Kyoto Gozan Okuribi

Obon begins with mukaebi, the fires that welcome the spirits of the ancestors home, and ends with okuribi, the fires that send them back to the Pure Land. On the night of 16 August Kyoto lights its okuribi on five mountains around the city, one after another. In 2026 the order was the Daimonji, the character 大 on Nyoigatake in the Higashiyama hills, at 20:00; the characters 妙 and 法 at Matsugasaki at 20:05; the boat shape at Nishigamo at 20:10; the Hidari Daimonji on Okitayama near Kinkaku-ji at 20:15; and the torii gate at Saga Toriimoto at 20:20. Each burns for about 30 minutes. Nobody knows for certain when the fires began. The federation of the five preservation societies says they spread as Buddhism reached ordinary people, that records mention okuribi from the 15th century, and that the present five probably took shape by the middle of the Edo period. Every fire has its own legend of origin, but contemporary records hardly exist, and the federation treats all of them as later guesses. It says the fires were begun and kept up by local people's faith, and that because they were not an affair of the state, official records seldom mention them. Each fire is kept by the community beneath it, and preparing one is a year's work: red pine has to be found and dried for the fire beds. Before the night, people can offer gomagi, wooden sticks on which they write a prayer for their ancestors or for the health of their family; at the Daimonji they become part of what is burned. The federation notes that on 1 June 1983 each of the five was registered as an intangible folk cultural property of Kyoto City.