F E S T I V A L ／ FEST-245

Izawa Gion Festival (Tenno-san)

射和祇園まつり（天王さん）いざわぎおんまつり

Handed down for over 300 years in Izawa-cho, Matsusaka City, the Izawa Gion Festival — known locally as "Tenno-san" — is a summer Gion festival whose origins lie in mercury wealth. Izawa flourished as a producer of "hara-ya," a cosmetic face powder refined from mercury; the wealthy merchants who prospered from it carried the Gion festival of Kyoto back home as they expanded into Edo and Kyoto, and from the Genroku era (1688–1704) the festival flourished. Six festival guilds — Kashii, Takasago, Mikuni, Yakumo, Sutori and Miyamoto — together maintain twelve large and small floats (yatai). After rites at Isawa Shrine, two mikoshi (portable shrines) parade through town; on the eve night, lantern-lit large floats wind through the old-highway townscape playing Gion music. On the main night, a mikoshi ringed by tall lanterns and small floats lit from within processes through the darkness, and the bearers' rhythmic "side-shaking" and "vertical-shaking" of the mikoshi is the great highlight. It is designated an Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Mie Prefecture.