🏮 Nada no Kenka Matsuri

灘のけんか祭り

Shirahama, Hyogo (Matsubara Hachiman Shrine) · Every year on 14 and 15 October

MikoshiFood stalls

30 days to go
Rooms around Shirahama, Hyogo fill up while the festival is on.

The autumn grand festival held every year on October 14 and 15 at Matsubara Hachiman Shrine in Shirahama-cho, Himeji City, Hyogo Prefecture, is commonly known as Nada no Kenka Matsuri. It is a representative event of the autumn festivals of Harima and is designated as an important intangible folk cultural property of both Hyogo Prefecture and Himeji City under the name Matsubara Hachiman Shrine Autumn Festival Furyu. The sound of the drums of the lion yatai (festival floats) of the former Matsubara village has also been selected for the 100 Soundscapes of Japan. The greatest highlights of the festival are the ritual in which three mikoshi (portable shrines) — Ichinomaru, Ninomaru, and Sannomaru — are violently crashed against one another, and the nerai-awase, in which the gorgeous yatai of the former seven villages compete in procession. On the eve of the festival, the yatai of the former seven villages enter the shrine one after another, and fierce nerai-awase continues until dusk. The main festival day begins before dawn with a purification rite and with the shiokaki in the sea by the village on neriban duty. After the three mikoshi are crashed together within the shrine grounds, the mikoshi and yatai head for Otabiyama, and nerai-awase and rituals unfold again at Hirohata at the foot of the mountain and at the Otabisho at the summit.