F E S T I V A L ／ FEST-091
Sen'yōsai — Myth Rite at the Summit of Mt. Sentsūzan
宣揚祭（船通山）せんようさい（せんつうざん）
Mt. Sentsūzan, rising to approximately 1,142 meters on the watershed between Tottori and Shimane Prefectures, is identified in regional tradition with the Torikamiyama of the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki — the mountain upon which the storm-deity Susanoo no Mikoto descended after his expulsion from heaven, slew the eight-headed serpent Yamata no Orochi, and discovered within its tail the sword that would become Ama-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi, later known as Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, one of the three Imperial Regalia of Japan. On July 28th each year, this mythological event is re-enacted at the mountain's summit. A sword dance (tsurugi-no-mai) representing the moment of the sword's appearance is performed, accompanied by kagura (sacred music and dance) and ritual liturgy. To attend the ceremony is to reach the summit first: the site requires a two-to-three-hour ascent from the trailhead, and the sacred performance takes place above the treeline, in the landscape that the myth's ancient audience understood as the site of one of Japanese civilization's foundational events. Very few Japanese ceremonial traditions place their observance at a summit accessible only by sustained mountain climbing. This one does, and the effort is intrinsic to the rite's meaning.
H I G H L I G H T S
Highlights
- 01A sword dance enacting the mythological discovery of the imperial sword Ama-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi is performed each year at the summit of the mountain identified with the Kojiki's Torikamiyama — the site where Susanoo no Mikoto is said to have slain Yamata no Orochi — making the ceremony a direct spatial re-enactment of one of Japan's foundational myths.
- 02Attendance requires a two-to-three-hour mountain ascent; the sacred performance is held above the treeline, at an elevation that enforces a quality of pilgrimage effort rarely required of festival audiences in contemporary Japan.
- 03Mt. Sentsūzan has been associated with Susanoo and the Yamata no Orochi legend since at least the medieval period; the annual re-performance of the myth at its identified location represents a form of territorial mythography — a community's continued inhabitation of sacred narrative space.
D E E P D I V E