F E S T I V A L ／ FEST-209

Nasu Gojinka Festival (Sacred Fire Festival)

那須御神火祭なすごしんかさい

Held every May 31 at the grounds of the nationally designated historic site 'Sessho-seki' (the Killing Stone) in Yumoto, Nasu Town, Tochigi — a place famed for the legend of the nine-tailed fox — the Nasu Gojinka Festival is a fire festival. It originates in a rite to calm the wrath of the repeatedly erupting Mount Chausu: people would worship at Nasu Yuzen Shrine, take fire from it, and revere it as 'gojinka' (sacred fire), praying for good health and an abundant harvest. The climax comes with a torch procession of participants in white robes and fox masks (departing 19:00) and, after a Shinto rite, the lighting of the sacred fire (around 19:30). The signature sight is fox-masked drummers pounding the 'nine-tailed fox drums' against a blazing pillar of fire. From the afternoon there are a 'nine-tailed fox market,' face painting, a storyteller's telling of the nine-tailed fox tale, and yosakoi dancing, fusing the land's legend with a fire rite into one of Nasu's signature early-summer night festivals.