The is one of the four major

Japanese festival Japanese festivals are traditional festive occasions often celebrated with dance and music in Japan. Many festivals have their roots in traditional Chinese festivals, but have undergone extensive changes over time to have little resemblance to ...

s of the

Tōhoku region The , Northeast region, or consists of the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. This traditional region consists of six prefectures (''ken''): Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, and Yamagata. Tōhoku retains a ...

. It is held in the capital city of

Yamagata Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Yamagata Prefecture has a population of 1,079,950 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 9,325 km² (3,600 sq mi). Yamagata Prefecture borders Akita Prefecture to the north, ...

, Yamagata. The ''hanagasa'' is a headpiece that is shaped like a flower and was traditionally dyed red from locally-grown

safflower Safflower (''Carthamus tinctorius'') is a highly branched, herbaceous, thistle-like annual plant in the family Asteraceae. It is commercially cultivated for vegetable oil extracted from the seeds and was used by the early Spanish colonies along ...

History and organization

The Yamagata Hanagasa Matsuri is an annual summer festival that lasts from 5 August to 7 August on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday during the first weekend of August. It was first celebrated in 1963 when the parade was a part of the Zaō Summer Festival as an event to attract tourists to Yamagata Prefecture. After some success the parade grew over time into one of the four major festivals of the

. Ten thousand dancers dance to the "

Hanagasa Ondo Hanagasa Ondo (花笠音頭) is a folk song from Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. The name literally means "flower straw-hat song." It accompanies a local community dance called the " Hanagasa Odori." (花笠踊り) The song is in typical swung ondo rh ...

" song in the parade. The song's creation is attributed to workers who were constructing an embankment in 1919 along Lake Tokura in the city of Obanazawa in northeastern Yamagata Prefecture. The song was created as workers compacted dirt into the embankment, they would rhythmically chant "yassho" followed with a response "makasho". Following the completion of the embankment, the community that built it held a parade where they all wore sedge hats that were dyed red with

, a crop of the region. These red sedge hats, called ''hanagasa'' became the focal point of the parade. While the Hanagasa festival is still held in smaller towns and cities throughout the prefecture, including Obanazawa, the largest festival takes place in the city of Yamagata, where its parade follows the city's main street, National Route 112, in the Honcho district. This parade runs through the Nanukamachi district of downtown Yamagata City and ends at the Bunshokan Prefectural Museum, the former prefectural office of Yamagata. As of 2022, the Hanagasa Festival now operates as normal after a 3 year absence during the pandemic.

References

External links

{{Commons category Festivals in Japan Yamagata, Yamagata 1963 establishments in Japan

History and organization

See also

References

External links