花馬祭 Hana-uma-matsuri Hanauma Festival
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Hanauma Festival is held on October 3 every year at Itsukinomiya Shrine in Nagiso Town, Nagano Prefecture. It has served as the annual autumn festival to pray for a rich harvest of the year for 400 years. The townspeople walk through the town from Tadachi Station to the shrine, accompanied by the music of drums and Japanese flutes played by local elementary school children. With them are three horses decorated with five-colored paper on long narrow strips of bamboo.
After the parade arrives at the shrine, the people walk around the precincts three times. Then the people in the parade as well as the spectators rush upon the horses and compete with one another to snatch the decorations, which are supposed to be ears of rice and are believed to have the power to get rid of evils and keep insects away. These decorations are then placed in the footpaths between the rice fields or at the entrances of houses.
This festival was designated as the town’s intangible cultural property in 1993 and was introduced at the closing ceremony in Nagano winter Olympic Games in 1998.
After the parade arrives at the shrine, the people walk around the precincts three times. Then the people in the parade as well as the spectators rush upon the horses and compete with one another to snatch the decorations, which are supposed to be ears of rice and are believed to have the power to get rid of evils and keep insects away. These decorations are then placed in the footpaths between the rice fields or at the entrances of houses.
This festival was designated as the town’s intangible cultural property in 1993 and was introduced at the closing ceremony in Nagano winter Olympic Games in 1998.
- address
- Tadachi, Nagiso-machi, Kiso-gun, Nagano Prefecture 397-0000
- name
- Hanauma Festival