Nebuta
The Nebuta Festival (Aomori, Aomori city)

August 2-7

In the old days in Aomori the farmers believed that a sleep monster afflicted them so that they became tired when doing night-work during the busy mid-summer season. To drive this sleepiness away, they started an event called "nemu-nagashi", which is the origin of "Nebuta". "Nebuta" means sleepy in the Aomori dialect and during the "Nebuta" festival Lantern dolls about 7 m high called "Nebuta" in the form of "samurai" warriors are towed around the town to the accompaniment of Nebuta music. About a hundred "haneto" dancers wearing woven straw hats decorated with flowers jump about and dance energetically in front of the "Nebuta" lantern dolls shouting "Rasse Rasse". The reason why the many "Nebuta" dolls are made to resemble samurai warriors recalls the deeds of a famous general of the latter part of the 8th century, Sakanoue-no-Tamuramaro. Sakanoue constructed figures of samurai in order to divert the attention of his enemies during one of his military campaigns. Another reason is that the lord of "Tsugaru" (an old name for the Aomori prefecture) demonstrated "Nebuta" to please the Great Shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi when he visited this region in 1593.



The Soma Noumaoi
Samurai Horse Racing Festival
(Fukushima, Haramachi city, Soma city, Kashima town, Odaka town)

July 23-25

This festival is held at the three regional shrines of Soma Ota, Soma Nakamura and Soma Kodaka. The festival originated when the Shogun Taira-no-Masakado, who was an ancestor of the Shogun Souma, released wild horses to help to train his Samurai warriors. The first day of the festival begins with a parade of Samurai warriors on horseback. Portable shrines carried by the local people accompany them and together they parade toward the festival stage in Haramachi city. On the following day a horse race of six hundred armed and mounted Samurai warriors raises a thick cloud of dust at the festival horse ground. On the last day, the highlight of the festival is staged when the vivid red, blue and yellow sacred flags of the Myoken shrine are launched together with fireworks into the sky. The mounted Samurai warriors all scramble to capture them. The winner is the one who captures a sacred flag and gallops up the hill to receive a sacred amulet.



The Ougi-sai
Kurokawa-noh Grand Festival
(Yamagata, Higashitagawa, Kushibiki town, Kasuga Shrine)

Februay 1-2

The God of the Kasuga shrine is symbolised by the "Ougi", which is a huge fan made of cloth. Before dawn, the Ougi-sai procession starts out from the Kasuga shrine to visit the residence chosen to be the one from which the festival is to be directed for the year and where a ceremony is to be held on the night. The procession leaders hold lanterns aloft and are followed by ranks of sacred fans. The sacred fans are carried to the center of the house where the festival stage has been constructed. Shinto priests assemble the fans in a radial pattern, which is then covered by a sheet of white cloth. This is called the "Ougi-sama", where the God is to be enshrined for the duration of the festival. When the candles light up the stage, a traditional "noh" dance is performed. This first performance is the "Daichi- fumi (ground stamping)" performed by a small boy. This boy is supposed to be born from the "Ougi-sama" (the huge fan), which means that the New Year has now begun. The Kurokawa area in Kushiki town begins its New Year at this moment on February 1st. Seven "noh" plays are then staged, the performance of which finishes on the morning of the following day. The people then go back to the Kasuga Shrine and perform the "Kurokawa Noh" dance in celebration of their God. This, the final "noh" performance of the festival is more than 500 years old.