Ready For Japanese Summer Festivals? Here Are Some Main Items Of Traditional Festivals

Now many places are going to have summer festivals same as fireworks festivals which I have introduced in my previous posts! The annual Hachioji Festival will take place from this Friday to Sunday. There will be many traditional festival items and stalls along Rd.20 near Hachioji Station.

What are traditional festival items? I'd like to introduce most common two items here. One is "Mikoshi" which is shown on the upper row of the photos and the other is "Dashi" which is shown on the lower row of the photos. 

Mikoshi are portable shrines. Each Mikoshi belongs to a Japanese Shinto shrine and it is used for carrying the god/gods of the shrine during festivals and ceremonies. (It is also called Omikoshi since the prefix "o" adds politeness/respect to a noun in Japanese language.) Mukoshi bears a structure of a shrine with a special shape of Shinto shrine gate called "Torii" as you can see in the photo in the middle of upper row. During non-festival times, offerings are placed in front of Mikoshi as shown in the upper left end photo.

On the other hand, Dashi are decorated festival carts although the name can be different depending on the area. They also belong to shrines, but they are designed for festival's performances, so they always carry people. As you can see in the photos, there are drums on the cart for musicians and masked performers positioned in the front row. People can also stand on the roof to give directions to the people pulling the cart. The role of standing on the roof of Dashi would be a star position at festivals.

Both Mikoshi and Dashi are usually maintained by a neighborhood community around the shrine they belong to. For example, in Hachioji downtown, there are small neighborhood communities called "Chonai-kai (town association)" in every few blocks and each community has at least one local shrine. The community people take care of the shrine and they carry Mikoshi and pull Dashi at Festivals. It is a traditional form of Japanese town and the city of Hachioji, which has a long history as an old post town, still maintain it. 

Although not all of the shrines have both Mikoshi and Dashi, for Hachioji Festival, all Mikoshi and Dashi in the downtown area will be on the National Rd.20 (Koshu-kaido). There will be a total of 21 Mikoshi and 19 Dashi this year!

Even if you are just a visitor, you can join in to pull Dashi at Hachioji Festival. Some of the neighborhood communities are inviting people to pull Dashi together. It will be a fun experience!