Festival 3

Odawara 7/27/08


The day began with prayer, a big breakfast and a hike down to Oppama Station. From there I traveled to Kamakura, where I spent a couple of hours at its beach. Its water was clear and warm and filled with swimmers. The waves were small, but they broke far away from the shore and I could body surf short distances.

At about 1pm I headed to the train station, and traveled about 22 miles east to Odawara. When I arrived, I stepped outside to a view of the high-seated castle amidst distant cloudy and blue mountains. The castle was elevated above the city and had a moat, a cage of Japanese Macaques and gardens within its foregrounds. There were also many bizarre shaped and seemingly ancient trees within the castle park. As I approached the castle, I could hear drumming coming from the festival grounds and took flight towards the sounds. I arrived to a set of carnival booths, paper lantern decorations, a stage with medium to massive sized drums and a group of about 100 onlookers sitting on benches.

I went straight to the benches and sat down for an intense two-hour ride of radiant music. Over this time period, there were four sets of drummer teams with matching uniforms and between six to twenty members each. The first two performances included flute players and were paced by slow to moderate drumming. The music was sweet and the drummers were very serious. They were deeply focused on their timing and produced a seemingly flawless performance. The next two groups came with large drums and thunderous fast-paced drumming. They chanted and swung their wooden drumming sticks in all directions with beautiful synchronicity. The performances were well prepared and one could see the emotion and joy in the faces of the drummers as they pounded away. I nodded back and forth on the bench and took it in.

After the drumming, the mikoshi ceremony began. (Mikoshi are portable shrines, most shaped like minature shrine buildings, with pillars, a roof and a golden phoenix on top. They are believed to house local nature spirits and give good fortune to towns that carry them in festival parades. Odawara, which is a well populated city, had 25 in its festival.)
After a set of speeches, teams of 10-30 men and women started carrying the mikoshi out of the castle park, over the moat bridge and into the streets. Each team, which were dressed in matching uniforms and head towels, had a man that lead the chants and their movement and a set of flag and paper-lantern holders that marched in the front. Some ran the mikoshi at top speed for as long a fifty feet, before coming to an immediate stop, others tipped it over from side to side, but all marched it out, chanting loudly and popping it up and down on their shoulders.

After they all left the castle park, I followed them to the street. They were still popping up and down and chanting. The energy of all the motion and sound was intense and the setting sun turned the sky into a gorgeous collage of gold, grey and blue. I started pacing and jumping alongside a team that was popping up and down faster and chanting louder than the others. A man in the front waved at me to join the team and I accepted the offer.

Wow. I entered the eye of the hurricane. Sandwiched in a tight group of 30 men, I chanted and screamed “Washoi,” “Yokoi sorah,” and “Hi, Hi, Hi, Hi, Hi, Hi” and popped up and down with all my might. Exhilarating. I do not know what the others were yelling for, but I was yelling for Life, and for Youth and for The Creator who puts it all together. Exhilarating.

Eventually, we carried the mikoshi back into the castle park and joined the others. There the community leaders were singing beautiful folk melodies, to which we responded with more “Washoi,” “Yokoi Sorah,” and “Hi, Hi, Hi, Hi, Hi, Hi.” We bopped and screamed as loud as we could. When it ended, I thanked the men for letting me join and headed back to Odawara station. The next morning I awoke with a sore shoulder and a brilliant memory.