A steam of sweat rose as hundreds of naked men tussled over a bag of wooden talismans, performing a dramatic end to a thousand-year-old ritual in Japan that took place for the last time.
Their passionate chants of jasso, joyasa (meaning “evil, be gone”) echoed through a cedar forest in Iwate Prefecture, where the secluded Kokuseki Temple has decided to end the popular annual rite.
Organizing the event, which draws hundreds of participants and thousands of tourists every year, has become a heavy burden for the aging local faithful, who find it hard to keep up with the rigors of the ritual.
The Sominsai festival, regarded as one of the strangest festivals in Japan, is the latest tradition impacted by the country’s aging population crisis that has hit rural communities hard.
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Other temples across Japan continue to host similar festivals where men wear loincloths and bathe in freezing water or fight over talismans.
Some festivals are adjusting their rules in line with changing demographics and social norms so that they can continue to exist – such as letting women take part in previously male-only ceremonies.
Huh?
So a monk responsible for organizing the event cites how difficult the work is behind the scenes to set up the ceremony?
But the last line in the article quotes someone saying that because the population is getting older, maybe Japan needs to change their rituals since they aren’t working.
I wonder what work is so difficult or intensive to set up, like the blessing of the wooden talismans that they give out?
The monk suggests that the final event is the culmination of a lot of rituals, which clearly takes time and effort but I imagine they aren’t getting many young recruits at a rural temple. There have been numerous news articles about how rural towns and villages becoming hollowed out as all the young people move to the cities - I believe there’s one where a local woman is knitting replacement inhabitants.
They quote a participant in saying he is hoping to keep it going in some form, presumably one that is a little more secular, so you get the tourist yen (which must be a big boost to the local economy) without all the praying beforehand.
Oh, thank you. This makes a lot of sense.
That was a little confused why they kept alternately emphasizing age and then wooden talismans
Yeah, I initially thought they meant the age of the participants was the reason this was ending (as running around in February in just a loincloth seems a young man’s game) but it seems that it is more to do with the aging population leading to there being no-one left to do all the groundwork beforehand (both religious and secular).
Loads of things need organising for a large event, like toilets (including waste retrieval), registration?, volunteers, security/policing, permits, advertising?, food court?, litter control, etc, etc
Try organising a large scale event sometime and you’ll understand. There’s a lot of effort needed to make things go smoothly
Have done, don’t understand which rituals are so intensive, hence the question.