Nagahama Hikiyama Festival, UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage

 Today I'd like to introduce "Nagahama Hikiyama Festival",  UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Its historical explanation will take a while, so to put it simply, it has a history of over 400 years and was registered as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2016.

Nagahama Hikiyama Festival is counted as one of the three major float festivals in Japan, alongside Gion Festival in Kyoto and Takayama Matsuri in Gifu Prefecture.

This year, the festival was held from April 13th to 16th in Nagahama City, Shiga Prefecture. The main attraction of the Nagahama Hikiyama Festival is the ''Children's Kabuki'' performed on floats with luxuriously decorated stages. Each of four groups has performed its classical Kabuki 4 times in April 15th and in tatal 10 times in the entire schedule.

I will show the events according to the timeline.

Every year, four floats out of the total 12 floats participate in the festival in turn. On April 14th, participants towed a float with thick ropes out of its warehouse and marched in a parade in central Nagahama City. It takes a lot of effort to turn around a float at the intersection.

During the parade in central Nagahama, Children's Kabuki is performed one or two times on the way to Nagahama Hachiman Shrine, today's destination. The length of the performance is about 50 minutes.

Children's Kabuki is played by the students of local elementary schools from 6 to 12 years old.  They have been practicing hard until today since March.

By the way, Kabuki has been played by only male actors. Therefore, female roles are also played by male actors. The same goes for children's kabuki.

Finally, four floats starting from each warehouse have gathered at the Nagahama Hachiman shrine in the evening.

Side view of the floats lined up in the shrine in the evening. It's an eve of the festival.

Then at 7 pm, Children's Kabuki performers with supporting staffs are just about to return back from the shrine to the crossroad near the Hikiyama Museum.

By the way, usually we can’t see the real floats other than the period when Hikiyama Festival is held. But in the Hikiyama Museum, we can always see the real Hikiyama floats that are displayed in turn on a two-month rotation. And also, we can take a look at the many decorative items that symbolize historical Japanese culture from the Edo period. The Museum is closed every Monday. 

Next day,  in the early morning on April 15th, they are waiting for the arrival of Children's Kabuki performers and other supporting staffs. 

At 8 am, Kabuki actors wearing costumes with the supporting staffs marched along approach way of the shrine in a long line and finally entered inside the shrine. After arrival, Children's Kabuki started on the float. Four Kabuki were performed in turn until 1 pm.

Actually, I saw Mr. Hideki Takahashi, one of the most famous actor in Japan watching the Kabuki from a special box seat. I was surprised to see him closely. He is a celebrity I had only seen on TV.

I think it's difficult for me to explain the plot of Kabuki even after reading the summary described in the distributed brochure. By the way, the "girl" on the right is an eccentric woman who pointed a kaburaya (arrow with a whistle attached) to her head in order to keep her god's oath to never have a man in her life.

After the performance at the shrine, each float started to move toward Otabisho (final destination of the floats). Otabisho is the shrine office and about one km away from the shrine. Children's Kabuki was also performed two more times on the way. 

The float has passed even through the narrow shopping arcade. The float is carefully towed in order to avoid crashing against the arcade.

This is a rough sketch of the route of the floats.

After arriving at the Otabisho, they showed the final Kabuki perfomance.  Finally, four floats gathered in line again in front of Otabisho in the evening. But this is not the end of the festival. The important religious ritual will begin inside the shrine office, Otabisho.

After the ritual in Otabisho, they carried out the glittering Mikosi (a portable shrine) on their shoulders. I'm sorry for the blurry photo.

After that, they towed each float with thick ropes and returned back toward its storage warehouse.


It has ended smoothly.　Excellent work!