I went to Kanda Festival today, May 14th.
This festival is a traditional event held annually at Kanda shrine in Japan which is counted as one of the three major Japanese festivals.
There are various theories regarding the exact starting period of this festival.It is generally believed that this event started early 17th century.
There are more than one hundred Mikoshi in this festival.
Mikoshi starts from the shrine and walk around the local area of each Mikoshi. It is believed that God is partially transferred from the shrine to Mikoshi, so walk around of Mikoshi meant that God went to the local area wishing the happiness of those living in the area.
This relationship between the shrine and the local people is described as "Ujigami sama & Ujiko". Ujigami sama is the god and Ujiko is the people living there.
Mikoshi is also a symbol of each area called "Machi".
Machi is Traditional Japanese society which used to have a roll to joint neighbors and maintain safe and reliable community.
Currently, it seems that Machi is losing it's role described above but keeping the role to assist the festival by providing people who hold Mikoshi.
Because of less birth issue in Japan,and also development of inner Tokyo caused decreasing population in Kanda area, it has been a problem for the community to maintain the number of the holders.
In some Machi which cannot provide least number of holders, private holder's association located outside of Kanda area is taking it's role on behalf of locals.
In that case, there are some diputes that those private holders tend to hold the best position of Mikoshi and locals cannot have the chance.
Anyway, it was pretty nice to see a festival evenif I'm alone, I would like to try "Sanja Festival" in Asakusa next week.
See you then.
Thanks for watching my blog.
Regards,
