F E S T I V A L ／ FEST-250
Enshu Yokosuka Mikumano Shrine Grand Festival
遠州横須賀三熊野神社大祭えんしゅうよこすかみくまのじんじゃたいさい
Held every year on the first Friday-Saturday-Sunday of April at Mikumano Shrine, the tutelary shrine of the old castle town of Yokosuka (now part of Kakegawa City), this grand festival is defined by its thirteen towering floats called neri. A neri is built in the archaic "single-pillar mando" (ippon-bashira mando) style: a single central pillar rises from the wheeled cart, crowned high with decorations and a figure, reaching nearly six meters in height. This form descends directly from the dashi floats once pulled in Edo's great Tenka festivals (the Kanda and Sanno festivals); it has long vanished in its Tokyo birthplace and now survives only in the Yokosuka district and its surroundings. As the pullers march through the town chanting "Shita-shita"—a call derived from the cry that cleared the way for feudal lords' processions—accompanied by the Sansha Sairei Bayashi musicians, the festival stands as a living monument to Edo-period festival culture.
H I G H L I G H T S
Highlights
- 01Thirteen nearly-6m-tall "single-pillar mando" neri floats fill the old castle town—a rare surviving form of Edo's Tenka festival dashi
- 02A distinctive vertical silhouette with a figure mounted atop the central pillar, requiring power lines and traffic signals to be adjusted for passage
- 03The "Shita-shita" chant derived from feudal processions, with live performance of the Sansha Sairei Bayashi, Shizuoka's Intangible Folk Cultural Property No. 1
- 04A rite in which worshippers carry the divine-child doll "Onenneko-sama"—tied to the shrine's blessings for childbirth—through the town
D E E P D I V E