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Harvard-Yenching Institute
The Suwa Pillar Festival Revisited
Author(s): Elaine Gerbert
Source: Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 56, No. 2 (Dec., 1996), pp. 319-374
Published by: Harvard-Yenching Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2719402
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The Suwa Pillar Festival Revisited
ELAINE GERBERT
The Universityof Kansas
T HE black, grey, and off-white tonalities of Japan's angular
city-scapes of steel, concrete, and glass make a striking contrast
with the lush greens, smoky blues, and purples of the countryside,
much of it mountainous, and about sixty-seven per cent of it
stillcoveredwith trees. Traditionally regardedas a realmlocatedbetween
this world and the next, and as a resting place for the spirits
of the dead making their way to the realm of the spirits, and forkami
descending to earth, forested mountains have held an important
place in the spiritual and emotional lives of theJapanese from time
immemorial. TheJapanese sense of the sacred, and the beautiful, is
closely linked to mountains and trees.
Of all natural entities, the individual tree has traditionally been
one of the common objectsof kamiworship. An exceptionally imposing
tree may be regarded as a shintai It, a dwelling place for a
kami,or as ayorishiroPtt, the means the kamiuses to descend to the
earth. Whether shintaior yorishiro,from such a tree emanates a
The author wishes to thank Hirai Naofusa of Kokugakuin University; Ken'ichi Shibukawa,
Head Priest of Suwa Taisha; Sakae Mogi, Kiyoshi Shimada, Mitsuko and K6ichi
Fujimori, Donald Worster, Akira Yamamoto, Edmund Gilday, and Kamewari Hitoshi for
their kind assistance and helpful comments. Funds to conduct the research for this project
were provided by the University of Kansas General Research Fund and the University of
Kansas Hall Center for the Humanities.
319
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320 ELAINE GERBERT
sacred aura, and its sacrality is attested to by a shimenawawound
about its trunk.'
An unusual, and yet classic example of "tree worship" in modern
Japan exists in Kami Suwa ("Upper Suwa" Lt:) and Shimo
Suwa ("Lower Suwa" TX!;), adjoining hot springs towns located
along the shores of Suwa Lake in Nagano prefecture in central
Honshu-. This worship centers upon a festival known as the Pillar
Festival (onbashira-matsuri404ft, ) or onbashira-sai'f).
The landscape of the Suwa Lake basin and its surrounding mountains
is not one that promises unlimited vistas and opportunities.
For the pre-modern inhabitants of the land, the mountains that surrounded
Suwa basin were in the past both a barrier to transportation
and communication with other localities, and a defense against
rival clans. Covered with forest and often swathed in mist, the
mountains have been a place of mystery, which, seemingly, contributed
to a vigorous kami cult. The many religious activities surrounding
the enshrinement of the kamienhance the sense of mystery
through numerous ancient rituals that antedate the beginning of
historical record keeping.
Although the surrounding mountain landscape is beautiful, and
the lakeshore affords attractive scenery for travel brochure photographs,
up close on the ground Kami Suwa and Shimo Suwa are
much like any other Japanese town. Houses and shops are crowded
close together, and traffic along the narrow roads running through
the rice paddies outside the towns is heavy with cars, trucks, and
motorbikes. Home to a number of high tech industries, the towns
enjoy relatively clean air, but citizens are concerned about water pol-
lution.
In this setting, once every seven years, some 2,000 active participants
are joined by up to 200,000 viewer-participants in the
celebration of a festival held ostensibly to fulfill a pledge made by a
general in the eighth century to rebuild the shrines of the local deity.
Sixteen specially selected fir trees are cut down in the mountains
and their trunks are dragged over miles of rough terrain to Kami
Suwa and Shimo Suwa, where they are erected in the courtyards of
ShimenawaM.XX is a sacred, twisted strawrope hung with white papercuttings (shideA
f), which is used to demarcate a place inhabited by a kami.
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 321
the four shrines that constitute the Suwa Shrine.2
By viewing this festival from the vantage points of 1) the myths,
legends, and history of the Suwa Shrine, 2) the structure of the festival
today, and 3) historical and contemporary perspectives of the
festival as expressed in written documents and in films, I hope to
suggest a possible relationship between landscape, nature, and
culture in this Japanese community and by extension to probe the
depth and strength of Shinto traditions in late twentieth-century
Japan.
