🏮 Nanao Gion Matsuri

七尾祇園祭

Nanao, Ishikawa (Daijishu Shrine) · Every year on the 2nd Saturday of July

Summer festivalMikoshiTraditional performing arts

299 days to go
Rooms around Nanao, Ishikawa fill up while the festival is on.

The Nanao Gion Matsuri is a summer festival held in Nanao City, Ishikawa Prefecture, on the second Saturday of July each year, a Gion festival dedicated at Daijinushi Shrine in Sanno-machi, Nanao City. Along with the Seihaku Matsuri and the Ishizaki Hotо Matsuri, it is known as one of the four great festivals of Nanao, and is also called the Higashi no Osuzumi. The centerpiece of the festival is the eleven hoto (festival lantern floats) carried by parishioners from eleven neighborhoods in the city center. Among them, the large hoto of the western part of Korimachi is about 12 meters tall and weighs about 1 ton, and is carried by about 100 people. At night, lights are lit on the Chinese characters on the front and the warrior painting on the back, and in the plaza in front of the temporary shrine, the eleven hoto are paraded in a gallant wild dance to the accompaniment of flutes, drums, and gongs, with the call of Saccasai, Sakasassai, Iyasakasa. After the purification, they proceed together with the mikoshi (portable shrine) to Daijinushi Shrine, carry it around narrow alleys as if grazing the eaves, then perform the wild dance again in the shrine grounds, concluding with the singing of Nanao Madara. In 1997, the Noto Kiriko Matsuri was selected as a national intangible folk cultural property, and in 2015 it was registered as a Japan Heritage site as part of Akari Mau Hantō Noto: Nekkyō no Kiriko Matsuri.