🏮 Onomichi Betcha Matsuri

尾道ベッチャー祭り

Onomichi, Hiroshima (Kibitsuhiko Shrine) · Every year on 1 November

MikoshiTraditional performing arts

48 days to go
Rooms around Onomichi, Hiroshima fill up while the festival is on.

The Onomichi Betcha Festival is held every year from November 1 to 3 at Kibitsu Hiko Shrine (Ichinomiya Shrine) in Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture, and is designated an Onomichi City folk cultural property. On the 3rd, the main day of the festival, parishioners wearing Betta, Shoki, and Soba masks, along with a lion, parade through central Onomichi together with the mikoshi (portable shrine). A distinguishing feature of this festival is that the parishioners chase after children they find and strike them on the head or poke them with the sasara and iwai-bo they carry. Being struck with the sasara is said to make a child smarter, being poked with the iwai-bo is said to bring the blessing of children, and together these are said to guarantee good health for the year, and this has been passed down as a traditional belief of Onomichi. In a typical year, the festival opens on the 1st with a procession of the mikoshi from Ichinomiya Shrine, and on the 2nd a grand ceremony, a dedication of the Urayasu no Mai dance, and a Betcha drum performance are held. On the 3rd, the procession goes around various places in the city such as Center-gai, Kurihara Hondori, and Nagae Dori, and at around 18:30 the mikoshi returns to Ichinomiya Shrine, closing the festival.