The Suwa Shrine, home of the deity Takeminakata-no-kami R1ql
tjJti, is of special interest because it is one of three "nation founding
shrines" (kunizukurijinia MT )*1t, i.e., Ise, Izumo, and Suwa),
where tree trunks shaped into pillars play an important ritualistic
role, and it is the only one where the pillars are erected and exposed
in the shrine precincts and replaced every seven years in an
elaborate festival organized by shrine parishioners (ujiko Jfkf). The
pillar of the Ise Shrine, dedicated to Amaterasu-o-mikami, clan deity
of the Yamato clan and the Imperial Household, is not visible but
is buried in the ground next to the main shrine building. At the
Izumo Shrine, dedicated to Okuninushi-no-kami, the pillars are incorporated
into the structure of the shrine itself.
SUWA BASIN AND THE MYTHS, LEGENDS, AND HISTORY
OF THE SUWA SHRINE
Suwa Cc -y (Suwa-gun), consisting of Kami Suwa (also called
simply, Suwa), Shimo Suwa, Okaya City, Chino City, Fujimicho,
and Hara Village (combined population of 135,000), lies in a
graben basin. Set at the crossroads of the old Nakasendo and Koshuf
Kaido highways, two of the five official highways of the Tokugawa
period (1600-1868), Suwa was a way station for travelers in premodern
times.3 With its many hot springs, Suwa was an attractive
2
The Suwajinja is a shrine with two seats (niza issha =1h), consisting of the Kamisha
ihW(Upper Shrine) in Kami Suwa, and the Shimosha TL (Lower Shrine) in Shimo Suwa.
Each of the shrines in turn is made up of two shrine buildings: the Hon Miya I'9 (Main
Shrine) and the Mae Miya Hij' (referringto the fact that it was erectedbeforethe Hon Miya)
at the Kamisha; and the Haru Miya 3'g (Spring Shrine) and the Aki Miya tkg (Autumn
Shrine) at the Shimosha.
3 All five highways began at Nihonbashi in Edo. The Nakasendo ran northwest through
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322 ELAINE GERBERT
resting site, and today the traveler pulling into Shimo Suwa Station
on the JR Chuoi Line is still welcomed by a hot spring bathhouse located
right on the train platform.
Suwa Lake, a twenty-five foot deep, 5.4 square mile lake, lies in
the western part of the Suwa Basin. Its circumference of eleven
miles is dotted with hotels, erected for the visitors who come in the
summer to enjoy boating and fishing, and, in the past, before the climate
warmed and the lake stopped freezing over, ice-fishing and
ice-skating in the winter.4 When the lake froze, the booming of the
cracking ice traveled far and wide in the frosty atmosphere. Local
legend has it that it was the god Takeminakata-no-kami, leaving his
home in the Kamisha, south of the lake and making his way across
the frozen surface to visit his consort Yasakatomenokata-no-kami A
t7JUl in the Shimosha, six miles away on the lake's northern
shore. The cracking, which sent blocks of ice jutting skyward, was
called the "divine crossing" (miwatari OVA') and divination rites,
conducted by Shinto priests and attended by reverent ujiko, were
held at the lakeside to witness the revelations of the kami.
An abundant supply of water makes Suwa a good rice-producing
area, and rice paddies line the narrow two-lane highway that connects
the communities in the basin. During the Meiji and Taisho
periods the Suwa basin was an important silk producing center.5
Today it is a center of production of precision instruments and
home to Seiko Epson (maker of watches and computers), Chinon
(lenses and camera parts), Casio (calculators), Yashika (lenses and
the mountainous terrain of central Honshui, to Kyoto, with sixty-seven post stations en route.
The K6shuf Kaid6 was a shorter road that passed through Kobotoke and Kofu and ended at
Suwa, where it joined the Nakasendo.
4 Higher water temperatures, due in part to increased amounts of algae stimulated by
waste waters from the hotels, highland villas, and local factories have prevented the lake from
freezing in recent decades.
5 Dubbed "the Silk Kingdom" (shiruku 6kokuSuwa -/'1- 7 jT ), the Suwa basin was
the site of many silk thread factories. By 1930 in Okaya City alone there were 214 factories,
with a labor force of 38,000 workers, many of them adolescent girls from poor farm families in
Nagano and Gifu prefectures. The demand forJapanese silk fell during the world depression,
declined further with the production of artificial silk and nylon in Europe and America, and
ceased entirely during the Pacific War, when the mulberry trees were cut down to make room
for vegetable gardens. (Aihara Masayoshi Jq,!Egi and Matsumura Yoshir6 rA;+Jf!P, ChuiKochi,
Hokuriku FAAt*ILI, vol. 6 of Nihon no chiri (Ayumi shuppan, 1990), pp. 88-92.
