite, holding in one hand the mystic jewel by virtue of which all wishes may be fulfilled; in the other his shakujo, or pilgrim's staff. Before him (strange condescension of Shinto faith!) a little torii has been erected, and a pair of gohei! Evidently this gentle divinity has no enemies; at the feet of the lover of children's ghosts, both creeds unite in tender homage."

"I said feet. But this subterranean Jizo has only one foot. The carven lotus on which he reposes has been fractured and broken: two great petals are missing; and the right foot, which must have rested upon one of them, has been knocked off at the ankle. This, I learn upon inquiry, has been done by the waves. In times of great storm the billows rush into the cavern like raging Oni, and sweep all the little stone towers into shingle as they come, and dash the statues against the rocks. But always during the first still night after the tempest the work is reconstructed as before!"

"Hotoke ga shimpai shite: naki-naki tsumi naoshi-masu.' They make mourning, the hotoke; weeping, they pile up the stones again, they rebuild their towers of prayer."

"All about the black mouth of the inner grotto the bone-coloured rock bears some resemblance to a vast pair of yawning jaws. Downward from this sinister portal the cavern-floor slopes into a deeper and darker aperture. And within it, as one's eyes become accustomed to the gloom, a still larger vision of stone towers is disclosed; and beyond them, in a nook of the grotto, three other statues of Jizo smile, each one with a torii before it. Here I have the misfortune to upset first one stone- pile and then another, while trying to proceed. My kurumaya, almost simultaneously, ruins a third. To atone therefore, we must build six new towers, or double the number of those which we have cast down. And while we are thus busied, the boatwoman tells of two fishermen who remained in the cavern through all one night, and heard the humming of the viewless gathering, and sounds of speech, like the speech of children murmuring in multitude."

"Only at night do the shadowy children come to build their little stone- heaps at the feet of Jizo; and it is said that every night the stones are changed. When I ask why they do not work by day, when there is none to see them, I am answered: 'O-Hi-San [2] might see them; the dead exceedingly fear the Lady-Sun.'"

"To the question, 'Why do they come from the sea?' I can get no satisfactory answer. But doubtless in the quaint imagination of this people, as also in that of many another, there lingers still the
primitive idea of some communication, mysterious and awful, between the world of waters and the world of the dead. It is always over the sea, after the Feast of Souls, that the spirits pass murmuring back to their dim realm, in those elfish little ships of straw which are launched for them upon the sixteenth day of the seventh moon. Even when these are launched upon rivers, or when floating lanterns are set adrift upon lakes or canals to light the ghosts upon their way, or when a mother
bereaved drops into some running stream one hundred little prints of Jizo for the sake of her lost darling, the vague idea behind the pious act is that all waters flow to the sea and the sea itself unto the 'Nether-distant Land.'"