Straw Bird Festival (6 photos + 1 video)

Young men put on bundles of straw called kendai, so that only their arms and legs are exposed, and run around the fire, screaming "Kakkakka no Kakakka" (a Japanese onomatopoeia for the cry of birds).





It's so much fun!

How to fool around in Kasedori

And locals are supposed to pour water on them from whatever they can find. Tourists are allowed too, if they can find someone to borrow a bucket from. This is the kind of holiday it is.



He also shakes himself like a dog, what a sly one!

And if a girl sees a bunch of straw falling out of a sheaf of kendai, she should grab it as soon as possible. If she weaves this straw into her hair, she will have a truly luxurious mane of hair in the future, and the whole year will be rich.

How did the Japanese get to this point in their lives

This festival was first held a long time ago, in the 1600s. When Kaminoyama was devastated by a fire. Remember that in ancient Japan, almost all the roofs were covered with sheaves of straw? These are the ones men jump around in now.





They look a bit like Nafanya, who had a chest with fairy tales!

It was easy to catch fire like that. There is even a historic village in Japan that was surrounded by fountains and sprinklers so that the roofs wouldn't flare up like a match in the heat, I wrote about it.

According to legend, the settlement was saved by the Kasedori bird, which brought water to put out these fires. The locals owe their homes and lives to her, so every year for over four hundred years they have held a festival in her honor.



The thrifty aunties brought their ladles

Every winter on February 11, they gather together to water the men in the straw and pray that there will be no fires next year and that the fields will yield a rich harvest.

The Japanese love to freeze

Here it is worth paying tribute to the animators (usually local people), who volunteer to play birds. That is, they run around in February in straw, and then they are doused with water. How can you not get sick? In February in Japan, it's usually around zero or slightly above zero.



A must-have for festival-goers

I hope this festival won't be cancelled like another very ancient festival, where you had to carry a stretcher through icy water and fight for a blessing to the temple. It was recently discontinued after a thousand-year tradition - there were no healthy adult men left in the city who could handle it. Only old men remained.



The queen of the fields is corn!

We keep our fingers crossed that the rapid aging of the population in Japan does not sweep away the old unique festivals into oblivion.