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 323
cameras),6 Olympus (optics), Tokyo Hatsudoki (engines), Sankei
Seiki (music boxes), and numerous smaller enterprises.7
These industries have not altered the essential aspects of the
area's physical beauty, however. The graceful slopes of the Yatsugatake
("eight peaks") Range Ao- & still mark the eastern horizon,
and the curtains of mist that shade the dense vegetation of nearby
Kirigamine ("misty peak") Heights W$- especially in spring,
are as eerily attractive as ever.
The two buildings of the Suwa Kamisha shrine stand at the foot
of Moriya Mountain qW_I1, a small, vaguely conical, heavily wooded
mountain rising from the Suwa flatland.8 There is no honden$X
or main shrine building in either the Hon Miya or the Mae Miya
of the Kamisha, for the mountain itself is considered to be the
kami's shrine. A small ancient stone shrine (hokoraniJ),called the
Misayama Shrine 04fvt, on its slope marks Moriya Mountain as
a shintai inhabited by a kami.
This Misayama Shrine is said to date from the time when the
original inhabitants of the place, led by the Moreya clan dYZi, worshiped
the mountain deity (mishaguji 2' t Y), before invading
people from Izumo came to the area, bringing with them their
own clan deity, Takeminakata.9 The story of Takeminakata, later
also known as Suwa Daimydjin XZ7tl, is recorded in the "Land
Ceding" chapters of the first book of the Kojiki (712). His tale
repeats and continues- a pattern of contestation, defeat, and banishment
that began when his early ancestor, the Storm God Susanoo-o-
6 Merged with Kyocera in 1983.
During the war Nagano, encircled by mountains, was designated by the central government
as a site for factory relocation. Okaya, together with Matsumoto and Shiojiri, became
a center for the production of aircraft parts, electronics, and communications equipment.
Tokyo Shibaura Denki, Seiko Epson, and other companies from Tokyo took over the vacated
silk mills and turned out binoculars, bomb sights, timers, wireless radios, and other warrelated
equipment. Many of these companies stayed on after the war.
8 Moriya Mountain (Moriya-san) is a sacred mountain of the type that would be categorized
as a kannabi-yama *PkfrJo: a small mountain, enveloped in greenery, adjacent to the
flatlands, that stands out conspicuously from the surroundings and gives the impression of a
place that kami might inhabit. For a discussion of the typology of mountains in Japan see
Takahiko Higuchi, The Visual and Spatial Structure of Landscapes (originally published in
Japanese as Keikan no kozo), trans. Charles Terry (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1933), pp. 164-
65.
9 Takemura Yoshiyuki t 4Jz, Suwa Myojin (Okaya City, Nagano Prefecture: Suwa
bunkasha, 1992), pp. 41-43.
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324 ELAINE GERBERT
mikami, was exiled from the High Plain of Heaven for committing
ritual offenses against his sister the Sun Goddess Amaterasu-omikami.
Following his exile, Susanoo made his way to Izumo on the
Japan Sea, where his son Okuninushi-no-kami founded the kingdom
of Izumo, the Central Land of the Reed Plains. Takeminakata's
name appears in chapters 35 and 36 of Book One of the Kojiki,
where Amaterasu sends her messenger the thunder god Takemikazuchi-no-kami
AX I to demand that the Central Land of the Reed
Plains be turned over to her.'0 Okuninushi-no-kami and his elder
son Yaekotoshironushi-no-kami are ready to hand over the land to
the messenger, but the hot-headed younger son Takeminakata
gruffly refuses." "Bearing a tremendous boulder on his fingertips,"
Takeminakata challenges Takemikazuchi to a wrestling match to
settle the dispute.12 When Takeminakata grabs the thunder god's
arm, it changes magically into a column of ice, and then into
a sword blade, but when Takemikazuchi seizes the arm of
Takeminakata, he crushes it as if it were a young reed, and tosses it
aside. Pursued by Takemikazuchi, Takeminakata runs as far as
Suwa Lake in the land of Shinano and pleads for his life, promising
never to leave the place and never to disobey the commands of
Okuninushi or the words of Yaekotoshironushi and to yield the Central
Land of the Reed Plains "in accordance with the commands of
the offspring of the heavenly deities.''13
Scholars have detected in the interstices of this mythologized
account the outlines of a narrative telling of a pre-historic struggle
between Yamato immigrants of the 0 7t clan, who worshiped
Takemikazuchi, and members of the Izumo clan, who claimed
Donald Philippi, trans., Kojiki (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1968), pp. 129-33.
