🏮 Sushi Kiri Matsuri

すし切り祭り

Moriyama, Shiga (Shimoniikawa Shrine) · Every year on 4 May

Summer festivalTraditional performing arts

232 days to go
Rooms around Moriyama, Shiga fill up while the festival is on.

The Sushi-Cutting Festival (Sushikiri Matsuri) is an annual grand festival held every May 5 at Shimoshingawa Shrine in Moriyama, Shiga Prefecture, and is a traditional Shinto ritual designated as an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Japan. It is known as a rare festival nationwide in which funazushi, a local food of Lake Biwa, is offered before the deities. According to the shrine's tradition, it began when the deity enshrined here, Toyokiirihiko no Mikoto, arrived in this area and was pleased by funazushi presented by the villagers. During the main ritual, two young men dressed in kamishimo (formal samurai-style attire) cut apart salt-cured female funa (crucian carp) from Lake Biwa using a knife and long chopsticks in an ancient manner. They must not touch it with their hands at all, and it is said that if the flesh falls apart or the roe spills out, misfortune will befall the village, so the ritual is conducted in solemn tension. The jeers that fly from the spectators are, in fact, filled with warm encouragement for the men performing the task. Also, at the eve-of-festival celebration the day before, naked young men of the youth group carry a drum and visit households that married in the previous year, performing a ceremony to welcome new parishioners until late at night.

Getting there

Immediately after getting off at the Omi Railway bus stop Shimoshingawa Jinja-mae from JR Moriyama Station. Or about 10 minutes by taxi from JR Moriyama Station.