Tsunami-Hit Survivors in Iwaki Hoping to Revive Old Song as Symbol for Fresh Start (1)
March 8, 2012
Iwaki City, located in the southeastern part of Fukushima Prefecture, has long, beautiful coastlines facing the Pacific. But towns and villages on the coasts were extensively damaged by the tsunami waves, which claimed hundreds of lives in the region alone. These communities are largely fishing villages. Survivors lost not only family members and friends but they also had their boats washed away. Most survivors live at temporary housing units built in areas away from the sea. Takahiro Yamana, a Shinto priest, while seeing their hardship, hoped to do something to encourage them and help rebuild the local community.
He joined a bus tour along with tsunami survivors in November to attend an event held in Tokyo to encourage people in the affected regions. On their way back to Iwaki, Yamana heard a group of women talking in the bus about an old song long inherited in the community. Then, an idea hit the man. Yamana started thinking about the possibility of reviving the song, the Song of God Anba-sama. He made up his mind to restore the song, because his shrine, Ohkunitama Shrine of Suganami, Iwaki City, has had strong ties with fishing villages in the area. He has presided over an annual Shinto ritual in which a “mikoshi” portable shrine, shouldered by a group of local fishermen, is driven into the sea to be purified.
The Song of God Anba-sama, the god who promises a good catch and happiness, used to be heard in a children-led New Year’s festival in the seaside community, but it had ceased to be sung about half a century ago. Some elderly people still could sing the song, but their songs differed from person to person. Yamana, the 70-year-old chief priest of Ohkunitama Shrine, had difficulty restoring the original style of the song. He had to look for a person who can properly sing the whole of the song. But he finally found Toyono Suzuki, an 85-year-old woman of Usuiso, a fishing village in the community.
After that, days started for people who had agreed to cooperate in reviving the song and related traditions to be taught by the woman how to sing the song.
March 8, 2012
Iwaki City, located in the southeastern part of Fukushima Prefecture, has long, beautiful coastlines facing the Pacific. But towns and villages on the coasts were extensively damaged by the tsunami waves, which claimed hundreds of lives in the region alone. These communities are largely fishing villages. Survivors lost not only family members and friends but they also had their boats washed away. Most survivors live at temporary housing units built in areas away from the sea. Takahiro Yamana, a Shinto priest, while seeing their hardship, hoped to do something to encourage them and help rebuild the local community.
He joined a bus tour along with tsunami survivors in November to attend an event held in Tokyo to encourage people in the affected regions. On their way back to Iwaki, Yamana heard a group of women talking in the bus about an old song long inherited in the community. Then, an idea hit the man. Yamana started thinking about the possibility of reviving the song, the Song of God Anba-sama. He made up his mind to restore the song, because his shrine, Ohkunitama Shrine of Suganami, Iwaki City, has had strong ties with fishing villages in the area. He has presided over an annual Shinto ritual in which a “mikoshi” portable shrine, shouldered by a group of local fishermen, is driven into the sea to be purified.
The Song of God Anba-sama, the god who promises a good catch and happiness, used to be heard in a children-led New Year’s festival in the seaside community, but it had ceased to be sung about half a century ago. Some elderly people still could sing the song, but their songs differed from person to person. Yamana, the 70-year-old chief priest of Ohkunitama Shrine, had difficulty restoring the original style of the song. He had to look for a person who can properly sing the whole of the song. But he finally found Toyono Suzuki, an 85-year-old woman of Usuiso, a fishing village in the community.
After that, days started for people who had agreed to cooperate in reviving the song and related traditions to be taught by the woman how to sing the song.
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