Major Festivals by Molly Hakes
In a normally subdued culture with strict rules for social interaction and behavior, festivals are an absolute necessity. Garish clothing, extreme tests of physical endurance, ancient dances, role-reversals, demons, dragons, and excessive eating allow the Japanese to let their hair down several times a year. Most festivals are derived from the Shinto religion and take place in the spring and fall, centering around the planting and harvesting of rice. However, it is possible to find a festival somewhere in Japan at almost any given time. The two major festivals are the New Year Festival and the Demon Dancing and Drumming Festival.
Celebrate the New Year
O-shoogatsu, the New Year Festival, is a time when Japanese families get together. Children, especially, look forward to receiving o-toshidama, a gift of money from grandparents and other relatives. Traditionally, the Japanese eat long strands of buckwheat noodles to ensure a long life. Sticky rice cakes with sweet, red bean jam inside are also popular.
Just before the New Year, Japanese greet friends and relatives with Yoi o-toshi o o-mukae kudasai! or just yoi o-toshi o. It is a wish for good luck in the upcoming year — it's a formulaic expression without a direct translation in English. When meeting friends and relatives for the first time after the New Year has passed, people say, Akemashite, omedetoo gozaimasu! (“Happy New Year!”)
Dancing and Drumming
Oni-daiko, the Demon Dancing and Drumming Festival, is unique to Sado Island in the Sea of Japan. The folktale accompanying the festival tells of a time when demons occupied the mountains, villagers farmed the valley, and both respected each others' domain. A spat between a local shrine's deity and the head of the demons was the catalyst for the demons to crash the villagers' annual spring planting festival. Frightened villagers offered sake, mochi (rice cakes), and various other festival delicacies in appeasement and the demons responded positively, promising to return every year.
Even in these modern times, come February you can hear the drums of different neighborhoods practicing for the festival. On the day of the festival in April, these groups traverse their respective neighborhoods, sometimes visiting more than 120 houses from morning till midnight. The demons, wearing wooden masks with horse-mane hair that often weigh several pounds, dance at each home to chase out evil spirits: a kind of spring cleaning of the soul. Grandmothers wait patiently on their front stoops, heads bowed in the hopes of being bitten by the lion-esque shi-shi (for good luck), but small children flee the frightening dragons maneuvered by two or sometimes ten people.
