Sakaki Festival

About this event

A major event in the Mochizuki area, the Sakaki Festival features historic events including parades of portable shrines (mikoshi), performances of Mochizuki taiko drums, and folk dance processions. In particular, the torch-throwing event is an ideal experience for making summer memories. It is open to 4th-grade elementary school students and older (students in 3rd grade or below may also participate if accompanied by a guardian), who climb the mountain carrying torches, light them, and descend. Because fire is handled, participants must strictly observe precautions regarding clothing and physical stamina. This is a traditional fire festival that purifies all impurities with fire and sakaki to pray for bumper crops, and is also known as one of Shinshu's curious festivals. The sight of young people running down the mountain with torches in hand and hurling them all at once into the Kakkuma River, as well as the Sakaki portable shrines violently clashing as they head toward the shrine, is breathtaking. It is a wild and magical festival, with legends saying that Takeda's forces once mistook it for a night-attack signal and retreated.

Venue

Nakasendo Mochizuki-juku Honjin Ruins

244-1 Mochizuki, Saku, Nagano 384-2202