Toyama Shimotsuki Festival (Kizawa Shohachiman Shrine)

About this event

The Toyama Shimotsuki Festival is a traditional Yudate Kagura ritual handed down in the Kamimura and Minamishinano districts of Iida City, Nagano Prefecture. Held during the month of frost (the eleventh month of the lunar calendar), when daytime is at its shortest, it is performed throughout the night to pray for the "rebirth and purification" of life, symbolizing the waning and rebirth of the sun. It is also an occasion called "Ganbataki," where villagers pray to the local guardian deity for various wishes and express their gratitude. The festival begins in the late afternoon, purifying the ritual grounds and invoking the deities. The deities descend along paper-cut decorations suspended over the cauldrons, while parishioners repeatedly perform Yudate—offering boiling water to the deities while singing Kagura songs—along with accompanying dances throughout the night. The ritual is presided over by local priests called Negi, retaining the form from the era of Shinto-Buddhist syncretism. Once the appeasement water ritual finishes and deities from across the country depart, the enshrined deities of the shrine and local district gods appear in the form of masks, numbering 15 to 40 masks per shrine. The Fire King and Water King, who splash boiling cauldron water with their bare hands, carry strong traces of Shugendo mountain asceticism, while masks of the Toyama clan strongly reflect ancestral spirit worship (Goryo faith). Most host shrines enshrine Hachiman as their main deity; having been territory of Tsurugaoka Hachimangu in the Kamakura period, connections with that shrine's masked processions and Kamakura Kagura have also been pointed out. At Shohachiman Shrine in the Kizawa district, the festival takes place on the second Saturday of December, with the main ritual running from 16:30 to 6:00 the following morning. Three cauldrons and 32 masks appear, with the masks making their entrance around 2:30 to 3:00.

Venue

Kizawa Shohachiman Shrine

788 Minamishinano Kizawa, Iida, Nagano 399-1401