Kanou Matsuri Madness
Kanou Matsuri, Bill, Rog, Andre
There are bigger festivals in Japan, but Kanou Matsuri is my hometown festival in Gifu. Bill-chan, resident Gaijin and friend, introduced me to his Japanese buddy and owner of a local Izakaya (drinking den). In this round-about way I found my way into the festival not just as a raving spectator, but as a full patched member of the Kanou Matsuri team. I met my new brotherhood early Saturday morning. Take-san was inebriated from the night before but was still genki. At Kanou Jinja (the Shinto Shrine and cause for which we were to march for) I changed into my Jika tabi frog shoes and black pixie outfit before being handed an honorary Hapi coat.
It was 10ish by now, and there was a buzz in the air. It might’ve just been that the first cups of cold sake were being passed around. I, of course, liberally joined in the ritual drinking. To begin with Bill, Andre and I were assigned a cart with sponsor’s lanterns to tow behind with main Dashi (float). It was slow progress through the streets. Comedy you might say. Our Dashi, a good few metres tall and fitted with a small troupe of musicians in the trunk, kept on getting snagged on the power lines that criss-cross the streets. You’d think that a ‘modern’ country like Japan could bury the eye sore and hazards of overhead power lines, but alas. So, we’d get snagged, and out would come the ‘line untanglers’, a crack team with bamboo poles fitted with a metal hook, to unsnag us from the most twisted tangles. Can anyone say DANGER?
Dashi hooked on Power lines
More beer, more sake. 11 Oclockish. We were summoned back to the Jinja (shrine). We put back a snack lunch and then joined the main event – The carrying of the Mikoshi (portable Shinto shrine. Shinto followers believe that it serves as the vehicle of a divine spirit in Japan at the time of a parade of deities. Often, the mikoshi resembles a miniature building, with pillars, walls, a roof, a veranda and a railing). Some words were spoken by dignitaries, Bill-chan was honorarily summoned to drink the god’s sake from the big square box, and dancing and drums signalled we should take our positions.
Mikoshi Lift
At least 40 of us lined up to heave the Mikoshi shrine onto our shoulders. We crouched, lifted on the count, and then showed off by raising it a number of times above our heads, swinging it around, and then moving it out of the Shrine’s grounds to cheering. Soiya Sa! Soiya Sa! Left right! Yes it was bloody heavy, made more so by the cute girls our team had dancing on top. And because I was a good half foot taller than my Japanese buddies my shoulders never got a reprieve.
We marched through the streets, to the station, people came out to watch, Naomi, Tsun, Mineko, and other Japanese friends all there to join the festivities and be swept away. The clock again struck sake-O’clock. The more I drank the better my Japanese became, and I had a few words with people on the street so happy to see Gaijin (foreigners) in their festival.
Carry the Shrine
Somehow in the madness of the late afternoon we steered our Mikoshi back to the Jinja, just as the other teams were bringing in theirs in to the sounds of drums. There was the customary battle of Miskoshi, show boating, faking that you’re going to ram the other guy, and generally swinging the Mikoshi around a bit. Anyone, everyone swarms in to join the last push. It’s a trance sensation.
Of course the day didn’t end when the night was just beginning and we were soon swept on to an after party. It all gets a bit hazy after that but needless to say it was a great crazy night, leaving me to pick up fragments of memories the next day
Untitled-project RSS