F E S T I V A L ／ FEST-037

Hida Takayama Autumn Festival (Hachiman Matsuri)

飛騨高山 秋祭り（八幡祭）ひだたかやまあきまつり はちまんさい

The autumn counterpart to the spring Sannō Matsuri, the Hachiman Matsuri on October 9th–10th deploys a different set of nine hikiyama floats through Takayama's preserved Edo townscape — the same architectural tradition, the same mechanical puppet theaters, the same technical mastery, but with autumn foliage replacing spring blossoms as the backdrop and a night procession that many visitors rate as the more beautiful of the two events. The festival floats are lit by lanterns (100 per float) and pulled through streets whose merchant-district architecture has survived essentially intact since the Edo Period; the combination of historical street, historical float, and historical puppet theater produces an experience of concentrated temporal density that modern Japan provides almost nowhere else. The Karakuri automata of the autumn festival include some different and notably complex performances from the spring festival; comparing them is an excuse for visiting Takayama twice in the same year.