F E S T I V A L ／ FEST-263
Kamo Taisai (Great Festival of Kamo)
加茂大祭かもたいさい
Kamo Taisai is the annual grand festival of Soja-gu Shrine in Kamo-ichiba, Kibichuo Town, Okayama, and is counted among the three great festivals of Okayama Prefecture. It takes the unusual form of a yose-miya-sai ("gathered-shrine festival"): eight shrines scattered across the town — Kamo, Kage, Matsuo, Hiyoshi, Susanoo, Hachiman, Amehakari and Sansho — each form a procession with their own portable shrine (mikoshi) and converge on Soja-gu, where the great festival is performed by all nine shrines together. The climax is the go-shinko, in which the eight mikoshi line up shoulder to shoulder before the Zuishin Gate and are hoisted aloft in a contest of height, swayed high and low to the bearers' chants — the famed neriai. With roots said to date to the Tenki era (1053–58), interrupted during the Warring States period and revived in the mid-Edo period, this roughly 900-year-old rite was designated an Okayama Prefecture Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1959.
H I G H L I G H T S
Highlights
- 01The neriai, in which eight mikoshi line up before the Zuishin Gate and are hoisted aloft together in a contest of height
- 02The rare yose-miya-sai format, in which eight local shrines each process from their own grounds to converge on Soja-gu
- 03A vivid precinct filled with lion dances (shishimai), staff-twirling and rows of red-and-white banners accompanying the processions
D E E P D I V E