Author: John D. (Page 136 of 202)

Today was one of the important pre-events of the Gion Matsuri, when the mikoshi arai (purification of the kami’s palanquin) took place. Basically the mikoshi of Yasaka Shrine (aka Gion sha), which is the host shrine of the Gion Festival, is taken from the shrine down to Shijo Bridge where it is purified by water from the Kamogamo River.

This was the first time I’ve seen the event, and I guess there were some three to four hundred people thronging the bridge awaiting the arrival of the mikoshi.  I’d heard it would arrive at 7.30 though it was more like 8.00 by the time it came.  A small procession of men in white yukata led the mikoshi, and their chanting was just about drowned out by a phalanx of policemen yelling simultaneously at people to keep back because it was ‘taihen abunai (terribly dangerous).  In fact the only danger was that the police were letting buses pass through, even as a religious ceremony was being carried out on the bridge.

One of the three Yasaka Jinja mikoshi, spiritual heart of the Gion Festival. The three deities honoured are Susanoo no mikoto, his wife and their children.

Men with large taimatsu torches accompanied the procession, which would stop occasionally while those carrying the mikoshi would give it a vigorous jostle.  It reminded me of a passage in Donald Richie about the kami being like little children who enjoy being shaken and thrown around like babies in the arms of their parents.  I’d presume that it’s the Shinto love of vitality that lies behind the jostling.

The mikoshi was on Shijo Bridge for about fifteen minutes while there was some kind of ceremony and it was washed with water from the river below, but unfortunately I was on the wrong side of the bridge to see what was going on.  Presumably in days gone past, the mikoshi would have been taken down to the river itself.  (It was on the dry river bed here that kabuki first developed, when a miko dancer from Izumo called Okuni performed theatre skits in ‘crazy’ kabuki fashion.)

‘Mawase, mawase,’ I could hear the chant at one point, when they wanted the mikoshi to be turned around so it could head back to Yasaka Jinja, where a Noh play was going to be performed.  It was a brief but important event that serves as a reminder that we’re only five days away from the Yoiyama evenings of open houses and yukata crowds – something to look forward to in the humid Kyoto heat!

(Today being the 10th is also the day when work starts on assembling the hoko and yama floats, which will be displayed during the evenings of the 15th and 16th before the parade on the 17th.)

As we come up towards the main events in the Gion Festival on July 15-17, we’ll be hearing more about the figure at the centre of proceedings – the young boys known as chigo.  What are these mysterious white-faced boys representing exactly?

The best information I’ve found on the subject is on Gabi Greve’s extensive Daruma Museum website, from which the extracts below are taken.

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A white horse-riding chigo

Chigo, small children 稚児.   Originally, the word means babies who are still nursing 乳子(ちご.

They are also the children who perform certain duties in a temple, nowadays mostly dancing and taking part in a parade.

In former times also a name for the boys who served in temples and at the mansions of the royalty and lords.

chigo 稚児 catamite
young boys as sexual partners for men

In Japan young children are regarded as “other worldly” and not fully anchored in human life. Fetuses are still referred to as kami no ko or “child of the gods” and also as “Buddha”. Before the twentieth century, the probability that a child would survive to age five or seven was often less than 50 percent. Only after that age were they “counted” in a census and could they be “counted upon” to participate in the adult world.

Children were thought of as mysterious beings in a liminal world between the realm of humans and gods. Because of this the gods could speak through them. For centuries prepubescent children in Japan have been chosen as chigo, or “divine children”, who do divination and function as oracles. Even today children below school age still are allowed a somewhat heavenly existence, indulged and protected without many expectations or pressures.

A tapestry on the front of the Kanko-boko float at the Gion Festival in Kyoto is thought to depict scenes from Genesis in the Old Testament.

In Kyoto, the Gion Festival season has opened and interest is being directed to different aspects of this ancient and most fascinating festival.  One little-known point is how much Western input there is, and an article from The Japan News details how this came about.

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Western influence on Gion Festival / Popular Kyoto event has crosscultural element
July 2, 2013  Yuji Washio / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

Kon kon chiki chin, kon chiki chin–When the quaint sounds of little gongs begin to be heard in central Kyoto, it’s time for the Gion Festival, one of the most popular summer events in Japan.

Amid the festive atmosphere, the festival’s climax on July 17 is marked by 32 gorgeously decorated floats parading through central Kyoto. In some cases, the floats’ elaborate ornamentation includes apparently Western tapestries hanging from their sides.

Model of one of the floats on display in the days before the parade

Kyoto is a center of the nation’s weaving industry. Artisans in the Nishijin district have manufactured many tapestries for the festival.

So, why are there Western tapestries at the festival?

The festival started as a ceremony at Yasaka Shrine in 869, when Kyoto was the capital of Japan. As plagues and natural disasters were prevalent in the country that year, 66 pikes symbolizing the 66 provinces of Japan at that time were put on display to wish for peace. These pikes later became larger and more decorated until they evolved into the floats seen today.

