Shinto Festivals and Calendar
These are important ceremonies
Nen-chu-gyo-ji, "year-round-discipline-rituals,"
refers to the events of the Shinto year, the annual calendar of events.
These make up the cycle of activities that occupy the priests of
the shrine from one year to the next. The central events of that year are
the festivals in which the greatest acts of celebration take place. The
yearly cycle follows a rhythm that gives life in Japan its context in times
and seasons.
Oshogatsu - New Year
The end of the old year and the beginning of the New Year are very
important times in Japan. Towards the end of the old year, people gather
for bonenkai, year-end parties at which the irritations and frustrations
and any misfortunes of the past year are symbolically washed away and forgotten
in the sake drunk on these occasions. After the new year has been ceremonially
ushered in, people hold shinenkai or new year parties, toasting the new
year, expressing their hopes and expectations for the year to come, wishing
each other well, and anticipating the good things to be.
Between these happenings, a number of important rituals are performed.
About a month before the New Year, at the beginning of December, people
traditionally put up a Kadomatsu - "entrance pine" - at their home. A combination
of standing bamboo and pine branches, the Kadomatsu acts as a point of
welcome for the kami whose goodwill and blessings are being invoked. Nowadays
in the cities, the entrance pine usually goes up the last week of December
on either side of the doorways to houses, hotels, offices, bars and even
bath houses. The shortening of the New Year celebration has been forced
on modern people by the pressures of business life. Companies begin around
the end of the first week with staff dressed in kimono (even banks do this)
on the first day for ceremonial greetings. In the country areas, where
the whole celebration was based on the patterns of a rice culture, New
Year's festivities used to go on until January 15, Koshogatsu, literally
"Little New Year," and sometimes continued into February.
Other New Year preparations include Susuharai,
a ceremonial house cleaning followed by the preparation of traditional
cold dishes called osechi-ryori and motchitsuki, rice cake. The purpose
of the dishes being cold was to relieve housewives of the task of cooking
for the opening three days of the New Year. This ideal is not so easy to
realize with the numbers of visitors coming and going during that time.
Still, the intention was good. The closing act of the old Year is eating
toshi-koshi-soba, the final plate of Japanese noodles for the year for
the year that is about to end.
People sometimes visit their local shrines just after midnight, while
others wait until daytime. At home, a family will clap their hands in front
of the kamidana, the shelf on which the miniature shrine is placed and
make offerings to the kami. Some people go out to watch the first sunrise
of the year, hatsu-hi-node, while other simply go to a shrine the first
two or three days of the year, hatsu-mode. People exchange visits, nenga
,among friends and relatives and send cards to each other, nengajo.
Children receive money, otoshidama, for the New Year and people involve
themselves in the whole range of activities special to the New Year such
as ladies in kimono playing a kind of badminton, men playing card and dice
games and, in some rural areas, costumed men called Namahage visiting homes
to see if the young are behaving well. New Year is busy, exciting and still
highly colorful.
(Note: For a fuller account in English of the Japanese New Year, see
an article by S.D.B.P. in Look Japan January 1984 "Oshogatsu: New Year
in Japan - a window to the spiritual roots of modernity" which lists a
vocabulary of over sixty terms that are special to the events, activities
and ceremonies of New Year. This should give an idea of how complex and
developed the sequence of events actually is and how the meaning and significance
of New Year has been ritualized.)
January 15th Sago-cho and also Seijin-no-hi.
Seijin-no-hi is coming of age day, in Japan
is the age of twenty. Shinto considers time and age to be important,
and therefore decisive moments are celebrated. Local town halls give presents
to the year's new twenty-year olds. Girls will often dress in kimono and
take pictures which will in due course be used to introduce them to prospective
husbands according to the traditional Japanese marriage system. It is a
big day for those becoming recognized adults, full-fledged adult members
of society. They also come to the shrine to seek the blessing of the kami
on their new status.
