F E S T I V A L ／ FEST-056
Gero Tanokamisai (Flower Hat Festival, Ta no Kami Ritual of Gero)
下呂の田の神祭（花笠まつり）げろのたのかみまつり（はながさまつり）
At the Morimizunashi Hachiman Shrine in Gero City's Mori district — an ancient shrine whose collection of ten wooden deity images (shinzō) has been designated a National Important Cultural Property since 1940 — a medieval agricultural prediction ceremony has been transmitted since a period believed to span approximately four to five centuries. Designated a National Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property on January 21, 1981, the festival is classified within the ta-asobi (rice paddy play) tradition, a genre of early New Year performing arts in which the agricultural cycle of planting, weeding, and harvest is mimed in advance as a prayer for the coming year's abundance. The Gero variant is popularly known as the Hanagasa Matsuri — the Flower Hat Festival — because four young men called maiōtoko (dance men) perform the ceremony's central dances wearing vividly coloured flower hats. The full cycle opens on February 7th with the Shinushutanomi (priest commissioning), followed by the Shurakusai (preliminary festival) on February 13th and the Honsai (main festival) on February 14th. Gero City's documentation places the ceremony within the continuum of medieval ta-gaku (field music) and ta-asobi, and describes it as one of the most significant surviving examples of the genre in the Hida-Mino cultural corridor.
H I G H L I G H T S
Highlights
- 01Four maiōtoko in brilliantly coloured flower hats performing the central dances of a ceremony whose ta-asobi (rice paddy play) lineage connects it to the prehistoric origins of Nō, Kyōgen, and Japanese court music — a visual and performing arts experience of unusual historical depth available in a midwinter mountain setting.
- 02The three-stage ceremonial structure — Shinushutanomi, preliminary festival, main festival — spread across eight days in February, situates the performance within an extended ritual calendar rather than a single spectacular event, reflecting the ta-asobi genre's function as a sustained prayer cycle rather than entertainment.
- 03The Morimizunashi Hachiman Shrine, whose medieval wooden deity images rank among the finest surviving examples of Heian and Kamakura sculptural art in the Hida-Mino region, provides the festival with an architectural and artistic context that amplifies its historical significance: ceremony and setting together constitute a living medieval sacred environment.
D E E P D I V E