F E S T I V A L ／ FEST-074
Mitsuke Tenjin Naked Festival (Yanahime Shrine Hadakamatsuri)
見付天神裸祭みつけてんじんはだかまつり
At Yanahime Shrine — known by its popular name Mitsuke Tenjin — in the former Tōkaidō post-town of Mitsuke in Iwata City, a festival designated a national Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property takes place each autumn that the shrine itself describes as a "festival of the realm." The Mitsuke Tenjin Naked Festival is the culminating event of the shrine's annual grand festival, a ceremony lasting approximately eight days and incorporating hamagoromo (ocean-water purification at Fukuda beach), eve-of-festival and main-festival rites, a mikoshi procession, and the naked festival itself. The ceremony's legendary basis lies in a regional folk narrative: in antiquity, a monster called Shippeitarō (or Happeitarō) demanded human sacrifice from the community of Mitsuke; a dog called Hayatarō from Kōzenji temple in Shinshū is said to have killed the monster, freeing the community from the tribute. The naked festival commemorates that liberation: semi-bare men in straw waistcloths (koshimino) process through the streets of Mitsuke to the shrine to the cry of "Oisho, oisho," entering the darkened sanctuary to perform a demon dance (oni-odori) — a ritual re-enactment of the communal joy of release from fear, conducted in darkness as a purification and renewal of the community's bond with its guardian deity. In 2026, the naked festival is scheduled for September 19th.
H I G H L I G H T S
Highlights
- 01Hundreds of semi-bare men in straw waistcloths (koshimino) process through the streets of Mitsuke at night to the shrine, entering the darkened sanctuary to perform the oni-odori (demon dance) — a ceremony in which darkness, collective bodily movement, and the ecstatic cry of the procession combine into one of the most atmospherically charged nocturnal ritual spaces in the Tōkai region.
- 02The full festival program — eight days including ocean purification at Fukuda beach (hamagoromo), eve-of-festival ceremonies, main festival rites, mikoshi procession, and the naked festival itself — preserves an exceptionally complete ceremonial sequence that situates the climactic night-ceremony within a sustained liturgical context.
- 03The Shippeitarō folk legend — in which a monstrous tribute-demon is killed by a dog from a distant temple, freeing the community of Mitsuke — is one of the few cases in which a regional monster-slaying narrative has been directly incorporated as the founding mythological charter of a nationally designated Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property.
D E E P D I V E