F E S T I V A L ／ FEST-077
Yonekawa Mizukaburi (Water-Pouring Fire-Prevention Rite)
米川の水かぶりよねかわのみずかぶり
On the first Day of the Horse (Hatsu-Uma) in February each year, a fire-prevention ceremony of unusual physical character takes place in the Yonekawa district of Higashiwa Town in Tome City, in the mountains of northern Miyagi Prefecture. Men of the community bind themselves in full coverings of rice straw and paint their faces and arms with soot, becoming — in the logic of the visitation deity (raiho-shin) tradition — the emissaries of Akiha Daigongen, the Shintō deity of fire prevention. Beginning from the gateway plaza of Daijiji temple, they run through the streets of the Yonekawa community, splashing water from buckets and ladles onto the eaves and rooftops of houses — and onto any observers who stand in their path. Local tradition holds that pulling a straw from a performer's costume and placing it on one's own roof will protect the house from fire for the coming year. The Yonekawa Mizukaburi is one of ten constituent elements of the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage listing "Raiho-shin: Ritual Visits of Deities in Masks and Costumes," inscribed in 2018 — alongside the Oga Namahage, the Yoshihama no Suneka, the Noto Amamehagi, and other Japanese visitation deity ceremonies. The combination of fire symbolism (the deity's domain) and water action (the protective ritual gesture) in a single ceremony — the fire deity's emissaries carrying water — represents a theologically sophisticated folk religious solution to the problem of fire prevention that distinguishes the Yonekawa ceremony within the national visitation deity tradition.
H I G H L I G H T S
Highlights
- 01Men wrapped head to toe in rice straw, faces and arms blackened with soot, run through the Yonekawa streets splashing water onto rooftops and observers — the visual encounter with the straw-costumed figures in the cold February morning produces an effect that is simultaneously alarming and sanctifying, fully consistent with the visitation deity tradition's characteristic fusion of fear and blessing.
- 02The custom of pulling a straw from a performer's costume and placing it on one's rooftop — transferring the deity's fire-protection power directly from the emissary's body to the household — is one of the most tangible expressions of the participatory dimension of the Japanese raiho-shin tradition, in which observer and ceremony are actively linked through material exchange.
- 03The Yonekawa Mizukaburi's inscription as one of the ten elements of the 2018 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage listing "Raiho-shin: Ritual Visits of Deities in Masks and Costumes" places it in formal international relationship with the Oga Namahage, the Noto Amamehagi, the Yoshihama no Suneka, and the Toshima no Paantū — a recognition of its representative significance within Japan's visitation deity ceremonial tradition.
D E E P D I V E