September 24, 2007

• Yamakasa

  

  This is the gate to Kushida Shrine.  A rather interesting festival has taken place here for hundreds of years, in which seven teams of men from the area compete in a race to see which team can carry a portable mikoshi shrine around the city in the shortest time.  It is rather like a sporting event.  I have not seen this yet myself, since I was sitting through a typhoon in Kagoshima on the day of the event, which begins at around five in the morning.

  

  This is one of the portable shrines.  I think that this may be for display and not for racing.

  

  Here is the other side of this decorative mountain of stuff.

  

  Here is the bottom, and you can see the six poles that are used to carry the shrine.  I wonder how much this weighs.  In one of the shrine buildings they had a videotape of this year's race, and it was really amazing.  The first part takes place in the shrine grounds, and the teams see who can carry a shrine around a post the fastest.  Previous best times ran about 37 seconds.  This year was rainy so the times were not as good.  There was also another scene in which a tall, decorative shrine was being carried, and Hub and I gave a gasp as it looked like the thing was going to tip over!

  I am by no means an expert on any of this, but look forward to learning about it next year.  If you want to know more, try googling "Yamakasa."  Below are some YouTube videos of some of this event.  You can see one of the teams carrying their shrine.  These weigh about a ton, they say.

  First, the sprint inside the shrine...

  This is the marathon part.  Watch the team and the shrine go by.  If sumo wrestling uniforms disturb you, don't watch this.  It is traditional festival garb and nothing to worry about.  I could find worse festivals...

  Here comes a shrine again.  Apparently throwing buckets of water on the runners is part of the festivities.  Perhaps it is about ritual purification or something.

  A few more pictures tomorrow -

  • 07:33
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