" Ibid., p. 130. Philippi analyzes the name Yaekotoshironushi into the components "eight
layers," i.e., many dimensions (yape AIt), "thing" or "word" (koto *), "to know" (shiro
;), and "possessor" (nushi 1) and notes that the name has often been interpreted as the
name of a deity of words or oracular pronouncements; hence, Okuninushi's eagerness to consult
this son before making a decision (ibid., p. 636).
12 Ibid., p. 132. Philippi cites Matsumura Takeo's interpretation of the boulder as a display
of strength meant to intimidate the heavenly messenger and the wrestling contest as a
form of litigation to be settled by divine will.
13 Ibid., p. 133. The name Takeminakata is constituted of words that mean, separately,
"valiant" (take A), "name" (na i), and "direction" (kata 7). His name can also be interpreted
to mean "by the side" (kata 7b)of the water (mina 7K).(Ibid., p. 559.)
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 325
descent from Takeminakata, for control of the region of Suwa. 4
Seemingly, the struggle between the Yamato clan and the people
of Izumo, reflected in the Land Ceding chapters of the Kojiki (a document
recorded by Yasumaro of the 0 clan), was continued from
Izumo to Suwa, where the two tribes were eventually amalgamated.
According to an account (combining myth, local legend, and
folklore) narrated by Takemura Yoshiyuki in his book Suwa Myojin
(The Suwa Deity), members of the Izumo tribe traveled by boat
from Izumo (present day Shimane prefecture) northward along the
Japan Sea coast to Etsu-no-kuni ScDIS (present day Niigata prefecture),
where Okuninushi wed Nunakawa-hime Vg&)JIM,the daughter
of the Etsu-no-kuni chieftain. Nunakawa-hime subsequently
gave birth to Takeminakata south of Itoigawa, where the Himegawa
River ("Princess River") flows into theJapan Sea. The migrant
Izumo tribe then followed the same river south to Suwa, taking with
them their deity Takeminakata."5 Armed with metal weapons (the
making of which the Izumo people are said to have learned from
Koreans), and possessing agricultural skills unknown to the inhabitants
of the Suwa basin, the Izumo tribe was able to overwhelm
the local Moreya clan, who still used weapons and tools of stone.
Takeminakata was installed in what was later the Mae Miya as
the guardian deity of the Izumo people and eventually of all who
dwelled in the area.'6
Local landmarks have been interpreted in light of this myth. A
shrine dedicated to Nunakawa-hime stands in Itoigawa City where
14 Ibid., p. 132. A similar interpretationis put forwardby Miyasaka Mitsuaki 9 M in
"Suwa Taisha Amaterasu e no hangyaku kami" t -xO)kimP, Rekishidokuhon
v. 33 (February 1989), p. 63. Later the two competing groups were amalgamated. Felicia
GressitBockpoints out that Takemikazuchi-no-mikotowas an ancestralkamiof the Fujiwara.
See her translation, Engi-Shiki,ProceduresoftheEngiEra, BooksVI-X(Tokyo: Sophia University,
1972), p. 100.
15 Takemura, pp. 26-28. The spiritualhead of the invading clan came to be known as the
ohori(synonymous with hafuri:one who purifies). He was regarded as a kamiin human form
(arahitogamigJ!AA), descended from the clan kami (ujigamiFiw), Takeminakata. The
Suwa ohori,in whom it was believed the kamiresided, ascended to his officialposition as an
eight-year old child.
16 Today Takeminakata is enshrined in the Hon Miya and Yasakatome-no-kata is enshrined
in the Mae Miya. Both kami,together with Yaekotoshironushi, are enshrined in the
Shimosha Haru Miya and Aki Miya. Their names appear at the beginning of Miyasaka
Kiyomichi's 9 R Suwanoonbashira-sai(Oy6 shobo, 1956).
