At the beginning of July, I was able to participate again in my town's annual Abare Matsuri, or Rage Festival for the second time.
This festival is one of my favorite parts of Japan, and certainly my favorite annual event in all of the country. The local townspeople, unsurprisingly, tend to also harbor a similar love for this town event. In particular, my Judo coach (who lives in the town where this festival is held) and his family are famously matsuri ningen (festival people) to their very core.
After counting down 364 days since the last Abare, I began my amazing weekend similarly to last year. After working a half day, I took off after lunch to go to my coach's house where I would spend the whole weekend. After arriving at their home, I sat down to receive blessed sake and have a drink with my coach and the neighbors who trickled in and out for a quick visit.
Finally the time came for everyone to dress up in traditional festival clothes and join the teams carrying around the heavy kiriko (huge lanterns that light the streets for the gods). This year I wore a tightly wrapped white cloth around my body with a neighborhood hapi coat over it. According to everyone, I looked really native! My get up made me even more excited to heave the kiriko and run around.
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| My coach and I |
As tradition dictates, the main event of Friday night is when all forty-three kiriko teams line up at the wharf and take turns sprinting around three forty foot tall burning torches.
I was on the side next to the fire this year, so it was definitely exciting and memorable! But I did get a small burn on my arm and at some point that weekend a small burn on the side of my face. That one was so tiny that it was hardly noticeable and quickly healed! When I showed the little arm burn to my coach's wife she laughed and said that I had officially become one of the family!
Late on the second night of the festival, the select group of men (including my coach and his sons) that are on the mikoshi (portable shrine) teams prepared for the parading and destruction they would do in veneration of the god that night. I faithfully followed the team the rest of the night, watching their moves and feeling the energy from the determination and passion they poured into their difficult task.
After throwing the mikoshi around on the streets, hitting and dragging it, dunking it into two rivers and dragging it through a bonfire, the men finally reached the shrine where they offered up their work to the god, in hope of another year of prosperity for the town.
Although the mikoshi run had ended around one in the morning, the neighborhood teams had to persevere a few more hours until they carried their heavy lanterns back to their homes.
It is almost surreal to look around at the haggard faces of the diligent kiriko carriers at the end of the second day of kiriko carrying. Although they are exhausted and in pain, they never quit! On one hand I can see how people would wonder why they choose to be in so much pain, but on the other hand I completely get it! As my coach's wife has been saying for the past year I am a "Matsuri ningen," or an Ushitsu person in my heart. And it's true, the Ushitsu festivals certainly strike a chord in my adventurous heart.
Many times people told me to enjoy this year's Matsuri to the fullest since it will be my last, but it didn't feel like my last. I am without a doubt that someday I will participate in Abare again.
Be sure to check out my story of 2014 Abare Matsuri too!
