Month of Little Sleep part 9

Past midnight and the inevitable Iwato was performed. It is one of my least favorite dances, but the last sequence after Amaterasu has been brought out of the cave and the assembled kami celebrate is performed with gusto by 8-beat groups such as Tanijyugo, and it gets quite frenetic with much leaping about.

Then onto Jinrin with the usual spectacular demons entrance.....

Next up was a rare performance of Benkei & Yoshitsune. Benkei, the legendary and archetypal sohei (warrior monk) is waiting on Gojo bridge in Kyoto to challenge the next samurai who passes. he has done this successfully 99 times. A slight, young Yoshitsune comes along.

Yoshitsune had been trained in swordsmanship by a tengu in the mountains north of kyoto, and his acrobatic skill is too much for Benkei who after being defeated becomes Yoshitsunes lifelong loyal vassal.... a very similar story to Robin Hood and Little John....

next dance was Tenjin, the first time I had seen the dance this season. Sugawara Michizane, the hero,, deified as Tenjin, wears a mask uncannily like the Guy Fawkes mask in V for Vendetta, takes on his arch-enemy Fujiwara no Tokihira.

It was 2:30am, still 4 more hours of kagura to go, but I left to grab some sleep as the next day there was an all night Omoto Matsuri up in the mountains and I wanted to stay all night for that....

Sunrise on Sanbe

It was a cold and windy night with lots of rain, sleet, and snow, but with the coming of the sun the wind swept the clouds off the mountain top to reveal the view....

Off to the north Izumo and the mountains north of Izumo taisha were clearly visible...

To the east the valleys were still filled with clouds and mist.... known as unkai in Japanese...

To the west the onshore winds had not yet cleared the clouds away...

Somewhere down in the SW near the horizon was my village..... with the sun the fall colors cloaking the mountain were finally visible....

Sunset on Sanbe

On Thursday I started walking the Iwami 33 Kannon pilgrimage. The second and third temples lie around the base of Mount Sanbe (1126m) so I decided to make the detour and climb to the top as it had been some years since I was up there. I started out in Oda just slightly above sea level and the route took me along the river directly towards Sanbe some 20k distant.

It was a mostly overcast and showery day and I got to the top about 4:30 and off to the west the clouds cracked open to reveal a splash of color....

About 2 minutes later Wes of Hiking in Japan arrived at the top and we took a few photos before the clouds closed and settled on the mountain. 2 minutes after that it started to rain and kept up all night long becoming sleet and snow at times. Fortunately there was a hut to take shelter in....

Aki Nada Island Hopping

The Aki Nada Islands are a chain of islands in the Inland Sea off the coast of Hiroshima Prefecture that run approximately from near Kure to near Takehara. A series of bridges have been constructed that link the islands to each other and to the mainland so now it is possible to drive, cycle, or in my case walk from island to island. The Aki Nada Ohashi bridge connect the mainland to Shimo Kamagari Island.

This bridge connects Shimo Kamagari Island to Kami Kamagari Island. Shimo and kami mean "lower" and "Upper" and refers to which is closer to Kyoto as this was the main transportation route between Kyushu, Western Japan and the old capital.

Kamikamagari connects to Teshima. Not to be confused with another Teshima further east in the Inland Sea off Hyogo. That Teshima has become quite well known as an "Art Island" and when I booked a room at a minshuku on this Teshima they wanted to double-check that I wasnt confusing it with the other Teshima.

Teshima connects to Osaki Shimozima. There is a little bit of fishing on the islands but they are too steep to support agriculture but all the islands now grow a lot of oranges on the steep slopes.

A very short bridge connect Osakishimozima to Tairajima, a small uninhabited island.

Tairajima to Nakanoshima.

And finally, with an almost carbon copy of the previous bridge, Nakanoshima connects to Okamura Island which is in Ehime Prefecture.

The largest of the Aki Nada islands, Osakikamijima, lies to the north and is only accessible by ferry.

The Month of Little Sleep part 8

Last Saturday was the opening night of our villages matsuri and matsuri begins in the evening with ceremonies in the shrine. Most shrines do not have a resident priest, for ceremonies a priest comes in from a nearby shrine, but we do have a resident priest. Few people attended the ceremony:- a few of the kagura group, the village elders, and a handful of others.