February 3rd
Setsubun-no-hi is celebrated by the Setsubun
festival. Setsubun means the day before the official calendar beginning
of Spring. According to the old calendar, it marks the end of
winter. People on that day at home throw beans to expel bad fortune and
invoke the good. At Tsubaki, priests dress in classic costume and shrine
members join in a procession for purification and then, from a great dais
raised in front of the haiden, they throw packets of beans for believers
and visitors to catch. As Guji of the Shrine, I shoot an arrow to break
the power of misfortune and then we proceed to the ceremony. Several thousand
people come that day. February 21st Toshi-goi-no-Matsuri is a festival
known also as the Yakuyoke festival. Yakuyuoke means a talisman, or omamori,
which is designed to ward off evil influences. The festival is linked closely
to the rites of passage in society and deals with the problems people faced
at particularly difficult periods of their lives. There is the coming of
manhood for boys at 17 and womanhood for girls at 19 - or genbuku as it
is called.
There are the years of yakudoshi when misfortunes
are most likely to befall, 21 is a turning point as is 33 for women and
42 for men. They come to the shrine for special purification
to avoid serious disasters. There are other stages in later life of celebration
such as kanreki which for men and women is 61 and later years such as 70,
77, 88 and 99. People will come to the shrine and receive an arrow as an
omamori to break ill fortune and they will install in in the kamidana.
March 3rd
Hina-matsuri is a festival of dolls to celebrate
daughters in the family. These dolls wear Heian age costumes
and are sometimes very old, being in the family for generations. Traditional
food, various celebrations and a shrine visit are associated with hina
-matsuri.
March 21st
Shubun-sai is equinox day, a day for grave-visiting
in particular and for remembering ancestors. It is closely associated
with Buddhism in particular, but is nevertheless one of the annual cycle
of events and national holidays of the year.
End of March
Haru Matsuri, the Spring festival, begins towards
the end of March and lasts approximately until the end of April, once all
the work of rice planting has been completed. Because Japan
has depended upon agriculture, rice in particular, praying for a successful
harvest is one of the the major acts of the year. The entire staff of priests
in full ceremonial dress enter the Haiden in solemn procession for the
purification rites, usually attended by several thousand people.
May 5th
Koi-no-bori is the boys festival. Large
cloth carp blow in the wind outside homes where there are boys. The carp
is admired because of its ability to swim against the stream, and is a
fitting model for youth to emulate. The household decoration for boys is
the model of the helmet of an ancient samurai.
June
Natsu-matsuri lasts for almost the entire month
of June. The summer festival is celebrated at the time when the crops are
in the greatest danger of being destroyed by insects and by blights.
Storms and floods can create unexpected chaos and therefore the blessing
of the kami at this delicate time is sought.
June 30
Nagoshi-no-Oharai --this form of purification
or walking through a circle of rope - takes place in June also.
A large sacred ring called a chi-no-wa, made of loosely-twisted miscanthus
reeds, is set up and after oharai people walk through it. Intended for
the purification of agricultural workers, to ward off mishaps of any kind,
it is performed on June 30, one of the two great days of national purification,
Obarae (the other is December 31, Shiwasu-Oharai) and completes the rites
of the summer period. The summer festivals are nowadays a highlight for
tourists as well as celebrations for local people. Because it is between
sowing time and harvest it is a time of relative relaxation and of community
celebration.
September to November
The Autumn Festival, Akimatsuri, takes place
during the months of September to November. At Tsubaki Grand
Shrine, we celebrate the Rei-tai-sai from October 11 to 13. This festival
is also associated with Sarutuhiko Okami. The community gathers to offer
thanksgiving for the incoming harvest. The Autumn Festival is the sequel
to the Spring Festival. October is known in Japanese as kan -na-zuki, the
month when the kami are absent. September was in the past a month of strict
taboos in various ways. Consequently, for many shrines, the Autumn Festival
can be the main festival.
In the neighboring Ise Jingu where Amaterasu
Omikami is enshrined, there is the festival called Kannamae-sai in mid-October
when the first fruits of the grain harvest are offered to the Deity of
the Sun. Closely related to this, and held at Tsubaki Grand
Shrine on November 23, is the festival known as Niiname-sai, a very old
and important festival held once a year which, like the Kannamae-sai, has
to do with the agricultural cycle. At the Ise celebration, the Emperor
offers the first cuttings of harvest just as a local village headman would
do at a village shrine. November 15th
Shichi-go-san , the festival for three, five
and seven year-olds, is held nationwide around this time. Children
in classical dress are taken to shrines to seek the protection of the kami
in this delicate stage of their lives.
End Of Year
After November, we come to the end of year
and the Oshogatsu festival and the cycle begins all over again. It is in
the festival, the matsuri, that the greatest celebration of life can be
seen in the world of Shinto.
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