AS fireworks light up the winter night, scores of men, women and teenagers crying “washoi, washoi” haul the last of six towering, lantern-covered floats up a small hill and into the town centre, the culminating moment of a Shinto festival that has evolved from a harvest thanksgiving into a once-a-year meeting between two local gods. The Chichibu Night Festival, which has roots stretching more than 1,000 years, is one of three famous Japanese festivals to feature huge floats, which can top 23 feet and weigh up to 15 tons. They are pulled through the streets on large wooden wheels by hundreds of residents in traditional festival garb headbands, black leggings and thick cotton jackets emblazoned with Japanese characters to drums, whistles and exuberant chants.

Shinto is Japan’s indigenous religion that goes back centuries. It is an animism that believes there are thousands of kami, or spirits, inhabiting nature, such as forests, rivers and mountains. People are encouraged to live in harmony with the spirits and can ask for their help. Ancestors also become kami and can also help the living. This two-day festival has its roots in an older tradition of villagers giving thanks to the nearby mountain god for helping them during the planting and harvesting season, said Minoru Sonoda, the chief priest of the Chichibu Shrine and a former Kyoto University professor of religious studies. In 2016, it was designated a Unesco intangible cultural heritage. “It’s a time to celebrate the bounty of nature,” Sonoda said.

But these days, many Japanese who flock to the festival, which draws about 200,000 people every December, say the event holds no religious meaning for them but they do want to maintain the tradition. They visit the town, about 90 minutes by train northwest of Tokyo, simply for a fun, cultural experience: walking the thronged streets, watching the procession and eating from the hundreds of food stalls selling grilled squid, yakitori chicken skewers and dozens of other snacks.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2019