Lantern display decorates autumn shrine rite in mountain village in southwestern Japan

October 29, 2016

Lantern display decorates autumn shrine rite in mountain village in southwestern Japan


The centuries-old Shinto shrine is located in a usually quiet area behind a main street in Toho Village, Fukuoka Prefecture, southwestern Japan, but its autumn rite attracts many worshipers, with thousands of bamboo and paper dedicatory lanterns placed.
The Sentohmyo lanterns, as offerings to the shrine, were set up on an alley near the main gate and on both sides of the stairs leading up to the hall of worship.
The autumn festival at Takagi Shrine, the place where the guardian deity of the village's Koishiwara district is enshrined, features a "kagura" sacred dancing, performed at the old wooden hall of worship.
The Koishiwara kagura dancing was restored by a group of villagers in the 1980s after a hiatus of 80 years. Performed by about 10 kagura dancers, the rite was quietly watched by about 50 spectators for over an hour into the night at this year's festival late in October, as the temperature fell close to 10 degrees centigrade.
The night's rite included 10 programs, led by a performance by a female dancer holding a sakaki branch and a bunch of bells designed to purify the shrine hall and all worshipers who gathered there the day.

Worshipers were impressed by a fantastic atmosphere created with the clusters of bamboo and paper lanterns when they pass by the "gardens of lights" toward the performance stage.
Candles for the dedicatory lanterns were kept lit by members of an organizer group, mainly young villagers.
A young mother, accompanied with her daughter, was seen carefully inserting new small candles into holes of some bamboo lanterns. "We come here from time to time to check the candles about to die,"she said.

Further enlivening the festival
was a drum performance by a group of local children.
The night's performance was played by 14 kids, aged from four to nine and clad in blue happi coats, in front of dozens of people.
The Yamabiko (echoes) drum company has been active for about 20 years, said a man who serves as an instructor.
"Our kids have practiced since the summer holidays to perform at community events and for this shrine festival," the man said.
Toho Village, a largely mountainous region, was born with the merger of Koishiwara and the neighboring district of Hoshuyama in 2005. Koishiwara is famous as a traditional pottery producing area.
The village's population initially came to about 3,000, but it has fallen to around 2,300 this year.
As is the case with many other small municipalities across Japan, the village is doing all it can to keep the population from declining further.
Young villagers were seen happily welcoming worshipers and spectators at the festival site, hoping their endeavor to preserve a series of traditional events will help improve the difficulties facing the village.