F E S T I V A L ／ FEST-171

Tenteko Festival — Fertility Rite of Atsumi Hachimansha (Tenteko-sai)

てんてこ祭てんてこまつり

Conducted each year on January 3rd at Atsumi Hachiman-sha in Nishio City, Aichi Prefecture, the Tenteko-sai is an agricultural fertility rite with a tradition said to span more than eleven hundred years. Among six men in red ceremonial dress designated as toshi-otoko (men of unlucky age), three carry phallic fertility objects fashioned from daikon radish suspended from their waists; to the rhythm of drums beaten in the pattern that gives the festival its onomatopoeic name — "tenteko, tenteko" — they proceed in procession from the settlement to the shrine precinct, a distance of approximately five hundred meters, moving their hips in a manner consonant with fertility ritual iconography. Upon arrival at the precinct, a second celebrant sweeps straw ash over the assembled audience with a bamboo broom, an act understood as a purification rite conferring protection from misfortune. The ritual thus integrates phallic fertility iconography with fire-and-ash purification within a single agricultural ceremonial context. The festival was designated an Aichi Prefectural Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1957 (Shōwa 32).