F E S T I V A L ／ FEST-028
Kyōto Gozan Okuribi (Five Mountain Send-Off Fires)
京都 五山送り火ごさんのおくりび
On the evening of August 16th, five mountains surrounding Kyōto are simultaneously lit with enormous bonfires in characters and shapes visible from the city below: the character for "great" (大) on Daimonji-yama, the characters "Myō" and "Hō" on two separate peaks, a boat shape, a second "大" on a mountain to the west, and a torii gate. These are the Gozan Okuribi — the Five Mountain Send-Off Fires — the annual signal that the spirits of ancestors who returned to the living world during the Obon festival are being directed back to the realm of the dead. The fires begin at 8:00 PM with the eastern Daimonji, then proceed at five-minute intervals through the remaining mountains, taking the better part of an hour to complete. The ceremony is ancient in origin, requires months of preparation, and involves sending hundreds of monks and volunteers up five separate mountains with torches before nightfall. Viewed from a rooftop bar or a hillside observation point with all five mountains in frame, the ceremony operates at an entirely different scale from ordinary fireworks.
H I G H L I G H T S
Highlights
- 01Five mountains simultaneously carrying giant fire-characters visible from across the city: the largest coordinated sacred signal fire in Japan
- 02The Obon ancestors, welcomed on August 13th, are sent home on August 16th — the emotional register of these fires combines gratitude, grief, and relief in a specifically Japanese configuration
- 03The 8-minute gap between each mountain's lighting creates a 40-minute ceremonial sequence in which the sky progressively fills with sacred characters