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326 ELAINE GERBERT
the Himegawa River flows into the Japan Sea. A pond, located
south of Itoigawa City and marked by a small shrine, is said to be
the birthing pond where she gave birth to Takeminakata. Another
shrine dedicated to Nunakawa-hime is found in Suwa, and the
sharp depressions found on a large stone there are said to be the
hoofprints of the deer that she rode when she came to Suwa. Both it
and the large, flat, bench-like "shoe rock" (kutsu-ishi 76Ei), where
she is said to have sat down and changed her shoes, are enclosed by
small wooden fences to mark them as sacred spots.'7
Takeminakata's consort Yasakatome-no-kata is said to have been
originally a local agricultural kami appropriated by the Izumo invaders."8
The deities are said to spend the warmer months of the
year in the Haru Miya and winter in the Aki Miya. They are transferred
from the Aki Miya to the Haru Miya in a quiet ritual (sengusai
i') performed by priests on February 1, and returned to the
Aki Miya in a noisy "boat festival" (funa matsuri) ) on August
1.19After the harvest, Yasakatome-no-kata's spirit is said to return
to Kirigamine Heights, located behind the Aki Miya and named after
the mists that periodically slip down from its top, hiding its form
from view. Said to be the daughter of the sea god, Yasakatome-no-
17 Takemura, pp. 29-30.
18 Ibid., p. 51. The origin of this kamiis unclear. Takemura says that, accordingto one explanation,
she was the ancestralkamiof the Yasukumo 2 clan, a rice-growing people that
at one time occupied the land north of Lake Suwa.
19 Miyasaka Mitsuaki, Suwa Taishano onbashirato nenjuigyojiX 16;khCDRrt p
(Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture: Ky6do shuppansha, 1992), p. 112. In the "boat festival"
ujikotransportthe kamiin a large brushwood boat decorated with the masks of an old
woman and an old man carryinga fishing pole. Hundreds of ujikoare required to carrytheir
brushwood boat, it is said, because they are reluctant to return to their winter home. Until
1877the boat was carriedby ujikoclad in loin clothsand was famous as the "Suwa Naked Festival"
("SuwaHadakaMatsuri"XjR; 0). The rite is noted in Suwadaimyojjinekotoba,M
t * 9, 1356. Shint6 deities are sometimes described as traveling through the sky in
boats. Takemikazuchi-no-kami, for example, rides the "heavenly bird-boat kami"Ame-notori-fune-no-kami
WAMOM,when he descends to earth from the heavens. (Philippi, Kojiki,
p. 129.)
In the transferof the deities between the Aki Miya and the Haru Miya one can see vestiges
of the belief, found throughout ruralJapan, in the protective presence of the ancestralkami,
who residesin the mountains as theyamanokami1IQ)* in the winter and descends to the rice
fieldsas the tanokami WQ) in the spring. Takeminakata is also spokenof as an agricultural
kami, and today the taue-matsuriEffRtIVD (rice planting festival) is conducted at the
Kamisha. This would appear to be a furtherdemonstration of the highly adaptive nature of
Japanese kami.
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 327
kata is also believed to send the rains needed to grow the rice.
Numerous other small shrines and himorogiiP (sacred seats on
unpolluted land surrounded by evergreens or marked by low wooden
fences) scattered throughout the basin tell the location of other
sacred spots, such as the "seven rocks," upon which kamiare said to
have sat, and the "seven trees," in which kami are supposed to have
rested. And within the compounds of the Kamisha and Shimosha
shrines, shimenawawound about the thick middles of hoary fir trees
indicate that some spaces within the sanctified grounds have more
spiritual energy than others.
In the variegated career of the Suwa kamican be glimpsed the concerns
of the inhabitants of the Suwa basin at different points in
time. Winter rites held today in the Kamisha, in which deer heads
and freshly caught frogs impaled on arrows are presented to the
kami, harken back to a time in the neolithicJomon period when people
lived by gathering and hunting, and the Moreya chieftain's functions
included divination and the performance of magical rites.20
Later, with the introduction of rice cultivation in the Yayoi period,
the Suwa deity became a wind kamiand received the prayers of farmers
anxious to control the winds and heavy rainstorms that wreaked
havoc on their crops.2"
The kami was petitioned for good crops and many important
agricultural rites were conducted at the Shimosha. One of these,
still observed today, is the "Cylinder Gruel Rite" (tsutsugayu-shinji
A 4), held in the Tsutsugayu Hall of the Haru Miya from evening
of January 14 to the dawn of the next day.22
People also turned to the Suwa kami in times of sickness. Suwa
medicine, regarded as a gift from Takeminakata, included antidotes
20 Miyasaka Mitsuaki, "Suwa Taisha," pp. 68-69. Miyasaka suggests that the origin of
these rites dates back to a time before the arrival of the Izumo people and their kami,
Takeminakata. Once the Moreya people were defeatedby the invaders, they were assimilated
into the new tribe, and practicesassociatedwith the worshipof theirlocal kamibecame partof
the cult surrounding Takeminakata.
