F E S T I V A L ／ FEST-252

Katashina no Saru-oi Matsuri (Monkey-Chasing Festival)

片品の猿追い祭かたしなのさるおいまつり

The Monkey-Chasing Festival of Katashina is a Shinto rite held at Hotaka Shrine in Hanasaki, Katashina Village, Gunma, on the Day of the Monkey in the ninth lunar month. It derives from a legend in which a great white-furred monkey that lived on Mt. Hotaka and ravaged the villages was driven off by the mountain deity. Said to be roughly 300 years old, it was designated a national Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 2000. Rotating stewards from the hamlets of Hanasaki—called "Hitsuban" and "Sakaban"—conduct the rite. Parishioners divided into east and west teams scatter steamed red rice at one another with rice paddles to the chants of "Ecchō" and "Motchō," after which a man playing the "white monkey"—in a white hood and white robes, a slip of paper held in his mouth and a ritual wand in hand—runs clockwise three times around the shrine hall, pursued by the officials. This pursuit gives the festival its name. It is a nationally rare animal-expulsion rite that fuses harvest thanksgiving with the warding-off of crop pests.