F E S T I V A L ／ FEST-186

Hyoge Matsuri (The Hyoge Festival)

ひょうげ祭りひょうげまつり

In the Asano district of Takamatsu, on the southern edge of the Sanuki Plain, a region long plagued by drought once depended on an Edo-period engineer named Yanobe Heiroku, who built the Shin-ike reservoir to bring it water. Every second Sunday of September, the people of Asano repay that debt in the strangest possible way. Its name comes from the Sanuki dialect word "hyogeru" — to clown, to play the fool — and the festival earns it completely. Participants paint their faces in vivid colors and smear them with ink, then dress in improbable costumes pieced together from feed sacks and palm-fiber wigs. The portable shrine, the halberds, the ceremonial spears — every single ritual implement is hand-built from eggplants, gourds, loofahs, pumpkins, bamboo and straw, a harvest offering transformed into parade gear. For about two kilometers, from the Asano community hall (nicknamed "the Home of the Hyoge Festival") to the reservoir, this gloriously ridiculous procession ambles along "hyoge-ing" all the way. The climax comes at Shin-ike itself: a priest looses an arrow into the open sky, and on that signal the bearers charge straight into the water, hurling the entire shrine into the pond in a tremendous spray — a chaotic, joyous offering of thanks for the water that keeps the fields alive. The festival is a designated Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Takamatsu City, and its remarkable ritual implements are a designated Tangible Folk Cultural Property of Kagawa Prefecture.