Martial arts at Shimogamo Shrine with wooden swords
May brings a flurry of festivities in the Shinto calendar, and Kyoto kicks off the month with several colourful events, including the Aoi Festival preliminaries (the grand parade takes place on the 15th). This year the sunshine was in expansive mood for the first weekend of what is surely in weather terms the grandest month of the year. Plenty of reason to celebrate!!
Yesterday saw the end of the Inari Festival, with the return of the mikoshi to the main shrine (see here). Meanwhile, at Shimogamo Shrine there was the Yabsusame horse archery, a preliminary Aoi Festival event. Archers shot at three 50-centimeter-square targets set at 100-meter intervals, and according to Kyodo press agency about 22,000 visitors watched the event – which explains why I wasn’t able to get anywhere near it!
Today at Kamigamo Jinja there was purification of this year’s Saio representative, in preparation for the coming Aoi Matsuri. The event is held alternate years at Kamigamo and its sister shrine, Shimogamo. (For a description of last year’s event, see here.)
Fujimori Shrine in the south of the city holds its annual festival at the beginning of May, climaxing tomorrow on the 5th with a display of acrobatic horse riding techniques used in medieval battles. Also tomorrow Shimogamo will hold the Busha Shinji ritual to ward off evil spirits for the Aoi Festival by shooting arrows into the air. And coming up soon is the Kanko Festival on May 10 at Matsunoo Taisha, with six mikoshi returning back to the shrine after doing their ’round of happiness’ (kanko).
Meanwhile, today Shimogamo Shrine held a display of martial arts, put on for the entertainment of the kami in similar manner to the origins of sumo. it was a marvellous sunny occasion, with a whole variety of weapons and techniques to be seen, some well-known and some barely practised these days except by a handful of dedicated types.
The outer compound of the Shimogamo Shrine with the stage facing towards the kami. In the foreground naginata (long spear) practitioners await their turn to perform.
Swordsmen strike a pose
Respect! Honouring the kami
That’s cool, never been to one of those, need to put it on my list…