Once the ceremony was over the braziers were lit, food began to be cooked, and people started to arrive and take their places in the shrine......

The first dance was the Bell dance, and strangely last week was the first time I remember seeing it for the first time and here it was again. The photo shows clearly how important the hands are in kagura dancing...

Next up was Shioharai, the Purification dance, by two dancers, and if you look at the dancer on the left you can see he is certainly not Japanese. he is an American musician who has been staying with us studying kagura and Omoto. We arranged for him to sit in on the groups practises and they suggested that if he practised he would be able to dance for the matsuri, so with a week of solid practise, extra lessons from one of the young group members, and some help from aneighbor who used to dance the Shioharai he was able to pull it off...

Next up it was the kids turn with Hachiman, and the young lad playing Hachiman was particularly confident and strong....

In fact all four kids did an excellent job so with such strong talent in the younger generation it seems that our villages group will continue indefinetley, unlike some villages who have no kids filling the ranks...

Komainu of Shikoku

Historically komainu, the pair of guardian statues at most shrines and some temples, have gone by various names,... shishi and kara shishi are two common ones. What fascinates me is the incredible diversity of styles which unfortunately is slowly disappearing with the spread of a standard "national" style.

These first two photos are from Oasahiko Shrine near the first temple of the Shikoku Pilgrimage.

This one was at a small unnamed shrine in a village near temple 4.

This one was at the Ichinomiya in Tokushima City

This last one was at a small Hachimangu close to the Hasso Daishi chapel

Akiyoshi Inari

This is one of the most aesthetically pleasing and also unusual torii that I can remember seeing.

It is at the entrance to Akiyoshi Inari Shrine in Mine City, Yamaguchi Prefecture.



It was a very atmospheric shrine located in the forest. Unfortunately there was no signboard and nothing written about it on the net so not much to say.....

The Month of Little Sleep part 7

Last saturday the villages of Matsukawa had their matsuris, so we started out in Tsuchi, home to one of the best kagura groups in the area, and the teachers of our own villages kagura group.

The night opened with a ceremonial dance, Suzu Kagura, bell kagura. I dont remember ever having seen it before, and the two main sources on Iwami Kagura in English dont mention it, but those books were based in Hiroshima and Masuda and so dont know much of the detail of kagura in our area. The name of the bells that are used are kagura suzu.

Next the kids performed Shiobarai, the dance that purifies the space. Like everything the Tsuchi group does it was tight and fast,,,,,

Next up, Iwato, and while I find it one of the less interesting dances a few moments in this performance grabbed my attention, like when Tajikarao did some wild leaps in front of the cave.......

Around midnight we headed down the valley to the Suwa Shrine in the village of Kamikawado,... not so much a village rather a collection of farms strung along a narrow valley. The village doesnt have a kagura group so our villages were performing here...... Iwato, one more time.....

And one more stop on our way home at the shrine in Ichimura where the dance Yamato Takeru was underway. Ive always found this dance strange because it celebrates the defeat of local leaders by the Yamato, kind of like Native Americans or the Welsh celebrating their subjugation. So deeply has the national identity overidden local, tribal identities....

The Month of Little Sleep part 6

After the round of ceremonies at Nakano Omoto Matsuri it was time for more dancing and first up was some very young kids dancing Hachiman.....

Bothe the 2 heroes and the 2 demons were very young kids and they did a really great job...



Next up a couple of older kids danced Shoki...

Then to the other end of the age scale.... an elderly gentleman danced the first part of Yachimata. This was the first time I have seen this dance and the only reference I can find to it says it is danced by Uzume and Sarutahiko. Yachimata is the crossroads between the High Plain of Heaven and Japan and it is here that Ninigi, Amaterasu's grandson, and his entourage meet Sarutahiko on their derscent from heaven to begin their rule of Japan. This old gentleman is obviously not Uzumne, so maybe he is Ninigi.....

The second part of the dance belongs to Sarutahiko....

A break from the theatrical kagura brings us to the Four Swords dance. I have read that originally this dance and Kenmai were once the same dance but then split into 2 separate parts.

The dance increases in tempo and excitement and the audience is well aware when difficult, acrobatic sections have been performed well.....

It was around 2am and there was lots more to come but I was suffering from a bad cold so took my leave early.....