Mostly Shrines... and Pullups: Snow and Fertility (read: Penis) Festival

I stayed up way too late the other night. A friend in a Town right next to my village, actually separating my two villages, invited me to come to a snow festival. The festival was to take place on top of a mountain in a village called Niino, which had been assimilated into his larger town of Anan. Niino's snow festival is known throughout Japan (or at least Nagano) and even occupies a slot on the top "1000" or "100" Cultural Events in Japan. That sounds like a really imressive list to be on, except for the fact that they love making lists here. "The 100 Most Famous Foods," "The 50 Most Significant Artists," "The Top 100 Rock Formations on This 50 Meter Stretch of Road." There are lots. But seeing as I'm a little more excited about festivals than rocks, I decided to go.

Left: People praying. Right: Little girl praying

Niino is in the mountains, bitterly cold (for Southern Nagano) and their festival is crazy. Essentially, the whole day is spent preparing for the appearance of Kame- Sama. Kame sama is sort of like a mountain god. So the people pray to him, and for him to bless them with a good crop and fertility for the coming year. There are all sorts of coincedences that can work to your advantage at the festival. If there does, in fact, happen to be snow during the snow festival, that means there will be a bumper crop (Lots of food). If you are conceived during the festival, you're going to be very lucky. This, in particular, used to have special significance in the past when the festival had some more Dionysian aspects to it which have disappeared in recent, more conservative times.

Schooling the kid on the good old days. Lighting the Fires with a boat on a string.

When we got up to the top of the mountain for the start of the festival at 11, many people from the village were dressed up in religious or celebratory clothes, while the rest of us were toting around cameras. The promise of craziness was all around in the forms of a huge pile of dead trees and paper to be burned, a mass of huge logs tied together and sticking straight up in the air (also to be burned) and a never ending supply of sake for cheap next to the drum can fires nearby.

Beating on Kame Sama's door.

People prayed. Made music. Prayed some more. I had work the next day and it was already past my bedtime. At about 1, the firefighters had had enough, so they picked up big sticks, and started beating on the side of Kame Sama's house and shouting for him to come out. Niino replaces that side of the house every year. Kame Sama was having none of this though and refused to show his face. So they pulled out a battering ram. The firefighters spent the next 20 minutes or so beating on Kame Sama's house with sticks and ram, but to no avail. So the priest nearby was like, "Hey. Let's start a fire! That will make him come out!" So they sent a little ship up on a wire to start a fire at the top of the logs. Very slowly, the ship would rise, then fall a little. Two steps forward, one step back, just further building the suspense that was already killing me. Then some more people thought, "Hey! I know! I've got it! Let's dance. He's got to come out if we dance!" So the dancing with bamboo leaves began, and they opened a path for Kame Sama. Middle schoolers with torches pushed the tripod toting Japanese out of the way as the fire was building on the logs. And then, he appeared.

Kame Sama appears, then dances!

Kame Sama appeared with his mask, his huge stick (representative of a penis for fertility) on his head, and another huge stick (guess what this one represents... another penis. He does symbolize fertility.) that he carried with him. If I'd stayed long enough, I could have been whacked on the head with his huge stick and had good luck (Just waiting for the jokes there). But by this point, I had about 3.5 hours of sleep available before a 12 hour work day and a 40 minute ride home, so I turned tail. But I will definitely be going again next year.