🏮 Tado Matsuri

多度祭

Kuwana, Mie (Tado Grand Shrine) · Every year on 4 and 5 May

Traditional performing artsMikoshi

232 days to go
Rooms around Kuwana, Mie fill up while the festival is on.

Tado Festival is the annual festival of Tado Shrine, held every year on May 4 and 5 in Tado-cho, Kuwana City, Mie Prefecture, and draws crowds of well over a hundred thousand visitors. The ageuma shinji (horse-riding ritual) was started by neighboring warrior families during the Ryakuo era of the Northern and Southern Courts period (1338–1341), but was interrupted when Oda Nobunaga's troops burned the area in 1571. Honda Tadakatsu, who became lord of Kuwana Castle in 1601, worked to revive it, and the festival shifted from a warrior practice to a festival of the common people centered on the shrine's supply households. In 1978 it was designated a Mie Prefecture intangible folk cultural property. The highlight is the ageuma shinji: on the 4th, riders in jingasa (camp hat) and kamishimo (samurai formal wear) attire, and on the 5th, riders in hanagasa warrior costume, gallop up the steep slope beside the stone steps, and the degree to which the horse makes it up is used to divine that year's harvest. On the 5th, three mikoshi (portable shrines) are carried to the Funatsukisha at the Hie no otabisho, and a yabusame shinji (horseback archery ritual) is held at the Suga riding ground. In recent years, measures such as making the slope less steep have been taken to ensure the horses' safety.