Villagers dressed as the Mizuno-o (right) and Tsuchino-o gods with “tengu” (long-nosed goblin) masks present the “yukiri,” a performance of splashing boiling water barehanded, in the Shimotsuki Matsuri festival in Iida, Nagano Prefecture.
A villager portraying the Inari god with a fox mask dives into a crowd of audience amid calls from the people.
Shimotsuki Matsuri is a festival held every December in the remote mountains in the Toyamago area of Iida, Nagano Prefecture, to pray for rich harvest all night. The traditional Shinto event features huge pots of boiling water with steam rising to invite gods from across the nation. The sounds of Japanese traditional drums and flutes are heard in the villages until dawn.
The festival is held at nine shrines in the area in early to mid-December before the winter solstice. Seihachimangu Shrine in the Kamimachi district holds the event on Dec. 11 every year. The main event starts at 1 p.m. when priests purify the clay stove and pots filled with water, and light a fire with firewood to let the water boil.
A representative of the shrine worshippers reads out the “jinmyocho,” a list of gods invited to the ritual written on a scroll.
A representative of the people worshipping the shrine reads aloud the names of 66 gods nationwide written on a scroll. Then villagers perform a dance for the gods invited to the top of the pots, wishing for rich harvest and health in the next year.
In the early morning of the following day, roughly 16 hours since the start, the festival comes to a climax as 17 masked villagers portraying myriads of gods appear on the stage. The Inari wearing a fox mask and the Yamanokami with an “oni” (demon) mask jump into a crowd of audience amid “yo, se, yo, se” calls.
Paper decorations over the pots show the place where the invited gods are said to come down to.