Kakegawa Matsuri

Overview

The Kakegawa Festival is an autumn festival held every year in early October in Kakegawa City, Shizuoka Prefecture. Deeply inheriting the traditions of Kakegawa-juku, the castle town of Kakegawa Castle, the festival centers on the urban district north of Kakegawa Station, where gorgeously decorated two-wheeled floats set out from each neighborhood and parade through the streets. Offering both the refined atmosphere unique to a castle town and the fervent bustle of the night, it is a leading castle-town festival of the Tokai region.

A major feature of the Kakegawa Festival is the Kakegawa Grand Festival, held on an enlarged scale once every three years, in the zodiac years of the ox, dragon, sheep, and dog. In the year of the grand festival, in addition to the floats of each neighborhood, three great performances appear, known as the Great Lion of Nito, the Kankaramachi of Kawara, and the Yakko Dochu of Nishimachi, wrapping the town in the greatest excitement of the year. In other years the festival is held annually on a reduced scale as the small festival, with float pulling, dance, and music on display.

History and Origins

The history of the Kakegawa Festival dates back to the mid-Edo period. According to old documents preserved in Kakegawa City, the festival was already being held in 1746, and records remain that from 1750 through the Horeki era (1751 to 1764), the three shrines of Ryubi Shrine, Shinmei-gu, and Toshi Shrine jointly conducted the festival. It can be seen that it took root early in the region as an officially recognized festival of the castle town of Kakegawa-juku.

Entering the Meiji era, the three shrines came for a time to hold their festivals separately. However, in 1920 the joint festival dating from the Edo period was revived, and thereafter the form in which several shrines join forces to support the festival has been handed down once more. That several shrines with different enshrined deities jointly conduct a festival is rare nationwide and has become a great distinctive feature of the Kakegawa Festival.

The Kakegawa Festival of today has developed into a joint festival of seven shrines situated around Kakegawa Castle, namely Ryubi Shrine, Shinmei-gu, Toshi Shrine, Ikebe Shrine, Hakusan Shrine, Tsushima Shrine, and Kifune Shrine. Forty-one neighborhoods that are the parishioners of these seven shrines take part, each bringing floats and performing arts, thereby shaping a festival that combines scale with diversity. The course by which what was once a festival of three shrines expanded into a joint festival of seven, amid the modern development of the urban district and the ties among neighborhoods, mirrors the very history of Kakegawa as a castle town.

The floats and performing arts that fill the festival possess a character distinctive to Kakegawa, born of the meeting and fusion of cultures from various regions. The decoration of the floats is said to be chiefly influenced by the Chukyo area, while the festival music traces its lineage to the eastern Japanese tradition originating in Edo's Tenka festivals. Before the war it was even called the Costume Festival, and the tradition of children taking part clad in gorgeous costumes lives on today. That the currents of differing cultures crystallize into a single festival is precisely the depth of the Kakegawa Festival.

Highlights

The Great Lion of Nito The performance that symbolizes the Kakegawa Grand Festival is the Great Lion of Nito neighborhood. The sight of a colossal lion, with a head weighing roughly 220 kilograms and a body (horo) extending some 25 meters, manipulated and danced by more than a hundred people, can only be called overwhelming. The sound of a bamboo conch announces the arrival of the great lion, which surges the width of the road to the tune of Tekka. It is a lion dance unlike any other, said to have been conceived from a great lion-head float that a monk of Nito saw in Shiroko, Ise Province, in the late Edo period.

The Kankaramachi of Kawara The Kankaramachi that comes from Kawara neighborhood is a traditional lion dance designated an Intangible Folk Cultural Property by Shizuoka Prefecture. Amid the clear tone of a flute and the rhythm-keeping beat of a drum, three single-standing lions dance, performing in a four-part structure of the procession, the triangle dance, the main dance, and the returning triangle dance. The main dance, in which two male lions vie over a single female lion, is rich in narrative, and it is also a performance of high dignity that serves as the vanguard for the portable-shrine procession of Ryubi Shrine.

The Yakko Dochu of Nishimachi The Yakko Dochu handed down in Nishimachi reenacts the procession of the days of Kakegawa-juku, modeled on the feudal-lord procession of the Shimazu clan of Satsuma. A highlight is the performance of servants tossing to one another long-handled spears marked with white hair, conveying to this day the scene of the alternate-attendance processions. During the festival period, there are times when the Yakko Dochu parades alone and times when it sets out as a full-formation feudal-lord procession, allowing one to experience the history of Kakegawa as a castle town and post town.

