F E S T I V A L ／ FEST-246

Hana Matsuri (Okumikawa, Toei Town)

花祭（奥三河・東栄町）はなまつり

Handed down for over 700 years in Toei Town and the wider Okumikawa region of Aichi, the Hana Matsuri is a 'shimotsuki kagura' (eleventh-month sacred dance) designated a National Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1976. Thought to have taken shape between the Kamakura and Nanboku-cho periods, it centers on 'yudate' — boiling water in a great cauldron as an offering to the gods — and unfolds across some 40 dances performed through the night to drive off evil spirits and pray for good harvests, health and communal harmony. Its supreme spectacle is the demon dances: the 'Sakaki-oni,' shouldering an axe behind an enormous vermilion demon mask, stamps the earth in the 'henbai' tread, a sight of raw power. Spectators join in with the chant 'Teihohe, tehohe,' and at the climactic 'yu-bayashi' the dancers fling the boiling water onto the crowd with their bare hands. Each hamlet sets up its own 'hana-yado' (dance hall) and the whole community works through a day and a night — a living medieval kagura.