The Gion Festival ( Gion Matsuri) takes place annually during the month of July in Kyoto and is one of the most famous and largest festivals in Japan. It is formally a Shinto festival, and its original purposes were purification and pacification of disease-causing entities. Many festival events take place in central Kyoto and at the Yasaka Shrine. The Yasaka Shrine is the festival’s patron shrine. It is located in Kyoto’s famous Gion district, which gives the festival its name.
Kyoto’s downtown area is reserve for pedestrian traffic on the three nights leading up to the procession on July 17. These nights leading up to the festival are known as yoiyama on July 16 and July 23, yoiyoiyama (宵々山) on July 15 and July 22, and yoiyoiyoiyama on July 14 and July 21. From July 14–16, the streets are lined with night stalls selling food such as yakitori (barbecued chicken on skewers), taiyaki, takoyaki (fried octopus balls), okonomiyaki, traditional Japanese sweets, and many other culinary delights.
During the yoiyama evenings leading up to the parade, some traditional private houses near the floats open their entryways to the public, exhibiting family heirlooms in a custom known as the Byōbu Matsuri, or Folding Screen Festival.
This gion festival originated during an epidemic in 869 as part of a purification ritual (goryo-e) to appease the gods thought to cause fire, floods and earthquakes.[4] In 869, when people were suffering from a plague attributed to vengeful spirits, Emperor Seiwa ordered prayers to the god of the Yasaka Shrine, Susanoo-no-Mikoto. Sixty-six stylized and decorated halberds, one for each of the traditional provinces of Japan, were prepared and erected at Shinsen-en, a garden in the south of the imperial palace, along with portable shrines (mikoshi) from Yasaka Shrine. This practice was repeat wherever an outbreak of plague occurr.
By the year 1000, the festival became an annual event and it has since seldom failed to take place. During the civil Onin War (under the Ashikaga shogunate), central Kyoto was devastate. The festival was halite for three decades in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Later in the 16th century it was revive by the shogun Oda Nobunaga.
Over the centuries, some floats destroy or otherwise lost, and in recent years several have been restore. Float neighborhood associations sometimes purchase antique tapestries to replace worn or destroyed ones. Commission replicas from industrial weavers in Kyoto, or design and commission new ones from the weavers of Kyoto’s famous traditional Nishijin weaving district; When they are not in use.
The festival serves as an important setting in Yasunari Kawabata’s novel. The Old Capital in which he describes the festival, along with the Festival of Ages and the Aoi Festival. As “the ‘three great festivals’ of the old capital.
Yamaboko floats
The floats in the Yoiyama Parade are divid into two groups. The larger Hoko (“halberd”) and the smaller Yama (“mountain”), and are collectively Yamaboko. The ten Hoko recall the 66 halberds or spears used in the original purification ritual. The 24 Yama carry life-sized figures of Shinto deities. Buddhist bodhisattvas, and other historic and cultural figures.
All the floats are decorate with diverse tapestries, some made in Nishijin, Kyoto’s traditional textile-weaving district. While others had import from all over the world. In fact, thanks to a 1993 survey of the Gion Festival’s import textiles by a team of international textile conservationists and collectors. Its unique textile collection is renown amongst textile professionals worldwide. Musicians sit in the floats playing drums and flutes. In 1979 Yamahoko was list on the Important Intangible Folk Cultural Properties. And in 2009 Yamahoko was list on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The Naginata Hoko depicts a chigo wearing a ceremonial robe and wearing a golden phoenix. Chosen as the sacred page of a deity from among merchant houses in Kyoto. After several weeks of special ablution ceremonies, he lives in isolation from the effects of contamination (such as inappropriate food and the presence of women) and is not allowed to touch the ground, so he is placed in a wagon. At the start of the Yamahoko on July 17th, Chigo cuts the shimenawa with a swing of his sword.