21 Takemura (p. 156) notes that the seal of the Kamisha is made of deer antler and has as
its impression a picture, whereas that of the Shimosha, associated with the later rice-planting
culture, is made of bronze and has as its impression several modified Chinese characters.
22 Miyasaka Mitsuaki, SuwaTaisha,pp. 23-28. In this rite hollow reeds areplaced in a porridge
of rice and beans, which is left to cook all night; at dawn the reeds are sliced open before
the kami.The disposition of their contents is said to augur the harvest of the coming year.
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328 ELAINE GERBERT
for ailments ranging from bruises and insect bites to female hysteria,
night crying, and fox possession.23
In time the Suwa kamibecame famous for services rendered to the
imperial court as well.24Emissaries from the court were sent to offer
prayers at the Suwa Shrine, and the Suwa kami appeared in legends
recounting deeds of members of the imperial clan. When Empress
Jingu (201-269) invaded Silla in the third century, she is said to
have been accompanied by the Suwa kami, who in its capacity as
Wind God made favorable winds blow, speeding the fleet on to the
Korean peninsula. Flocks of hawks, pigeons, herons, and crows are
said to have flown in the sky, and large fish and sea creatures surfaced
on the waves to protect the expeditionary fleet. The Suwa kami
itself is said to have led the way, riding in a boat that flew its flag
with the mulberry-leaf crest.25
The same mulberry-leaf crest appeared also on the coat of arms
of the mysterious war chief who reportedly came to the aid of
Sakanoue Tamuramaro WIHEtt*,) (758-81 1), who had been commissioned
by the court to subjugate the barbarian tribes in the northeast
territory. Thanks to this mysterious chieftain, who was always
in the forefront of the battles, performing many valiant deeds,
Tamuramaro vanquished the barbarian tribes. On the way back to
Kyoto, when they arrived at the border of Suwa, the mysterious warrior
is said to have announced, "I am the Suwa kami" and immediately
vanished. Tamuramaro was greatly moved and ordered that
contributions be made throughout Shinano province to rebuild the
Suwa Shrine every seven years. According to the same legend, later
on when the cost of rebuilding the shrines became prohibitive, sixteen
pillars were erected instead.26
23 Miyasaka Mitsuaki, "Suwa Taisha," p. 70. Ingredients included bear gall, monkey
womb, snake blood, roasted deer head, and mountain goat horn. Another rite performedto
ensure good health is the rite of walking through a giant wheel woven of miscanthus reed
(chinowa*6DOk) at the time of the summer solstice. This and the great exorcism conducted
at the end of the year are important means of driving out pollution at half-year intervals
throughoutJapan.
24 The firstofficialreferenceto the Suwa Shrine datesbackto the Nihonshoki(721), wherein
EmpressJit6 (645-702) is said to have sent an imperial messenger to worship at the shrine.
Legendaryevents alleged to have taken place beforethat time aredescribedin SuwaDaimyojin
ekotoba.
25 Miyasaka Mitsuaki, "Suwa Taisha," p. 64.
26 Ibid., pp. 64-65.
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 329
These exploits of the kami were rewarded early on. In 940 when
an imperial petition made to the Suwa kami was followed by the
quelling of the uprising led by Taira Masakado (d. 940), the imperial
court bestowed upon Takeminakata the exalted rank of Senior
First Rank and Yasakatome-no-kata was promoted to Junior Lower
Fifth Rank.
By the end of the Heian period (794-1185) Takeminakata had acquired
a reputation as a powerful war god. In Ryojinhisho(ca. 1169),
for example, the Suwa kami is noted as one of the outstanding war
gods of eastern Japan.27 The Suwa Shrines continued to occupy a position
of high esteem among the military aristocracy throughout the
Kamakura and Ashikaga periods (1185-1573). Members of the
Suwa clan (reputed descendants of Takeminakata himself) rendered
military service to the Minamoto, H-jo, and Ashikaga families.
