Tsutsukohiki Festival is held in Hobara Town, Date City, Fukushima Pref. The origin of the festival lies in Kyoho Famine about 280 years ago, which resulted in many deaths due to starvation. The people had eaten up even the husks of seeds, so the feudal lord, Michiharu Matsudaira were worried and presented farmers with seeds according to the oracles of a god. The following year’s harvest was bountiful, and the jubilant farmers offered the first crop of rice in appreciation of the god and the feudal lord. Since then Tsutsukohiki Festival has been held as a Shinto ritual at Itsukushima Shrine to pray for bumper crops. The tsutsuko is a huge straw sheath with 1.5 m in diameter, 3 m in length, and some hundred kilograms in weight, into which steamed mochi (rice cake) is placed. Naked young men wearing loincloth compete fiercely in a tug-of-war over a tsutsuko from the three directions. This is a very unique festival counted as one of 10 queer festivals in Fukushima Pref.