The Sagicho in Katsuyama : the fire festival

2019年 02月08日


During the last weekend of February, the festival Sagicho also known as "spring telling festival" in the city of Katsuyama, in Fukui prefecture (centre of Honshu, the principal island). This festival began over 300 years ago, in the Edo period, and it is classified in important intangible folk culture asset. We pray for the successful completion and very good harvest of the new year.

This characteristic of this festival is the 12 floats made by cedar called yagura from the neighborhoods surrounding the castle and they are carried through the town by boisterous men all dressed and made up as women in red kimono, dancing by the sound of shamisen, and beating the drum taiko, and also the rythme of the music is the typical music of the city of Katsuyama.

 


Around the floats, long paper bands in different colours (called tanzaku) are bound. Each district of the city chooses 3 to 4 colours of tanzaku. Those paper bands had been used as the marks for the soldiers of fire during Edo period (1603-1868). This festival shows also the war between the fire and natural disaster.
 

They also set the tsuji-andon in the city. They are the small wooden sculptures shaped like boxes decorated by poems, observations, designs or humoristic messages. It has been used in Edo period, but it is placed for the event of Katsuyama Sagicho festival.
 

In addition, the tsukuri-mono are disposed in all over the city. They are artcrafts made only for this event, and the manufacturing process are cautiously hidden in the secret! They are kept in the inhabitants of the city. The sculptures are made from the daily necessities like kitchen tools. They are often represent the 12 animals of the signs of the zodiac.

In the end of those 2 days festival, they do the "dondo-yaki" in the evening:
The dondo-yaki is a rite pratically done in the beginning of the year, we put the fire on the symbolic objects for calling the good luck. 
Today, we pray not only for the good harvest but also for extinguish the fire safety: it burns up so high! The light of the fire with the snow landscape is just beautiful.
 


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