NIPPON Kichi - 日本吉

2007/9/27

今津とんど祭 Imazu-tondo-matsuri Imazu Donto Festival

Jp En


Donto Festival is held on January 15 every year in the Imazu area in the southern end of Oki-Dogo Island. Donto, or Dondo in some districts, is the festival, in which ornaments for New Year’s Day are burned in the bon fire in hope of good health in the coming year. Donto Festival has been handed down in Imazu since the Heian period (794-1192).

Early in the morning on the festival day, people with colorful bags in their hands get together on the beach. They carefully put Ofuda (talismans) and New Year’s ornaments on the huge fire-stage called Donto, build up of bamboo poles. After a large streamer is put on the stage, piled straw is set on fire and burn up into a huge column of fire.

When the bamboo poles are burned down and fall into the sea, young men divided into East and West teams and wearing only loincloths dive into the frigid sea and struggle for the burned bamboo poles. At the end of the festival, the bamboo poles are carried to the houses that had blessed events in the previous year.

Add this to Favorites

address
Imazu, Okinoshima-cho, Oki-gun, Shimane Prefecture 685-0022
name
Imazu Donto Festival
phone
08512-2-8563




NIPPON Kichi - 日本吉 - 日本語に切り替える NIPPON Kichi - 日本吉 - to english

"Nippon-kichi" leads you to places, people and things that reveal a certain Japanese aesthetic.

Articles: 5444
Categories
Prefectures
Keywords shuffle
Favorites
Keywords Search
View history



Linkclub NewsLetter