FIRE FIRE FIRE

Last weekend I drove with Lopaka, Breccan from Ojiya, Debs and Katsu to Nozawa Onsen across the border in Nagano for my favorite winter event, the Nozawa Onsen Dosojin Fire Festival. There is no way to describe an event like this to someone who has not lived in Japan. To the uninitiated, it looks on the surface like a bunch of crazed, drunken men with flaming torches, trying to kill each other. Which is pretty much what it is. But I remember Debs saying "This is so Japan". I found myself nodding in approval without knowing why. It just makes sense.

Personally it is a comforting and important event for me because it is essentially the Japanese version of Zozobra in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which I went to every September until I left for college. Zozobra is a longtime tradition during the 300-year-old or so Fiestas de Santa Fe, which is a special New Mexican event celebrating the reconquest of New Mexico by those wily Spaniards after they got their asses deservedly revolted on by the Pueblos. Anyway, the point of Zozobra is to stand in a field in front a huge massive angry puppet named Old Man Gloom, who represents gloom and all sorts of nastiness. We drink beer and then swear at him while a bunch of weird cult-like things happen until he blows up in flames and we all dance around and cheer. To a New Mexican, it's completely natural. To a non-native, it's a bit odd: I remember taking Paul Grosfield and Sarah to one a few years ago and they were like "You people are crazy!" But basically, it's just a way to lift the year's troubles and glooms and send them scurrying away in the form of flames and ash. If you wanna see pics of the flaming beast, check it out http://www.zozobra.com/gallery3.html

The Nozawa Fire Festival is similar because it is ultimately about burning away evil spirits from the past year (it's always on January 15, which is a day in which fires are burned all over Japan for that purpose, part of starting the new year). The details of the two may be different, but the overall sequence of events is the same: start with some small fires, build it up with people doing some weird chanting and running around, and then the climax with setting the main object aflame.

Anyway, instead of just describing the Nozawa festival with words, I'll shut up and post some pictures.