F E S T I V A L ／ FEST-182

The Naked Kasedori of Kirikome

切込の裸カセドリきりごめのはだかカセドリ

The Naked Kasedori of Kirikome is a Little New Year (koshogatsu) visiting-deity ritual handed down in the Kirikome settlement of Miyazaki, Kami Town, Miyagi Prefecture, and designated a Miyagi Prefecture Intangible Folk Cultural Property (customs and manners). Traditionally held on the night of the 15th day of the first lunar month, it now takes place on the last Saturday of February. Men aged 15 and older strip to loincloths and smear soot scraped from the bottom of cooking cauldrons ("hesobi") over their faces and bodies, transforming into eerie figures, and pray for fire prevention (hibuse) and the warding off of misfortune (yakubarai). First-time participants, newlyweds, and men in their unlucky years wear straw bundles on their heads and sacred straw rope around their waists, and before setting out they are doused all at once with buckets of water by the other participants. The men then enter each house, rub soot onto the residents' faces while exchanging New Year greetings of "go-shugi, go-shugi," and are entertained with food and drink. At once a rite of passage involving physical hardship at the turn of the year and a visiting-deity custom in which costumed young men, treated as gods, are received and feasted, it is valued as a ritual that faithfully preserves the archaic form of Little New Year visitation customs.