Kotohiki Hachimangū Taisai

The Kotohiki Hachimangu Taisai is the grand autumn festival of Kotohiki Hachimangu Shrine in Kan'onji City, Kagawa Prefecture, held every year over the third weekend of October. Its formal name is Kotohiki Hachimangu Otaisai, but it is far better known by its local names, the Kan'onji Festival and the Kan'onji Chosa Festival. As the annual rite of an ancient shrine standing on Mount Kotohiki overlooking the Seto Inland Sea, the festival gives thanks for the autumn harvest while showcasing the very finest of the drum-float culture rooted in western Kagawa, a region known as Sanuki-sei-san.

The stars of the festival are the great drum floats called chosa, of which nine are dedicated to Kotohiki Hachimangu Shrine. These nine floats are considerably larger than the drum floats of neighboring areas, so heavy that they are popularly described as belonging to the three-ton class, and their bodies draped in curtains embroidered with gold thread are gorgeous in the extreme. The floats are also famous for their dazzling nighttime illumination, and the kakikurabe, in which teams of bearers work in unison to hoist the massive floats high overhead, is the highlight that brings the excitement of the crowds to its peak.

History and Origins

Kotohiki Hachimangu Shrine stands at the summit of Mount Kotohiki, a scenic height commanding views of the Seto Inland Sea. According to shrine tradition it was founded in the third year of the Taiho era (703), and it enshrines Hachiman, the god of war and guardian of the sea, identified with Emperor Ojin. The shrine's name is said to derive from a legend in which the master of a koto (a stringed instrument) was drawn up to the summit together with his boat, where a shrine was then built to enshrine him as Kotohiki Hachimangu. This ancient tale of drawing a boat up to the mountaintop lives on in the children's procession of the modern festival, described below.

Before the modern separation of Buddhism and Shinto, Kotohiki Hachimangu was the sixty-eighth temple of the Shikoku Pilgrimage of eighty-eight sacred sites. It is also known as the place where Minamoto no Yoshitsune prayed for victory during the Genpei War, drawing the faith of both the maritime traffic of the Inland Sea and the warrior class. This deep historical background formed the foundation for a grand autumn festival embraced by the entire community.

The dedication of the chosa drum floats that lies at the heart of the festival has been a tradition since the Edo period. The Sanuki-sei-san district of western Kagawa is an especially dense center of drum-float culture, with large floats concentrated in Toyohama, Kan'onji, and Onohara. It is said that within Kan'onji City alone there are as many as 118 chosa in existence. When October comes, chosa festivals are held throughout the city and the town is enveloped in the sound of drums and the heat of the crowds, and the Kotohiki Hachimangu Taisai stands at the very center of these celebrations.

Each of the nine drum floats is operated and preserved by its local neighborhood associations, and they are given numbers and names from the First (Naka) drum through to the Ninth (Shake) drum. Some are relatively recent additions, such as the Eighth (Mogi) drum, owned by the Mogi association since 1999, and the Ninth (Shake) drum, owned by the Hachimancho association since 2000. In this way the festival continues to maintain its circle of bearers today while inheriting a tradition that reaches back to the Edo period. Some floats, such as the children's drum floats once dedicated, are currently suspended, and the festival has continued while changing its form with the times.

Highlights

Nine massive three-ton-class chosa　The nine chosa dedicated to Kotohiki Hachimangu are conspicuously larger than the drum floats of surrounding areas and are known as the three-ton class. The sight of a great crowd of bearers supporting these giant bodies, adorned with curtains embroidered in gold thread, embodies the pinnacle of the drum-float culture of western Kagawa.

The kakikurabe contest of strength　In the kakikurabe, several chosa gather together and their bearers compete in strength and skill by hoisting the heavy drum floats high into the air. The perfectly coordinated movements and spirited chants of the bearers ring out, and together with the fervor of the onlookers this is the moment when the whole festival reaches its climax.

