🏮 Osumi Hayato Mai

大住隼人舞

Kyotanabe, Kyoto (月読神社) · Every year on 14 October

Traditional performing arts

30 days to go
Rooms around Kyotanabe, Kyoto fill up while the festival is on.

At Tsukuyomi Shrine and Amatsu Shrine in Kyotanabe, Kyoto, the Osumi Hayato Mai is performed annually on October 14 at the eve-of-festival rites of the regular festival; it is a Kyotanabe City designated intangible folk cultural property. Regarded along with Iwato Kagura as one of the two great wellsprings of Japanese folk performing arts, it carries on the tradition of the Osumi Hayato, who migrated from southern Kyushu about 1,300 years ago. Today local elementary and junior high school students serve as the dancers, passing this ancient performance to the next generation. The dance's origins trace back to the myth of Umisachihiko and Yamasachihiko recorded in the Nihon Shoki. Umisachihiko drowning in the sea is expressed through six movements, including ashinai and hyosho. It was once offered at the Daijosai of an emperor's accession, but was at one point discontinued, and was revived in 1971 for the first time in about 500 years. In the offering, dances such as the purification dance, the deity-inviting dance, the sword-brandishing dance, and the bow dance unfold to the sound of the ryuteki and drums. In particular, the Taimatsu no Mai, in which real torches are swung about, is intensely powerful and overwhelms the audience. Including the Hayato Odori performed by elementary school children, it is an event in which history and the bonds of the community live on.