Nozawa Onsen Dosojin Fire Festival

In the two days before the festival the village cuts five sacred beech trees and builds a shrine about seven metres tall around them, and on the night of the 15th it is attacked with fire. The attackers are village men carrying bundles of burning straw. The defenders are the men in their unlucky years: the 42 year olds sit on top of the shrine and the 25 year olds hold the ground in front of it, beating the torches out with pine branches. The fight goes on for about an hour before the shrine is allowed to catch, and the fire takes with it the bad luck of the men who guarded it and the tall lanterns made for first sons born in the past year. The rite marks the end of the New Year season and is a national Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property. Nozawa Onsen is also a ski village, so the festival falls in the middle of the season and the slopes are open the same day.