Aki Matsuri

 

I think one of the most associated aspects of the word matsuri is all the food booths and game areas. But one of the greater more massive features of it, is the giant elaborate wooden carts that weigh 4 tons and are mobilized by the shear force of man. Here at the Wakayaman town of Aki, matsuri that is no different.

These wooden carts are called mikoshi and it is believed that the gods temporarily reside in them while they are transported around a city or to new shrines that will serve as their home. These are often seen as portable shrines and are sacred. Every year lots of money is used to furnish and decorate the mikoshi. Since they are so elaborate and so much time and thousands of dollars goes into making them, they get a lot of use out of them; they are used year to year, for possibly up to 20 years or until they acquire enough money to build a new one. You may wonder what happens to some of the decor that falls off in the stunts that they do, they simply pick up the pieces and glue them right back on for the next years festival.

Here in Wakayama you may notice a few rather similar aspects about the three mikoshi here, They all have a heavy golden rope that weighs a fair amount and costs just as much mantled around the cart, called shimenawa, as well as the folded spirit paper called shide.

Up on the cart are the leaders yelling encouragements and waving their fans.

During the matsuri these carts are carried by dozens of men and women, who are decked out in the uniform of their team. The leaders sport fans and towels and support the runners, yelling 'Soyra!' as a chant of encouragement. Occasionally seen at these festivals is the hitting of the runners with these fans. At first I thought this was friendly brutality, but later learned it is an act called 'charging'.

Here are boys and girls decked out in their teams uniform.

White pants, white cloth shoes and a type of (usually) black jacket with their team image.

Girls often do up their hair in cornrows for the event.

At this Wakayama matsuri, the three carts on display at the time run in a small, tight circle dragging the cart to the crowds enjoyment. After an uncertain amount of times or laps they break and ready themselves for the big important event of the festival. They have to drag their 4-5 ton cart up a set of 5 stairs into the shrine center. This is no easy task.They have their long line of runners ready themselves with half of them already up the stairs in order to get the leverage needed to propel the cart up them. It is the task of all three carts to accomplish this. What happens if they fail? Well I don't know!

Here is a picture of the shrine and the sand bags that 

they put before the first step to give them leverage on the way up.

Once up the slope the carts put on a sort of 'dance' if you will, rocking their cart back and forth with a person in the back pounding a rhythm on the drum. After each finally make it, they go out in a bang, producing their banners, popping streamers, and finally go into a sort of boisterous revelry. They drink sake, Japanese holy water, and proceed to anoint their mikoshi with the sake as well as the crowd. Then they proceed to gift the crowd with mochi, or rice cakes, which are thought to bring good luck in health if obtained.

Other notable areas around the celebration are the stalls. Food stalls. Game stalls. Sweet stalls. Fish stalls. All sorts of things can be found here. And rather go into detail describing them all I will just give you the photos for you to make of it what you will!