Yesterday afternoon Echo and I set off into the Rashomon rain (the kind of rain that fell in the Kurosawa movie of that title, seems characteristically to fall in Japan), drove across the Lake Biwa bridge and up the east side of the Lake to Omihachiman, the very old and scenic castle town
that has so many ancient festivals, this one being the Sagicho Matsuri (matsuri: festival) at Himure Hachimangu shrine, likely to do with the spring equinox, though no one seems to know quite how the festival originated, except that Oda Nobunaga had something to do with its continuance, he loved festivals and spent a lot of time in this area. The moatside streets of the town were wistfully beautiful in the heavy spring rain: the stone walls, the arched bridges, the budding trees, and through them all wending the noisy processions of tall, heavy floats carried by groups of all ages, from little kids to teens to elders, the floats all decorated with various local symbols, most prominently a craftily fabricated sheep (this being the year of the sheep), each float to do battle with its counterpart at the gate to the shrine, the heavy floats charging each other over and over till one was toppled.
Any watcher could see this is where Japanese kids (at least the country kids) get their fortitude: after carrying these heavy floats in the pouring rain all the way from their neighborhoods to the shrine they would raise their floats time and time and time again, and charge!!! Until the contest was determined. The victor then entered the gate first, and the floats were carefully arranged before the shrine and set afire, all in the Rashomon rain.
The streets were a soup of float debris, the float bearers all dripping with rain and not caring in the least as they danced in glee around their fire, still chanting with one voice as the flames rose at last, sending all their efforts to the gods.
