Better late than never 3

And another example of how terrible I am at blogging. Late but hopefully worthwhile - Enjoy!

Hadaka matsuri (The Naked Man festival)

11/19

It’s November. It’s cold and it rains a lot. How about going into a river with no pants on, completely drunk and carrying a Shinto shrine? Well, the men of Bungotakada find this to be such fun that they made a festival out of it!

Shooting for the giant stick of hay...

I’ll have to borrow B’s phrasing on this one - ‘the men of Bungotakada just really enjoy taking their pants off.’ I believe we deduced that the purpose of this festival was to celebrate the gods and pray... and drink? Regardless, purpose or none, it was a very entertaining festival. It was a Friday so I headed up there right after work and B and I looked for a comfortable place to chill while we waited for the festival to begin and looked out for the others who would be meeting us. The festival was planned to start at 6 as I recall but they started the activities shortly after 5:30 and none of our friends had arrived yet. We watched while they shot flaming arrows from giant bows in ancient Japanese archer fashion into the waiting giant straw pole sitting in the middle of the river. Once the straw caught fire the drummers started. They were, by far, my favorite part of the festival since they just looked so in love with their drums! I could just feel their energy in the way they danced around and in their music. It was moving.

They got it in!

Well, until the butt naked men appeared anyway. In their defense, they were wearing shirts, just no pants. Dressed in literally loincloth thongs, they trudged through the water, butts flapping freely carrying what looked to be a very heavy shrine; made entirely of gold; in very cold water. I could only imagine the agony their man-bits were in. Regardless, they passed through the river coming first from one shore up to the stage then moving back across the river to exit up a large boating ramp. They also stopped repeatedly along the way to say some chants and splash water on each other and themselves - because I guess they weren’t quite cold enough.

Whole view

Once they got up the ramp, we watched while the wet crew switched out for a dry and more fully clothed entourage. B and I of course had run over to meet them since many were her co-workers and she wanted to see how embarrassed they got when they saw her taking pictures with the lot of them. Some of them ran away at the sight of her, bright red with alcohol and embarrassment, but the lot of them turned toward us and posed, peace signs flying high above their bare backsides. We followed the parade route as it twisted through narrow streets on its way to be joined with the larger shrine in the middle of town. The new carriers were not any less drunk, however, and they did stop every 5 minutes or so at any of the numerous liquor stores en route to indulge in a few more drinks; out of giant bowls. Because of the severe drunkenness there was some trouble carrying the shrine correctly and I couldn’t count on two hands the number of times I thought it was going to go flying through a neighboring building only to see one of the more experienced carriers right himself and the others just in time to save the shrine.

And here they come

I wasn't cold enough yet!

Posing with the foreigners

Enjoying a night cap

When we met up with the main shrine they carried on a series of rituals I didn’t understand while the foreigners in our group dashed off to enjoy some festival food from the vendors. Besides not being able to find a place to sit, or use the restroom, it was overall an... interesting... experience froth with nudity and alcoholism. Sounds more like an orgy than a ritual when you say it like that but such is life. Haha.  I definitely recommend local festivals to any and all people who get the opportunity to experience them since they really are a sight to behold, at least in the sense of nude, middle-aged male booty. B made a video you can also enjoy, please go yukkuri douzo!