Mikoshi (Portable Shrines) Gathering At The End Of Hachioji Festival

I have been introducing annual Hachioji Festibal recently and wrote about traditional festival carts (Dashi) which belong to neighborhood communities called Chonai-kai. As I wrote in my previous post, they compete each other in music play and performances at the festival.

Today I'm showing photos of another typical Japanese festival item, Mikoshi (portable shrines). They also belong to Chonai-kai.  Same as festival carts (Dashi) each of them has different design and get together during the festival, but they don't compete each other.

At the end of Hachioji Festival, all Mikoshi come to one spot of the festival area. Actually, one of the biggest local shrine sets up a temporary office there as the yellow arrow is pointing in the photo. A couple of the Shinto priests are stationing there during the festival. So, all Mikoshi gather around the office and they greet to the priests inside of the office one by one before they go back to their neighborhood.

How they greet? Each Mikoshi come to right front of the offiece as you can see in the photos of the lower row. Then, those who are carrying Mikoshi put up their Mikoshi as high as they can with louder signal words which is for synchronizing their steps. 

It might sound easy, but in fact Mikoshi are usually very heavy. The three Mikoshi shown in the upper photos weigh between 170 kg (374 lb) and 3750 kg (8260 lb). Thus each Mikoshi takes time to greet.

It is the finale of the festival. Compared to festival carts, Mikoshi's action seems more polite. It may be because they are carrying gods.