🏮 Yassa Matsuri

ヤッサ祭り

Minakami, Gunma (Wakamiya Hachimangu Shrine) · Every year in late September

Traditional performing arts

9 days to go
Rooms around Minakami, Gunma fill up while the festival is on.

The Yassa Festival, held within the grounds of Wakamiya Hachimangu Shrine in the former Tsukiyono Ogawajima district of Minakami Town, Gunma Prefecture, is a spirited festival with a 400-year tradition. It is known as a local strange festival, offering prayers for a bountiful harvest of the five grains, good health, and protection from floods. The heart of the festival is an event in which dozens of young men, wearing only loincloths, form a human chain and run around, parade through, and crawl about the shrine grounds while raising the cry "Yassa, Mossa, Shinjuro." They climb the pillars of the shrine building, and at the end cut the rope of the large bell at the shrine. It is said that the faster this rope is cut, the better the harvest will be that year. On the day, dances and Yase Taiko drumming are offered from 18:30, and the Yassa takes place from 19:30. After it ends, there is a mochi-toss, and the festival concludes with a naorai gathering from 22:00.