🏮 Namahage

なまはげ

Oga, Akita (Oga Peninsula Area) · Every year on 31 December

UNESCO Intangible Cultural HeritageImportant Intangible Folk Cultural PropertyTraditional performing arts

108 days to go
Rooms around Oga, Akita fill up while the festival is on.

The Namahage Shiboto Matsuri is held at Mayama Shrine in Oga, Akita Prefecture, over three days including the second Saturday of February each year. First held in 1964, it is a festival that represents winter in Oga. It is known as a tourism event that combines the Shiboto Festival, a Shinto ritual continued for over 900 years, with the folk custom "Oga no Namahage," registered as an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Japan and as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage. "Oga no Namahage" is a traditional event still passed down in about 80 settlements in the city, in which young men dressed as visiting deities go from house to house shouting "Crying children, are you here?" (Naku ko wa inega), admonishing laziness and praying for a good harvest. The origin of the name is said to be "namomi-hagi" (peeling off namomi), carrying the meaning of removing misfortune as if peeling off the heat blisters from the hearth, and welcoming the new year with good fortune. The festival originally began at Hoshitsuji Shrine in Kitaura Yumoto with the aim of promoting tourism in the Oga Onsen area, and later moved to Mayama Shrine. The highlights are events in the shrine grounds such as "Namahage Nyukon," in which participants receive a mask inhabited by a deity, and "Namahage Taiko," a local performing art. The climax is "Namahage Descending the Mountain and Offering Mochi," in which Namahage bearing torches come down from the snowy mountain. In a sacred rite, goma mochi grilled over the Shiboto fire is believed to take on divine power and is presented from the Shinto priest to the Namahage.