Kids Web Japan

On October 14 to 15 every year, the Doburoku Festival is held in Shirakawa-go to give thanks for the autumn harvest. Doburoku is a milky white, unrefined sake made from rice, rice malt, and other ingredients. In Shirakawa it is brewed every January in a storehouse on the grounds of the Shirakawa Hachiman Shrine, where the village's guardian deity is enshrined. During the festival it is handed out to visitors, while lion dances, folksongs, and other types of traditional entertainment are performed and prayers are made to the mountain gods for a bountiful harvest and household safety.

The Doburoku Festival, which dates back more than a thousand years, is one of the most important events on the villagers' annual calendar. Adults and children begin practicing for the folk performances a month before the festival. On the day of the festival, they take part in the procession that circles the village and pass out doburoku at the shrine. The days of the festival are frenzied. At least one person from every family in the village helps out with the preparations and participates in the festival.