matsuri
Japanese festivals are traditional festive occasions often celebrated with dance and music in Japan. Many festivals have their roots in Traditional Chinese holidays, traditional Chinese festivals, but have undergone extensive changes over time ...
(and occasionally Undokai
sports day
Sports days (British English) or field days (American English) are events staged by many schools and offices in which people participate in competitive sporting activities, often with the aim of winning trophies or prizes. Though they are often h ...
s) in
Gunma
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Gunma Prefecture has a population of 1,937,626 (1 October 2019) and has a geographic area of 6,362 km2 (2,456 sq mi). Gunma Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture and Fukushima P ...
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
. It consists of dancers with broad hats called ''kasa'' going in a counter clockwise circle around a
mikoshi
A is a sacred religious palanquin (also translated as portable Shinto shrine). Shinto followers believe that it serves as the vehicle to transport a deity in Japan while moving between main shrine and temporary shrine during a festival or when ...
. The dance is very energetic and ends with everyone throwing their hats in the air. The "Yagi" (八木, literally "eight trees") came from , one of the post stations on the
Nikkō Reiheishi Kaidō The was established during the Edo period as a subroute to Nikkō Kaidō. It connects the Nakasendō with the Nikkō Kaidō.
History
The song was first sung by Seizaburo Maruyama, who was from the town of Asakura (currently
Ashikaga Ashikaga (足利) may refer to:
* Ashikaga clan (足利氏 ''Ashikaga-shi''), a Japanese samurai clan descended from the Minamoto clan; and that formed the basis of the eponymous shogunate
** Ashikaga shogunate (足利幕府 ''Ashikaga bakufu''), a ...
, Tochigi) and known as "Seizo Asakura", and popularized by Gentaro Watanabe "Genta Horigome".
The original form of the song is said to be , which originated in Niigata. It was later arranged and spread along the
Nikkō Reiheishi Kaidō The was established during the Edo period as a subroute to Nikkō Kaidō. It connects the Nakasendō with the Nikkō Kaidō.Goze
is a Japanese historic term referring to visually-impaired Japanese women, most of whom worked as musicians.
Etymology
The ideographs for mean "blind" and "woman." The kanji are so because the individual ideograph for already existed. is m ...
. Eventually one around Yagi-shuku became the most popular, where Watanabe and others developed today's form.
NHK
, also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee.
NHK operates two terrestri ...
Sōke
, pronounced , is a Japanese term that means "the head family ouse" In the realm of Japanese traditional arts, it is used synonymously with the term ''iemoto''. Thus, it is often used to indicate "headmaster" (or sometimes translated as "head of t ...