🏮 Katori Jingu Otaue Sai
香取神宮御田植祭
Katori, Chiba (Katori Jingu Shrine) · The 1st Saturday and Sunday of April
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Rooms around Katori, Chiba fill up while the festival is on.
The Katori Jingu Otaue Festival is held every year on the first Saturday and Sunday of April at Katori Shrine in Katori, Chiba Prefecture, and is an ancient rice-planting festival praying for a bountiful harvest. It consists of the Koden-shiki (field-tilling rite) on the first day and the Taue-shiki (planting rite) on the second day, with roles performed by Shinto priests, children in the role of saotome (female rice planters), and older saotome attendants. In the first day's field-tilling rite, a bull decorated with five-colored silk is led in plowing before the worship hall, followed by a girl in scarlet hakama performing the sickle ritual and men in hitatare (formal warrior's robes) performing the spade and hoe rituals. Eight girls in white robes and scarlet hakama dance the ta-mai holding young rice plants, and eight children in the role of saotome enter carried on shoulders. In the second day's planting rite, after the ceremony before the worship hall, the procession passes through the approach and heads to the sacred paddy field, where the older saotome attendants perform the planting movements while singing the rice-planting song, carrying on a living agricultural ritual to this day.
Getting there
Train: About 10 minutes by car from Sawara Station on the JR Narita Line, 13 minutes by the Katori City community bus holiday sightseeing route, or 13 minutes by the Chiba Kotsu route bus Kamisato Line. About 30 minutes on foot from Katori Station on the JR Narita Line. Car: About 2 minutes from Sawara-Katori Interchange on the Higashi-Kanto Expressway. Highway bus: Take the bus from Tokyo Station bound for Hokota Station and get off at Katori Jingu, then about 1 minute on foot.
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