Kasuga Wakamiya On-matsuri

The On-matsuri is the festival of Kasuga Taisha's Wakamiya shrine, and the shrine says it has been held without a break for nearly 900 years. It began in 1136. The years before had brought long rains, floods, famine and disease, and the Fujiwara regents and the retired emperors turned to the Wakamiya deity for help. When the weather cleared, the deity was brought down to Kasugano and honoured with a festival, and that is what is still repeated. The date moved over the centuries and was fixed at 17 December in the Meiji era. 2026 is the 891st. The festival turns on a night journey. At midnight going into the 17th the deity is carried from the Wakamiya sanctuary to a temporary shrine at the Otabisho, inside the first torii of the main approach. It is done in full darkness and no lights are allowed, flashlights included. The deity stays there for one day only and goes back at about 23:00 on the 17th, before the date changes. In between comes the part most people see. At noon the Owatari-shiki procession sets out from in front of the Nara Prefectural Office, passes Kintetsu Nara Station, follows Sanjo-dori east and ends at the Otabisho. It is a sequence of groups in the dress of different periods: an envoy under a canopy, shrine maidens on horseback, noh actors, dengaku musicians with bamboo clappers, child archers who shoot at targets from horseback, and a daimyo procession at the end. From 14:30 the rites move to the small grass stage in front of the temporary shrine, with kagura, azuma-asobi, dengaku, bugaku and noh until about 22:30. On the 18th there is sumo and a noh performance at the same place.