Shinto Fertility Festival
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Shinto Fertility Festival
July 6, 2011
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John D.
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Feb 11 was a national holiday in Japan in honour of Japan’s legendary founder-emperor, Jimmu. My friend rang me up in the morning and suggested going to a fertility festival. I did not realise it, but it happened to take place right in the heart of ancient Yamato, in villages surrounded by the tumuli of Japan’s early rulers.
The Tsuna Matsuri (rope festival) was very much the real thing. Two neighbouring villages enact ancient rites going back into the mists of time. One of the village shrines houses a female kami, and the parishioners drag a heavy rope construction over to the next village, where there is a shrine with a male kami.
The festival begins with sumo wrestling between sturdy youths in a rice field in a specially watered circle that consisted of very, very thick mud. The guys wrestling were just village folk in old clothes, and when they finished they were covered head to foot in mud. The final pair had shaved their heads and gave each other a head bath before they started. When they came out they were soiled in thick mud all over, with just a white patch for the eyes. This was all accompanied with liberal amounts of saké, and there was even thin snow falling out of a blue sky to add to the atmosphere. The festival had got off to an earthy start…
The main event was the stringing up of the female organ. A long rope extending from the back was strung over a river and tied to a tree. The male organ was then carried over the fields, its tail unravelled and stretched over several trees and into the rice fields. Then it was rammed into the female, before the entwined couple was strung up to hang for the rest of the year as a spur to a successful rice harvest. The complications of unravelling the long ropes – thickly wrapped rice plants some 100 metres in length – made one marvel at the sophistication with which they had been put together. Almost a work of art in itself.
The whole event necessitated some fifty people, with groups to carry the heavy rope objects, others
sitting up in trees to thread the rope through, and yet others stitching the two objects together. At one stage I was talking to a man I thought was a priest, but the nearby women hastily told me he was only dressed up in priest’s clothes to act for the day as the ‘go-between’ or marriage priest of the male-female rope organs. Almost like the jester in the English folk tradition.
One felt here the true spirit of Shinto: a friendly drunken community event rooted in the rites of the land. All the mud besotted labourers took part afterwards for a short service in front of the small shrine (dedicated to Susanoo no mikoto), followed by a naorai feast. A genuinely good time was had by all!
This report doesn’t seem to tell us exactly where this festival takes place. Or maybe I missed it.
Good point, thank you. It’s in the ancient Yamato heartland, in a village on the plain below the Omiwa Shrine. The festival name is Etsumi Ohnishi O-Tsuna Matsuri (Sacred Straw Rope Copulation Festival. It takes place in Ohnishi village near the town of Sakurai on February 11 (National Foundation Day).
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evAuxX3MXso
If you're closer to central Japan, you could join the fertility festival that takes place in Komaki, a city just north of Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture. The Honen Matsuri ( honen means prosperous year) is held every March 15 as a way to welcome spring and new life. And what better way to symbolize fertility than with a 2.5-meter-long (96 in) wooden phallus?
The festival begins around 10 a.m. at Tagata Shrine, though the main member won't be present yet. Rather, it starts at a hilltop shrine called Shinmei-sha in even-numbered years, or Kumano-sha in odd-numbered years, and is carried to Tagata Shrine beginning at 2 p.m. after receiving blessings from priests.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLNRTT2-brw
Once the mikoshi gets to the shrine, the festival is concluded with a mochi nage , or rice cake toss. Officials of the festival throw solid mochi rice cakes to the crowd, who joyously try to catch them. If you're able to join this festival, be sure to look up when the mochi is being thrown, as they're rock hard and can actually cause injury.
