20 May 2005
Last
updated: 25/05/05
Annie, Tom and I were extremely fortunate to be invited to join the Mikuni festival by Yamamoto-san - one of Haruko's secretaries. During this festival massive floats containing huge "doll" figures are man- (and woman-) handled through the narrow streets of Mikuni town. From what I gather, the various neighbourhoods own the floats (dashi), and not all the floats are used each year. Every year, a different family organises the neighbourhood dashi and who will pull it. This year, the responsibility of organising one of the floats fell to Yamamoto-san's family.
The festival lasted all afternoon, and dashi were pulled, and portable shrines carried, through the streets from about 1pm through to around 9pm. And yes, we were pulling it for all that time! (my biceps are now absolutely massive...!). It was an absolutely incredible experience - and a hell of a lot of fun! The people in our troop were so friendly, and the musicians were fantastic - especially the kids playing taiko inside the dashi (how they, the flautists and the shamisen players managed to keep going despite the rocking and clanking of the float, I have no idea!).
It's impossible to describe here what the festival was like. Hopefully these photos can go some way to portraying the event.
I'd
just like to say here a HUGE thank you to Yamamoto-san, and her family, for
including us in this fabulous event, and inviting us into their home for dinner
afterwards...not to mention taking us to a shrine after dinner, and showing us
round some of the stalls. We had a really wonderful time, and I have to
admit, this was possibly the best festival I've been involved in. The
atmosphere was fantastic!
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One of the dashi,
a crowd of people, and some food stalls. |
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Anne, in her hapi, getting ready to pull our float! |
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Annie, Delly (me) and Tommy
How cool do we look in our hapi?! Could almost be Japanese, no?! |
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Inside the float (under the giant Samurai), a group of children play taiko drums |
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There were, literally, thousands of people at this festival! |
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Annie and I take the strain |
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During a break, on
of the guys on the ropes pauses to talk to the taiko-ing kids. |
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Tom moves to the rudder at the back, and helps steer the dashi (actually, I think it was in order to get his grubby gaijin paws on the huge bottles of sake being passed around at the back...!) |
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A portable shrine,
being carried by a band of guys who became increasingly inebriated as the
festival progressed... |
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Anne makes a new friend
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Look at those
bulging biceps! (Pic. courtesy of Annie) |
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Disaster! During the mid-afternoon the rudder snapped off (couldn't cope with the gaijin muscles?).
We were all given dinner while a group of guys from our troop tried to fix the problem |
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you can just see the broken pole resting on the shoulder of the guy in the middle.
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Trying to fix it... |
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...spectators |
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After borrowing a beam, and fixing it in with wedges and gaffer tape, we were on our way again. It was getting dark, so the lights were turned on...and what a sight!
Off we set again to shouts of
TORIKAJI (port) OMOKAJI (starboard)
whistles blowing, taikos booming, flutes trilling and shamisen twanging! |
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I pose for a quick photo with Yamamoto-san and one of her daughters (Pic. courtesy of Annie) |
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After dinner, on our way to the shrine, we were bought these weird drink-things...
And, yes, it really did look like a condom filled with some bright-coloured liquid. On handing over our money, the teat was pierced, ready for us to suck out the juice - as Annie is kindly demonstrating here! |
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You know what happened next.
It was (a slightly drunk) Tom that did it.
Note to others who try this festival treat:
DO NOT TRY TO BITE THE DAMN THING
(they expload) |
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