Tokamachi Fest Saturday, Golden Chaos

The saturday night of Tokamachi Festival is the climax, where the mikoshi (portable shrine) is carried all over town all day (Martin threw in a jaunt with it on his shoulders, props to him). This mikoshi is a portable shrine that is kept in the Suwa temple way above Tokamachi. It is pulled out once a year and carried about town where it is blessed randomly, and carried down each street by the residents of that district (mostly men but I saw a couple women going at it too).

It doesn't sound too exciting but when you see the effort and pain in their faces, you realize this thing is HEAVY. It weighs 750 KG which is something near 2000 pounds. The combination of them all being loaded drunk and careening this vehicle-sized garnished gold shrine completely out of control is just fully amusing.

It goes on and off all day, hitting the districts around downtown, until later that night when people gather around to watch the battle as some people are trying to push it up back into the shrine so they can put it down, and some people are pushing it back into the street so they can stay out and revel. We all dressed in our yukata and chased the shrine around all night, trying a new extreme sport: playing chicken with the dozens of nearly naked guys charging at you and screaming, trying to snap a photo before you get violently trampled.

Sweat is flying everywhere, bells are jingled, drums and flutes are rhythmically pounded and piped, people young and old are in drunken pain in a sort of unifying religious bodily sacrifice not unlike the pilgrimage in Chimayo on Good Friday...just without the Christ part. Their arms are opened and inhibitions are dropped and people approach you with more random kindness than usual. If you are a Tokamachi-jin, you are all part of this community experience, and they are thrilled that you are interested in what they also realize is a bit of a strange custom.

Once the shrine was pushed through the torii gate entering the walkway up to the shrine, it was attached to two long ropes which we all took hold of to help pull it up the steep winding path. People chanted in unison and onlookers shouted in support.

It got up to the top where it was placed in front of the shrined and blessed by the priestess (this is all a Shinto ritual, one of the few times in a religion I've seen where a woman seems to have a leading role). Everyone claps together and prays and it's placed in the shrine. Different priests and different people belonging to the shrine sit about and pray while the priestess reads from a scroll.

Then chaos breaks loose as the free blessed sake is handed out along with fruit and packets of blessed rice. You are to use this rice when you cook your own rice by throwing in a kernel or two. It will keep you healthy over time. A few refills of sake later, the ceremony ends and people start filing away past lit paper lanterns...

We stumbled through the streets until we found ourselves in a club event at Kumakichi where the traditional mountain town experience was balanced out with some tequila, a DJ, dancing and just being young till all hours of the night...