One Wise Monkey

One Wise Monkey

A couple of weeks ago I was showing some American visitors around my village and they expressed surprise that monkeys were sometimes a "problem" for us, so, this little video I shot this morning is for them.

Actually the monkeys haven't been down in a month or so, and this has meant we were able to harvest persimmons this year. This morning, however, I heard a noise outside the window and sure enough there was this guy.

I suspect he was a scout. Often I've seen a single adult male come down to the village to check out what's "on" at the buffet. Usually a day later the whole troop will come down.

This guy was no dummy though. He didn't rush back to the troop to make his report, but stuck around half a day and filled his belly with the ripe fruit.

I say "guy", but I didn't get to check out his equipment, so it may have been a she. Seems in japan at least the female monkeys tend to be smarter. It was a female who discovered hot-spring bathing, and it was a female who discovered how to wash food.

See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil

The Three Wise Monkeys, Kikazaru who hears no evil, Mizaru, who sees no evil, & Iwazaru, who speaks no evil.

Behind them thousands of Sarubobo (baby monkey), a kind of amulet shaped like a faceless doll.

At a small temple in Gion, not far from the Yasaka Pagoda.

October means Matsuri. Matsuri means Kagura. Part 8

The eighth matsuri we visited in our October Matsuri marathon was our own village's matsuri. The shrine was packed when we arrived, and stayed packed all night. A large chunk of the audience was composed of young people, especially young women. It seems the Tanijyugo group has grown in popularity and now has many fans from outside the village.

The kids did a great version of Jinrin, and showed the same dedication and professionalism as the rest of the group.

In the Kurozuka dance the leader of the group played the priest. Buddhist priests appear in many of the dances, though nowadays kagura is classified as "shinto", historically it has a lot of buddhist influence, not just in the stories, but in the mandalas that compose much of the dance movements.

The evil kitsune appears first in the form of a beautiful maiden. All the female parts in kagura are played by males, but the hands often give away the gender of the dancer.



At one point the hapless priests assistant climbs up into the tengai and the fox follows and they fight suspended above the floor. This is unique to Tanijyugo group, and a specially strenghtened tengai held up by chains is used.

3 a.m. and the orchestra shows signs of flagging :)

This was the first time I saw our group perform Yasogami, with Okuninushi's 80 brothers represented by 2 fools.



In this part of the dance Okuninushi and his brothers perform a dance that is normally done using swords and when done properly is quite exciting and complex. here though the bumbling brothers make a mess of it.

Typical Japanese Landscape 25

The display of Fall colors begins. Today in my village.

Riverboats & Candy-colored bridge

A couple of traditional wooden riverboats tied up with our infamous blue, pink, and green bridge behind. I recently learned the significance of the colors of the bridge. The blue represents the sky, the pink represents cherry blossoms, and the green represents the mountains. Some more photos here.

The boats are made of Japanese Cedar, and the design has barely changed in over a thousand years. Locally they are called "Takatsubune", to distinguish them from "Kawabune" which are similar but narrower and not flat-bottomed.

There are lots of kawabune used on the river by fishermen, and fibreglass ones are becoming more common. These two Takatsubune are waiting to carry the local kami with attendant priests, musicians, amd villagers, upstream for the most important religious ceremony of the year, the Suijin Matsuri.

Some views of the Gonokawa on a cloudy day in early summer

Behind the dam at Hamahara


From the bridge at Kawamoto


From the bridge at Imbara


The last "horseshoe" bend before home.

Miko-mai, or Miko Kagura

 

 

Today was the matsuri at Tsunozu. Last night was the all night kagura, but I was feeling a bit under the weather so didn't make it, but went there today to catch the mikoshi parade and the Miko mai.

Miko-mai is probably the most common and widely seen form of kagura in Japan, though its rare in my neighborhood. Most of the bigger shrines that have full-time staff and miko will perform it.

Here at Tsunozu the miko are 4 young elementary school girls. First the dance was performed inside the shrine at a ceremony for all the "leaders" of the village and matsuri. Later it was performed outside the shrine for all the assembled villagers.

Tsunozu really takes their matsuri seriously, with all the local kids getting the afternoon off school.

Unfortunately this year, just as the procession was beginning the heavens opened up and we were drenched in a downpour.

Cave of 1000 Buddhas

The Cave of 1,000 Buddhas is another of the "attractions" at Kosan-Ji on Ikuchijima in Hiroshima Prefecture.

One descends into a labyrinth of underground caves and tunnels past a series of tableaux and depictions of buddhist hells.

Then one enters the realm of the buddhas.

The caves and tunnels are all man-made.

One emerges back into the light at the foot of a giant statue of Kannon.

October means Matsuri. Matsuri means Kagura. Part 7

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For our next matsuri we again headed downriver, this time on the opposite bank to Kawahira. The shrine, like most shrines round here, is at the top of a small hill necessitating a climb. From the top of the hill the sound of the matsuri can be heard all over the village down below.

The harvest matsuri is quite small in Kawahira, the village puts much more effort into the Rice Planting Festival (Tauebayashi) . We came here a few years ago for the Omoto kagura, and the villagers were very friendly and welcoming. This time, after we sat down, the village headman came over and put his forehead to the floor and thanked us profusely for visiting his humble village.

The village kagura group is quite small, and the dancers are relatively speaking quite old. The first dance we saw involved quite a "portly" dancer.

Recently several visitors have asked if the swords they use in the dances are real. Well, obviously they are not sharpened, but they are made of steel, and I'm always surprised that with the frenetic swordfights in many dances that no-one gets slashed.

This time an accident happened. One of the dancers hands started gushing blood. Someone ran in and wrapped about 2 meters of sellotape around his hand and the dance continued.

After the dance he was taken to hospital for stitches, and being such a small group the loss of one dancer meant a rejigging of the schedule.

A couple of dances later was "Yorimasa". and the main feature of this dance involves several vicious monkeys playing havoc with the audience. Just before the monkeys entrance I stood up at the back to get a good shot of the monkeys entrance from behind the curtain, and almost jumped out of my skin as one of the monkeys burst in to the shrine from behind me.

The monkeys charge in and out of the audience, stealing food from the audience members, sometimes wrestling with them too.

The main thing they do though is go for the babies and very young children, grabbing them and running away with them. If the child or baby screams in terror the audience, and particularly the mother, are all smiles.

This evening's sunset

As I've mentioned before, where we live is in a narrow valley, so we rarely get to see sunsets, so when we get the chance to see one it's a little special.

Driving home today we pulled in at Kuromatsu around that time.