Dedication and entry to the summit shrine　On Saturday and Sunday afternoons, the chosa that have paraded through the eastern and western districts enter the precincts of Kotohiki Hachimangu and are dedicated to the shrine. The line of drum floats crossing the Sankakyo Bridge is a scene emblematic of autumn in Kan'onji, and the dedication, conducted according to detailed rules, carries the full weight of tradition.

The children's procession rooted in legend　Based on the legend of the shrine's founding, a children's procession known as osonaezoroe is held in which local children and festival participants draw a boat up to the main shrine at the summit. When the procession of children and the portable shrine pass through the Juodo hall at the foot of Mount Kotohiki, the kakikurabe of the chosa is customarily paused.

Nighttime illumination and fireworks　The Kotohiki Hachimangu Taisai is famous for its flamboyant nighttime illumination, with the chosa lit up and floating out of the darkness. Each year fireworks are launched on Saturday night, and the fantastical spectacle of the glowing drum floats set against fireworks in the night sky reveals a charm of the festival quite different from that of the daytime.

The seventy-five-tray offering and the release of carp　Beyond the dedication of the drum floats, the grand festival hosts a wealth of ritual events. The seventy-five-tray offering ceremony, in which seventy-five trays are presented before the deity, the hitotsumono release rite in which carp are released into the Hachiman River (Hojogawa) that flows before the shrine gate, and dedications of village kagura dance are all performed, so that the vigorous drum floats and the serene rites together give the festival its full shape.

Event Information

• Location: Kan'onji City, Kagawa Prefecture
• Venue: Kotohiki Hachimangu Shrine (1-1-1 Hachimancho, Kan'onji City) and the area around the Juodo hall
• Dates: Three days from Friday to Sunday, with the third Sunday of October as the final day (Friday is the eve festival; Saturday and Sunday are the shrine entry and dedication)
• Main events: Chosa kakikurabe and shrine dedication, children's procession (osonaezoroe), portable shrine procession, fireworks (Saturday night), food stalls
• Access: About 4 minutes by taxi from Kan'onji Station on the JR Yosan Line; about 12 minutes by car from the Sanuki-Toyonaka IC on the Takamatsu Expressway
• Admission: Free to view (follow directions for parking at the Ariake beach ground and elsewhere). Note that the festival may be canceled or changed depending on circumstances.

Around the Area

The area including Mount Kotohiki, the stage of the festival, is maintained as Kotohiki Park, designated a national Place of Scenic Beauty. On the Ariake beach within the park is drawn a colossal sand picture, the Zenigata Sunae in the shape of the Kan'ei Tsuho coin, measuring about 345 meters in circumference. Viewed from the observation deck at the summit of Mount Kotohiki, this coin figure is one of Kan'onji's foremost attractions, and legend holds that those who see it will enjoy health, long life, and freedom from want of money.

Kan'onji City is home to the Chosa Kaikan, a hall where visitors can experience the drum-float culture throughout the year. Through actual chosa and footage of the festivals, one can learn about the world of the more than one hundred drum floats that survive within the city. Even for those who visit outside the festival season, it offers a taste of the fervor of the autumn festivals of western Kagawa.

The area around Kotohiki Hachimangu is also a land of pilgrimage where sacred sites of the Shikoku Pilgrimage of eighty-eight temples cluster together. Kotohiki Hachimangu itself was the sixty-eighth temple before the Meiji era, and today the sixty-eighth temple Jinnein and the sixty-ninth temple Kan'onji stand side by side within a single precinct, a pairing rare even nationwide, offering a landscape unique to Kan'onji where the cultures of festival and pilgrimage overlap.

Related Information

• Month: October (autumn)
• Location: Kan'onji City, Kagawa Prefecture (Shikoku region)
• Origins: The dedication of drum floats is a tradition dating from the Edo period; the shrine is said by tradition to have been founded in 703
• Scale: Nine three-ton-class chosa are dedicated (a total of 118 chosa survive within Kan'onji City)
• Common names: Kan'onji Festival / Kan'onji Chosa Festival
• Features: Entry and dedication to the summit shrine, a children's procession rooted in legend, nighttime illumination and fireworks

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