F E S T I V A L ／ FEST-005

Asuka Niimasu Shrine Onda Festival (Rice Field Play)

飛鳥坐神社 おんだ祭（田遊び）あすかにいますじんじゃ おんだまつり

In the Asuka Valley, where ancient Japan left more unexplained stone objects per square kilometer than anywhere else on Earth, the first Sunday of February brings a ritual that has been classified as an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property and is consistently described as one of Japan's most direct survivals of ancient sexual cosmology in public ceremonial form. The Onda Matsuri ("rice field play") at Asuka Niimasu Shrine enacts the sexual union of a male and female deity as a fertility rite for the coming agricultural year, with participants in demon and Tengu masks performing a explicit ritual coupling on the stage of the main hall. Audience members scramble to catch the ritual straw sandals thrown from the stage, as possessing them is said to ensure easy childbirth. The ceremony is integrated into a day-long ritual sequence that connects ancient agricultural symbolism, Buddhist cosmology, and indigenous folk religion in a combination that has not been revised to accommodate modern sensibilities — and is, consequently, more direct and more interesting than almost anything else in the Nara religious calendar.