F E S T I V A L ／ FEST-009
Suna-kake Matsuri (Sand-Throwing Festival)
砂かけ祭りすなかけまつり
On the third Sunday of February, participants and observers at Matsubara Shrine engage in a ceremony that requires everyone present — regardless of what they may be wearing — to accept that sand will be thrown at them, probably repeatedly. The Suna-kake Matsuri (Sand Throwing Festival) is a purification ceremony in which throwing sand is the ritual act: the sand carried in offerings purifies everything it touches, and the throwing is both a blessing and a challenge to stand still and receive it gracefully. Those who react badly — flinching, complaining, attempting to avoid the sand — are, by the logic of the ceremony, demonstrating that the purification is working. The ceremony is one of several Japanese rituals whose logic inverts the usual relationship between comfort and blessing, and is consequently one of the more philosophically interesting entries in the category of "bizarre festivals."
H I G H L I G H T S
Highlights
- 01Being pelted with sand is the blessing: a purification logic that inverts ordinary preferences in a physically immediate way
- 02Everyone present — participants, observers, photographers — is subject to the same ritual: there is no safe viewing position
- 03A compact, direct, and unexpectedly thoughtful entry in the category of Japanese weird festivals