Hakata Matsuri
Held from 1 to 15 July in the Hakata district of the city of Fukuoka in Japan, the Hakata Festival is officially named Hakata Yamagasa Gion, linking it to the famous Gion Matsuri in Kyoto. Like that festival, the Hakata Matsuri originated in a purification ritual (goryo-e) performed as a plea to the gods to stop a plague ravaging the city.
Dating back to the mid-thirteenth century, the festival marks the start of summer and has long been the highlight of Fukuoka's festival year. A series of purification rituals and festive processions leads up to the climactic high-speed race (oiyama) of festival floats that takes place at dawn on the final day. Each of the seven festival district committees selects a team of strong, healthy young men, who must then undergo purification and rigorous training. Participants cleanse themselves with sacred sand, receive an auspicious bamboo branch, and offer prayers for safety during the frenzied race. Each group constructs festival floats (yamagasa), which are of two types. Kazariyama are extraordinarily ornate, mountain-shaped floats adorned with dolls, ornaments, and lanterns and displayed around the city during the festival. Kakiyama floats are smaller but are still elaborately decorated with sacred pine branches and dolls representing heroes from legendary and historical tales. The seven kakiyama, each weighing about a ton, are raced through the city streets.
On 12 and 13 July the floats are paraded to Kushida Shrine, where the guardian deity of the city is enshrined. At 4:59 in the morning on 15 July, on the signal of a drumbeat, the first float leaves the Kushida Shrine grounds with the other six following at five-minute intervals. Shouldered by teams of twenty-eight young men in traditional festival dress of loincloths and happi coats (light cotton jackets), the floats speed along the five-kilometer course at a furious pace, while thousands of spectators cheer and splash them with purifying (and cooling) water. Many generations of local men have participated in this grueling contest, and the teams have developed fierce rivalries. The average time taken to cover the course is thirty minutes.
After crossing the finish line, the team members fight among themselves to obtain the best of the decorations to keep as souvenirs and talismans. Stripped down to its base, the float is returned to the Kushida Shrine to await use in the following year's festivities.
Further Reading
Haga Hideo. (1970) Japanese Folk Festivals Illustrated. Trans. by Fanny Mayer. Tokyo: Miura.
Vilhar, Gorazd, and Charlotte Anderson. (1994) Matsuri: World of Japanese Festivals. Tokyo: Shufunotomo.
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