🏮 Suitengu Haru Taisai

水天宮春大祭

Yanagawa, Fukuoka (Okibata Suitengu Shrine) · 3–7 May

MikoshiTraditional performing arts

231 days to go
Rooms around Yanagawa, Fukuoka fill up while the festival is on.

The Suitengu Spring Grand Festival is a spring regular festival held at the Suitengu Shrine, the head shrine of all Suitengu shrines in Japan, in Kurume City, Fukuoka Prefecture, every year from May 3 to 7. Centered on the Gojinkosai (Kawa Matsuri), which continues a tradition dating back to 1662, several rituals including elements of Shinto-Buddhist syncretism are performed. The main events of the festival are the tea offering ceremony and general boarding of the Gozabune on May 3, and the Shioi event and Urayasu no Mai on May 5. In the tea offering ceremony, under the guidance of Kananzan Bairinji Temple of the Rinzai sect, a Shinto-Buddhist syncretic tea offering by the Omotesenke Fushakuryu school is dedicated, and tea is served to visitors from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in a tent for outdoor tea ceremony within the precincts. On the 3rd and 4th, general boarding of the Gozabune is possible only once a year, and commemorative mini ema are distributed. Early in the morning on May 5, the festival day, young men from the six towns of Seshimachi perform a purification ritual in the Chikugo River, draw Shioi water, offer it before the deity, and then carry out the Shioi event, sprinkling it on each house to pray for family safety and good health. In the Gojinkosai on the same day, a mikoshi (portable shrine) is placed on the Gozabune, and an Urayasu no Mai dance by elementary school children from the town is performed in front of the boat.