F E S T I V A L ／ FEST-170

Kowaura Gion Festival — Boat-Shaped Portable Shrine Procession (Kowaura Gion-sai / Funahoko Mikoshi)

古和浦祇園祭・船形神輿こわうらぎおんさい・ふながたみこし

Each year on the second Saturday of July, the fishing community of Kowaura in Minamisei Town (Watarai District) holds a Gion summer festival tracing to the Meiji period (approximately one hundred and fifty years of continuous observance). The festival's principal element is a boat-shaped portable shrine (o-fune mikoshi) decorated with paper lanterns (o-jōchin) and bamboo branches, which carries several musicians (hayashi-kata) aboard as it is shouldered by bearers through the settlement from the Yamanouchi Inn to the outer bay fishing cooperative parking area, before being launched on the sea for a maritime procession (kaijō-togyo). The ritual is rooted in the Gion tradition of summer disease-expulsion associated with the deity Gozu-Tennō, adapted to the maritime livelihood of the Kowaura fishing community; it belongs to the lineage of boat-shaped mikoshi and boat-shaped dashi (festival floats) found at fishing-village festivals along the Ise Bay and Shima coastlines. A fireworks display follows the completion of the maritime procession.