Like the Kanamara Festival, this event seems to be incredibly popular for foreigners and travelers, but locals surely enjoy the mochi throws and the all-you-can-drink sake that's offered to participants before the whole thing wraps up around 4:30 p.m. Luckily, for those who still want to party, the shrine is very close to a large liquor store and many attendees head across the street to continue the festivities.
http://www.japaoemfoco.com/hime-no-miya-e-hounen-matsuri-festivais-da-fertilidade/
Celebrating the ladies, the Oagata Shrine Honen-sai is held in Inuyama City on the closest Sunday before March 15. While this is not as well known as the penis festivals, the vagina reigns here as the symbol of an abundant harvest. Oagata Shrine was built in 1661 and the goddess enshrined there, Tamahime-no-mikoto, is said to bless couples with a successful childbirth. Unsurprisingly, Oagata Shrine is the sister shrine to Tagata Shrine, and these two festivals are generally promoted together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XERmFDLndgc&feature=youtu.be
While the three festivals listed above are the most famous, there are other fertility festivals to be found around the country:
Onda Matsuri: Nara Prefecture, held on the first Sunday in February
Ometsuki Matsuri: Miyagi Prefecture, held annually January 24 (seen above)
Konsei Matsuri: Iwate Prefecture, held annually April 29
Hodare Matsuri Niigata Prefecture, held on the second Sunday in March
So if you like your festivals a little risqué, you've got plenty to choose from!
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Actor, director and writer who called Japan home for nine years before moving to NYC. Lover of the stage and all things Final Fantasy. Hobbies include drawing, gaming, gym, and cooking (not simultaneously).
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Inside Japan's world-famous 'penis festival'
Annual 'Steel Phallus' festival in Japan celebrates the penis
Everything is penis-related on the day of the festival
There are plenty of souvenirs for sale
There's a serious side to the festival too
But it has solid historical and religious roots
Today, the festival includes a cross-dressing group carrying this giant pink penis
The festival's now become part of Japan's 'wacky' identity
The Elizabeth Kaikan group carry the pink penis
Thousands of people attend the festival
The Elizabeth Kaikan group carry the pink penis
The Shinto religion focuses on fertility
There's every kind of food in phallic shape
Participants can wear anything from loincloths to full uniforms
Phallic imagery isn’t uncommon in Shinto
It’s known as a fun event but the festival’s roots go way back
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Every April, thousands descend on Kawasaki to participate in an ancient Shinto fertility ritual that’s now a sex-positive celebration. Selena Hoy joins the crowd
Phallic imagery isn’t uncommon in Shinto
It’s known as a fun event but the festival’s roots go way back
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Every April, thousands descend on Kawasaki to participate in an ancient Shinto fertility ritual that’s now a sex-positive celebration. Selena Hoy joins the crowd
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If any country has a reputation for modesty and manners, it’s Japan. The Japanese are polite, never late and constantly bowing, goes the usual narrative – and there’s certainly truth in that. But the reality is a little more complicated – and that complexity is on full view at one of the country’s most outlandish religious festivals, the Kanamara Matsuri, or “Festival of the Steel Phallus”, held annually in Kawasaki, just south of Tokyo.
It’s the first Sunday in April, and I’m in Kawasaki’s Daishi neighbourhood, surrounded by penises of all colours and sizes. Normally the streets here are sleepy – just three days ago, only a few lonely pedestrians were walking the alleys – but today there’s a scrum of people shouting, laughing and chanting, pushing and shoving as they jockey for position.
They’re all trying to get a glimpse of the massive penis mikoshi , or portable shrines, being paraded through the town. Each mikoshi is carried by dozens of locals outfitted in happi coats and sweatbands, while some of the men are in fundoshi, loincloth-style underwear.
The Kanamara Matsuri is often presented to outsiders as yet another face of “quirky Japan”, but in fact, it’s a serious religious affair, linked to Japan’s nature-worshipping Shinto religion.
It’s organised by the priests of Kanayama Jinja , a ‘sub-shrine’ of the larger Wakamiya Hachimangu that, the rest of the year, is populated almost exclusively by locals. For centuries, Kanayama has been a place where couples pray for fertility and marital harmony; during the Edo era, from the 17th to 19th centuries, sex workers would come and pray to be rid of the STIs that they picked up in the course of the job. There was even a festival revolving around fertility and sexual health during those times – but the tradition was lost in the late 1800s. In the 1970s, then-chief priest Hirohiko Nakamura decided to resurrect it.
Early incarnations of the ‘new’ Kanamara Matsuri were held at night and saw only about a dozen attendees. But since then, the festival has morphed int
Sara Lancaster Nude
Tiny White Bikini
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