Kugatsukunchi Harvest Festival

About this event

This is a traditional harvest festival held on the Sunday immediately preceding the 9th day of the 9th month of the lunar calendar across four settlements in Yamato Village, Kagoshima Prefecture: Kuninao, Yuwan-gama, Omoigachi, and Naon. Kugatsukunchi is also a day for making and renewing vows; a ritual is performed to express gratitude for the vows made the previous year praying for the safety and good harvest of the settlement, and to make new prayers for a year of safety and abundance. The festival celebrates the year's agricultural harvest and gives thanks for the good health and safety of the community, enlivened by dedicatory sumo, entertainment performances, and the Hachigatsu-odori dance. In recent years, a respect-for-the-aged gathering is held simultaneously, entertaining seniors with food and performances. Males from infants to adults participate in sumo, featuring not only matches between settlement residents but also cheering sumo welcoming wrestlers from other settlements. Baby boys born in the settlement that year may also perform a ceremonial ring entry (dohyo-iri), captivating the spectators. The Hachigatsu-odori dance is performed around the sumo ring of the community center from evening into the night, dancing while singing call-and-response songs between men and women to the beat of chijin drums. In Omoigachi, miki (sacred fermented beverage) is brewed at the toneya sanctuary the day before and offered to the shrine on the festival day. In Naon, rituals led by noro (priestesses) and guji (priests) take place at the tera sanctuary for the original Kugatsukunchi, and the men of the village enter the festival with shugi bestowed by the noro as offerings.

Venue

Kuninao Beach

Kuninao, Yamato-son, Oshima-gun, Kagoshima 894-3101