🏮 Nagahama Hikiyama Matsuri

長浜曳山祭

Nagahama, Shiga (Hachiman Shrine) · Every year between 9 and 17 April

UNESCO Intangible Cultural HeritageImportant Intangible Folk Cultural PropertyFloatsTraditional performing artsMikoshi

207 days to go
Rooms around Nagahama, Shiga fill up while the festival is on.

Nagahama Hikiyama Matsuri is held in Nagahama, Shiga Prefecture, every year from April 9 to 17, and is the spring festival of Nagahama Hachimangu Shrine. Each of the former Nagahama town districts and the seven surrounding villages take part, parading 13 yamaboko (festival floats). On 12 of these floats, which are called "moving art museums," child kabuki is performed as an offering by boys from the float groups, with four floats parading in rotation each year. It was designated a national Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1979 and registered as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2016. The festival's origin is traced back to around Tensho 2 (1574), when Hashiba Hideyoshi built the castle town of Nagahama. Hideyoshi is said to have distributed gold dust to the townspeople to celebrate the birth of a son, and each district built a float and pulled it around in the festival of Hachimangu Shrine; this is told as the beginning. The townspeople's culture that flourished on land under shogunate seal in the Edo period developed the float festival. It starts with the okoshi-daiko drum before dawn on April 13, followed by the greeting of the gohei, the lottery to decide the order, and performances of child kabuki. The sword procession on the morning of the 15th, the ascent of the floats on the eve of the festival on the 14th, and the offering of child kabuki at the otabisho are especially noted. The rear curtain of the Hozan float uses a Belgian tapestry from the late 16th century, and the decorative hair and cords of the Hozan and Okina floats are designated national Important Cultural Properties.