The floats are called moving museums, as they are painstakingly made craftwork pieces. Due to their high profile, they are often regarded as the festival’s centerpiece, but they are actually meant to herald the festival’s sacred palanquin, which travels around the area where the shrine’s worshippers reside.

The 32 floats are called either yama, which means mountain, or hoko (or boko), which means pike. Of them, five use Western woven tapestries: Kanko-boko, Niwatori-hoko, Hakurakuten-yama, Koi-yama and Araretenjin-yama, that were brought to Japan during the Edo period (1603-1867).

The Kanko-boko’s tapestry, 273 centimeters by 220 centimeters, bears two different scenes on its upper and lower parts, one depicting a man receiving a large jug from a woman and the other depicting a man giving a bracelet to a woman. It is said that the scenes depict a story of the search for a wife for Isaac in the Old Testament.

Lanterns on one of the Gion floats in the evenings before the parade

According to old documents, the tapestry was donated by a local wealthy merchant in 1718, at a time when Christianity was outlawed. Yet an artwork depicting a Bible story traveled around the town–how was it possible?

“The jug is so big that it looked like a sake container. So people of the time probably thought the patterns were very suitable for the festival,” said Masutaro Matsumiya, vice director of the organization maintaining the float.

The tapestries for the four other floats are themed on the Trojan War.

Local pride
Shigeharu Sugita, director of the organization maintaining Koi-yama, said that the use of these tapestries signified the pride and power of machishu, or local citizens, mainly wealthy businesspeople who were community leaders.

“As towns holding floats were getting more and more wealthy and began competing with each other, they collected novel items [to add to their floats],” Sugita said.

Susumu Shirai, an adviser to Tatsumura Textile Co. in Nakagyo Ward, which made reproductions of tapestries of the Kanko-boko and Niwatori-hoko, said: “The originals are very elaborately made. The weavers used silk threads to give glossy texture to the patterns of clothing worn by people in the tapestry. They are expensive masterworks. I felt they represented local people’s enthusiasm for the festival.”

It is also said that the tapestries depicting the Trojan War were a gift from the pope to Hasekura Tsunenaga, who was dispatched as an envoy to Spain and Rome about 400 years ago by Date Masamune, lord of the Sendai domain.

Meanwhile, the tapestry used on the Kanko-boko was reportedly one of the gifts from the Dutch Empire to Tokugawa Iemitsu (1604-1651), the third shogun of the Edo government, requesting the start of diplomatic relations. The piece is said to be the one recorded in a list of gifts as a “Dutch-made carpet.”

Although there is no definite evidence to support these stories, these tapestries are regarded as highly valuable.

The festival has been interrupted many times by wars, including the Onin civil war from 1467 to 1477. It was also affected by a fire in the Kinmon no Hen civil war in 1864.  Only two floats, Hashibenkei-yama and Ennogyoja-yama, paraded at the following year’s festival. Nevertheless, some more floats joined the festival the next year and the number increased over the years that followed.

In 1988, with the rejoining of the Shijo-kasahoko, the current festival with 32 floats was established.  The Ofune-hoko, which was destroyed in the 1864 civil war, is scheduled to rejoin the festival parade in 2014.

One of the floats with a tapestry displayed on the side below the musicians seated above, playing the characteristic Gion bayashi music

Crowds mill around the lit-up floats each year on 'yoyoyama' (July 15) and 'yoyama' (July 16) - a good time to visit Kyoto.

Charms and decorations that will be put on one of the floats in the Gion procession

The Gion Festival is one of Kyoto’s Big Three Festivals, along with the Aoi Festival and the Jidai Matsuri (Festival of Ages).  For many people, it’s the most enjoyable.  The big parade takes place on the morning of July 17, and on the two evenings before that the central streets of the city are packed with people sauntering around to enjoy the atmosphere and view the floats. For two magical evenings, the streets are free of noisy polluting vehicles.

The chigo mounted on a sacred horse (photo courtesy Micah Gempel)

What many people don’t realise, however, is that the festival is actually a month-long event which kicked off on July 1.  As with the Aoi Festival, there are lots of pre-events to do with preparations and purifications.

If the Saio-dai representing the priestess-princess of old is the central figure of the Aoi Festival, then the chigo plays a central part in the Gion Festival – selection of the young boy, who is a vehicle for the kami, has already taken place (for which a handsome amount of money is paid, so I’m told).

Over the next couple of weeks, the impressive Gion floats (which come in two types, yama and hoko – more of that anon) will be taken out of storage and decorated in traditional fashion.  The mikoshi will be purified in the Kamogawa river, and Gion bayashi festival music will be heard all around town (thanks to being piped throughout the shopping district).

It all helps build up to the 15th, 16th and 17th when good spirits and communal revelry will replace the grim reality of downtown traffic jams.

The Gion Festival has begun; let’s start celebrating!

A display of all the Gion Festival events in the month of July

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For previous pieces on the Gion Festival, please click here and here.  For a Kyoto Shinbun account of the opening rites, see here.  For a full list of the Festival events during the month of July (and the order of floats in the procession), click here.

For the next article in this series, click here for Part Two (Western Input).  To understand the role of the Hindu deity Gozu Tenno in the festival, click here.