Ichiyama Hachimangu is a much bigger shrine than the one we just visited over the river in Eno. We come to most matsuris at Ichiyama as a friend, Toshi, dances there.
When we got there they were still dancing Iwato.
Toshi dances the character Ame no Koyane, the mythical ancestor of the Nakatomi. Its quite a hard part to dance as Koyane is an old man so the dancer must move and dance with bent legs all the time.
Toshi danced in the next dance too, which must have been tough as kagura dancing is a hard workout. He played Hachiman's sidekick in the Yumi Hachiman dance.
Around 2 a.m., not long after the demons entrance we headed off to the next matsuri....
Our next matsuri was in Eno, a small village on the Yato River. This was our first time to matsuri here. It's a fairly new shrine, established under the orders/instructions of Omotojin during shamanic possession at Omoto kagura across the river in Ichiyama. Next month there will be Omoto Kagura here.
The matsuri was well attended! After sitting down we were given 2 steaming bowls of wild boar stew, and later warmed Omiki, the sacred sake. :)
The first dance after the ceremonial dances (shinji) was Iwato.
Something I've never seen before in performances of Iwato was that during Uzume's dance the other "kami" joined in playing the intruments.
Playing before the home crowd is always tough as locals are the toughest critics.
The next dance was Yumi Hachiman with the usual spectacular demons entrance. Around midnight we had to leave as there were 2 more matsuris to visit this night.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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