Nanao Gion Matsuri

Overview

The Nanao Gion Festival (Nanao Gion Matsuri) is the summer festival of Otokonushi Shrine—also known as Sanno Shrine—located in the heart of Nanao City, Ishikawa Prefecture, on the Noto Peninsula. Held every year on the second Saturday of July, it is one of the celebrated "Kiriko" lantern-float festivals of which more than two hundred survive across the Noto region. Eleven large and small illuminated floats called hoto (or kiriko) are carried out from the parish districts of the city center and made to dance wildly around a great bonfire deep into the night, earning the festival the nickname "the Cooling-Off of the East." Together with the spring Seihaku Festival of the same shrine, the Ishizaki Hoto Festival, and the Nanao Port Festival, it ranks among Nanao's greatest annual events.

History and Origins

The festival's roots reach back to the Heian period, when belief in the Gion deity—venerated for warding off plague and misfortune—spread throughout Japan. The spirit of Kyoto's Gion Shrine, which enshrines Gozu Tenno, was invited to this land, and the Nanao Gion-e rite was first performed on the 14th day of the sixth lunar month. Because the deity was believed to travel to a temporary shrine on the seashore to escape the summer heat, the festival also came to be called the "Cooling-Off Festival" (Osuzumi Matsuri). Cucumbers were traditionally offered to the deity, and the custom of dedicating lanterns, begun in the Edo period, is said to be the origin of today's hoto lantern-float ritual.

The original Gion Gozu Tenno shrine once stood on the site of Anraku-ji temple in Kajimachi, but in 1635 it was moved to the Sanno grove in present-day Sannomachi. In 1882 the existing Sanno shrine and the Tenno shrine were merged and renamed Otokonushi Shrine, and the Gion Festival has been celebrated as this shrine's annual festival ever since. In 1910, when electric wires were strung throughout the town of Nanao, the large floats could no longer pass beneath them, and each district began carrying smaller improvised lanterns instead. The large floats were revived in 1961, when the districts also learned the drum, gong, and flute accompaniment that survives today. In 1997 the Kiriko festivals of Noto were designated by the national government as an Intangible Folk Cultural Property warranting documentation, and in 2015 they were recognized as a Japan Heritage under the title "Lanterns Dancing on the Peninsula: Noto, the Frenzy of Kiriko Festivals," shared by six cities and towns of Noto and Ishikawa Prefecture.

Highlights

The greatest spectacle is the moment when the floats race and sway against one another around a roaring bonfire late at night. Of the eleven hoto, the great float of the western Kohrimachi district stands roughly 12 to 13 meters tall and weighs around one to two tons, requiring some one hundred young men to lift and carry it. The remaining ten range from 5 to 10 meters in height. The front of each float bears three or four bold Chinese characters written vertically in ink—such as Hatenko (unprecedented), Kan-mukyoku (boundless joy), or Gozu Tenno—while the reverse is painted with valiant warrior scenes; at night these are illuminated and seem to float out of the darkness. Each district is assigned its own team color, so that onlookers can tell which neighborhood a float belongs to simply by the color worn by its bearers.

The movement of the floats is governed by drums, flutes, and gongs. When the drum sounds, the bearers heave the float aloft with a cry of "Saa, iyasakasa," then advance shouting the spirited refrain "Sakkasai, sakasassai, iyasakasaa." A leader wearing a red sash gives the signals to run, slow, and halt in time with the drums, and the way these enormous floats are commanded with such precision is itself a marvel to behold. An old custom also survives in which households celebrating the birth of a first child or the building of a new home present festival sake to their district's float, and the young men reply with a congratulatory song wishing prosperity and long life.

Visiting and Access

The Nanao Gion Festival takes place every year on the second Saturday of July, centered on Otokonushi Shrine in Sannomachi and the eastern districts of the city. Around three in the afternoon a rite is held at the shrine, the deity is transferred to a portable shrine (mikoshi), and led by children chanting the float song, it proceeds to the temporary shrine in Minatomachi. From early evening the district floats are carried out and paraded through their neighborhoods, gathering by around eight o'clock at the plaza before the temporary shrine to receive purification and a sacred wand. At about half past nine a single signal firework is launched, and the floats depart in the order decided by lot, escorting the portable shrine toward Otokonushi Shrine, carried through narrow lanes so close that they brush the eaves of the houses. Around the bonfire in the shrine precincts they dance once more before everyone joins in singing the old Nanao celebratory song "Nanao Madara" to close the festival. The venue is within walking distance of JR Nanao Station, and can also be reached by car via the Noto Satoyama Kaido or the Noetsu Expressway.

Nearby Attractions

Nanao, as the gateway to the Noto Peninsula, is rich in things to see. The roadside station "Noto Shokusai Ichiba (Nanao Fisherman's Wharf)" gathers the seafood and specialty products of Noto, where visitors can enjoy fresh fish and dining. A short distance away lies Wakura Onsen, a renowned hot spring with twelve centuries of history, which also holds summer fireworks. Crossing the Notojima Bridge from Wakura leads to Notojima Island, home to the Notojima Aquarium, famous for its dolphins and whale shark, and to marine activities. The Nanao Art Museum, associated with the painter Hasegawa Tohaku, is also well worth a visit, making it easy to combine the festival with the nature, history, and cuisine of Noto.

Related Information

The Kiriko festivals of Noto, to which the Nanao Gion Festival belongs, were recognized in 2015 as component cultural properties of the Japan Heritage "Lanterns Dancing on the Peninsula: Noto, the Frenzy of Kiriko Festivals," carrying the region's faith and fervor into the present. At the spring Seihaku Festival of the same Otokonushi Shrine, three of Japan's largest pull-floats—the "Dekayama," each about 12 meters tall and weighing some 20 tons—are paraded through the streets, famous for the skillful turning maneuver known as tsuji-mawashi. The Ishizaki Hoto Festival, held in nearby Ishizaki in early August, is renowned as a "men's festival" featuring the largest hand-carried float in all of Noto, and shares a cooperative relationship with the Nanao Gion Festival, the two lending bearers to each other. For anyone visiting Noto in summer, enjoying these Kiriko festivals together is highly recommended.

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