The Two-Wheeled Floats of Forty-One Neighborhoods At the Kakegawa Festival, forty-one neighborhoods each pull floats crafted with ingenuity. Kakegawa's floats are of a two-wheeled type rare even within Japan, embodying gorgeous decoration and the pride of each neighborhood. At the Festival Plaza north of Kakegawa Station, the floats, dance, music, and performances of each neighborhood are presented together, so that visitors can enjoy a rich variety of floats all at once.

The Custom of Passing Floats When floats pass one another, a custom unique to the Kakegawa Festival is performed. The series of exchanges in which the leaders call out to one another, the music stops to adjust the floats' positions, and the rhythm changes before they proceed again is called gaiko, tegi-awase, and tekka. A vestige of an age when the roads were narrow, this etiquette unfolding around intersections creates a distinctive atmosphere, at times genial and at times tense.

Different Faces by Day and Night The Kakegawa Festival shows the refined bearing distinctive to a castle town by day, while by night floats lit by the glow of lanterns tour the town amid great heat. That it changes its aspect greatly between day and night is one of its attractions, and the line of floats advancing against the backdrop of Kakegawa Castle rising into the autumn sky richly embodies the atmosphere of a Tokai castle town.

Event Information and Access

• Location: Central Kakegawa City, Shizuoka Prefecture (the urban district north of Kakegawa Station)
• Main venues: The Festival Plaza north of Kakegawa Station and neighborhoods throughout the city
• Dates: Early October every year (the grand festival over four days, the small festival over three days)
• Grand festival cycle: The Kakegawa Grand Festival is held once every three years, in the zodiac years of the ox, dragon, sheep, and dog (other years feature the small festival)
• Participation: Forty-one neighborhoods of the parishioners of the seven shrines around Kakegawa Castle, with about 40 floats
• Access: Within walking distance of JR Kakegawa Station (venues are in the central district north of the station)

Nearby Attractions

At the heart of the town that hosts the festival rises Kakegawa Castle. Known for having had the warlord Yamauchi Kazutoyo as its lord, its keep, rebuilt in the Heisei era as Japan's first full-scale wooden reconstruction, is a symbol of Kakegawa. From the keep one can survey the layout of the castle town, and realize that this very layout serves directly as the stage of the festival. Visiting together with the festival allows a deeper appreciation of the bond between the castle town's history and its rites.

Kakegawa holds a history of flourishing as Kakegawa-juku, a post town on the Tokaido's fifty-three stations, and traces of the post town remain along the highway. Historic structures such as the Kakegawa Castle Palace, an Important Cultural Property, are scattered about the city, offering strolls that trace Kakegawa's origins as a castle town and post town. Walking while overlaying the scene of the alternate-attendance procession reenacted by the festival performance Yakko Dochu, one can imagine the bustle of Kakegawa in former days.

A little farther afield, Kakegawa City is also known as a renowned tea-producing area, where one can savor Kakegawa tea, including deep-steamed green tea. Flower-and-greenery theme parks and historic temples and shrines are also scattered about, and one can build an itinerary alongside the Kakegawa Festival that tours places associated with Yamauchi Kazutoyo or enjoys the nature and cuisine of the Enshu region.

Related Information

• Month held: October (early)
• Prefecture and region: Shizuoka Prefecture (Chubu region, Enshu area)
• Origins: Already held by 1746; the three shrines of Ryubi, Shinmei, and Toshi held a joint festival from 1750 through the Horeki era; the joint festival was revived in 1920
• Organization: A joint festival of the seven shrines around Kakegawa Castle (Ryubi, Shinmei, Toshi, Ikebe, Hakusan, Tsushima, Kifune), with forty-one parishioner neighborhoods taking part
• Three great performances (at the grand festival): The Great Lion of Nito, the Kankaramachi of Kawara (a Shizuoka Prefecture Intangible Folk Cultural Property), and the Yakko Dochu of Nishimachi
• Distinctive features: A two-tier structure of a grand festival once every three years (ox, dragon, sheep, dog years) and an annual small festival, with two-wheeled floats rare within Japan

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