🏮 Tadachi Hanauma Matsuri

田立花馬祭り

Nagiso, Nagano (Gonomiya Shrine) · Every year on the 1st Sunday of October

Mikoshi

20 days to go
Rooms around Nagiso, Nagano fill up while the festival is on.

The Tahata Hanaba Festival, held mainly at Gomiya Shrine in Nagiso Town, Nagano Prefecture, is a traditional event expressing gratitude for a bountiful harvest of the five grains. Designated a Nagano Prefecture intangible folk cultural property in 1993, it has been passed down as a festival deeply rooted in the local community. The highlight of the festival is a procession in which three Kiso horses, whose saddles are decorated with ornaments called "hana" made of colored paper attached to bamboo strips, walk slowly from Tahata Station to Gomiya Shrine. After they circle the shrine grounds three times, the people who have been waiting rush toward the horses and scramble for the flowers. By custom, the flowers thus taken are inserted into rice paddy ridges as insect repellent and at the entrances of homes to ward off evil. On the day, a children's mikoshi (portable shrine) procession and mochi-throwing are also held, and lively events unfold on the afternoon of the first Sunday of October.