Morioka Fall Festival

By now, you know that I love Japanese festivals… the food, the atmosphere, the clothes, the music! The Morioka Fall Festival is no exception. The festival is centered on the Hachimangu shrine, but migrates throughout all of downtown during different parts of the day. I’d love to explain what the point of this 3-day festival is, but all I know is that it is 300 years old, focused on the Hachimangu shrine, and marks the beginning of autumn in Morioka. The first 2 days appear to involve parading mikoshi (portable shrines) and dashi (symbolic floats) through town and on the third day, there is a horseback archery ceremony called yabusame on the shrine grounds. 

the beginning of the parade coming down the street from Hachimangu shrine

 We went to the initial parade of mikoshi (shrines) and dashi (floats) from Hachimangu shrine this afternoon. The parade was so different than anything we have in the US! It began with a taiko (drum) group, then was a mix of horses, groups of musicians led by tekomai girls dressed in male kimonos & wigs, mikoshi, and dashi. 

I have no idea what this costume is, but check out his SHOES!

tekomai girls leading one of the groups

as always, kids are part of the groups (the boys are pulling one of the dashi)

more weird costumes???

The floats are pulled by 50 or so people holding long ropes, although the main work appears to be done by 4 to 6 burly men pushing like ox on a wooden bar on the front of each float. There are several musicians on/in each float. They chant and play flutes or drums, including HUGE drums on the back of the floats. Here are photos of the front and back of 2 of the floats (the brochure shows 9 dashi this year).You can see children drumming just above the lantern on the front of the floats and the 4 drummers on the back of each float.

The shrines are shinto, but are similar to those we’ve seen in Spain. They are elaborate gilded affairs carried on heavy wooden poles.  

Some of the horsemen were carrying their bows and quivers, so presumably they will be part of the yabusame, but I did not take any photos of them. Others looked more like this guy...

Tonight Andy and the SICE students will join a team and carry one of the heavy wooden mikoshi around town. Tomorrow they are pulling one of the dashi! I’m so bummed that I cannot be part of the events, but Catie is not having it :-(  She got a touch of heat exhaustion this afternoon and she needs to rest and rehydrate in our air-conditioned apartment for the rest of the night. Well that, and she really hates crowds. Instead, I’m saving up whatever tolerance she has left in her for the parade tomorrow evening. At 6:00 PM, they will light up all the dashi and pull them down Morioka’s main street. I’m hoping the prospect of seeing daddy pull a float in the parade will keep her interested long enough to catch the SICE group going by. We’ll have to see how she does tomorrow, because I dying to see the yabusame ceremony on Monday!     (expect lots more photos)
 

Catie spent the parade munching on a snow cone while trying to hide from the crowd