The Kamisha and Shimosha were among twelve shrines especially
patronized by Minamoto Yoritomo (1147-1 199),28 and the Suwa
kami was also the object of special devotion on the part of Kiso
Yoshinaka (1154-1184), the Minamoto rebel warrior who was at
one time married to the daughter of the chief priest (ohoJrik*.) of the
Kamisha.29 During the medieval era samurai from Shinshu MPHJ+Iand
Koshuf *f1igathered at Suwa to hunt, feast, and show off their military
skills before bakufu officials at exhibition matches held on
Kirigamine Heights, near the shrine of the Misayama earth deity,
whose identity had by then been amalgamated with that of the war
god Takeminakata, enshrined in the Shimosha at the foot of the
mountain.30
27 See the translationof the song in which the Suwa kami is thus named in Yung-Hee Kim,
SongstoMaketheDustDance,TheRyojinhishoof TwelfthCenturyJapan(Berkeley:Universityof
California Press, 1994), p. 144.
28 Ito Tomio , Misayama-saino hanashi I[UlQ)DL (Shimo Suwa, Nagano
Prefecture: Heute Misayama, 1958), pp. 5-6.
29 Takemura, pp. 92-93. After the death of his fatherMinamoto Yoshikata at the hand of
Taira Yoshihira, Yoshinakawas raisedby NakaharaKanetoshi at a shrine in Kiso-andby the
oh5riof the Shimosha, Kanazashi Morikiyo. Upon attaining manhood Yoshinakamarriedthe
daughter of the Shimosha ohori and with the backing of his in-laws proceeded to raise an
armyof Shinano samuraito lead against the Taira. Aftera seriesof famous battles, recounted
in the Heike monogatari, he succeeded in driving the Taira forces from Kyoto in 1183.Jealous
and alarmedby his cousin's excesses, Minamoto Yoritomo sent an army against Yoshinaka.
The storyof Yoshinaka's death and that of his foster-brotherImai Kanehira, who committed
suicide at his side, is the subject of the noh play Kanehira.
30 Ito, p. 7. The area on top of Kirigamine is now a nature preserve, but the viewing terThis
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330 ELAINE GERBERT
The Suwa kami is said to have come to the rescue of the nation
again in 1280 when the Mongols launched an invasion ofJapan. According
to legend, related in the Suwa daimyojinekotoba("Explanation
Accompanying the Picture Scroll of the Great Suwa Deity,"
1356), the emperor prayed to the Suwa kamifor deliverance, and the
doors of the Suwa Shrine opened, and a dragon appeared in the sky
to the west. Shortly thereafter in June of 1281 the Mongol fleet was
destroyed by a powerful wind.3'
Following a period of internal dissension within the shrines and
decline during the Warring States period (1482-1558), the shrines
were favored by the warlord Takeda Shingen (1521-1573) of Kai,
who worked actively to restore them to their former glory. His acts
of devotion increased notably after 1553, when his forces clashed
with the army of Uesugi Kenshin (1530-1578) of Echigo in the first
of a series of battles fought at Kawanakajima in Shinano. He bequeathed
rice paddies to the shrine, wrote letters to clan heads and
village leaders throughout Shinano, enjoining them to support the
shrine, and in 1563 sent eleven scrolls to the Kamisha containing detailed
instructions regarding its management. He is said to have ridden
into battle carrying a red flag bearing the name of the shrine
written in gold characters and surrounded by sixty-three Sanskrit
letters which he himself wrote, and to have carried a banner inscribed
with the words, "Hail Great kami of the Upper and Lower
Suwa Shrines."32 In 1582 his enemy Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) invaded
Suwa and, intent upon eradicating the fighting spirit of the
Takeda, promptly burned down the Kamisha.
At the end of the sixteenth century Suwa came under the
hegemony of Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616). The Takashima AA,j
clan, then in control of the area where the shrines were located,
eventually became hereditary vassals (fudai daimyJ) of the Tokugawa
and were given a 12,000 kokudaimiate, which enabled them
to exert local control until the end of the Tokugawa period. The
shrines were restored on a grand scale with the support of the head
races, which were cut into the mountainside for the occasion of these military exhibitions,
remain. Shardsof clay sake cups dating back to the days of those gatherings still turn up on
footpaths near the old Misayama Shrine.
31 Miyasaka Mitsuaki, "Suwa Taisha," p. 65.
32 Takemura, pp. 143-44.
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 331
of the clan and became a popular center of worship for local folk.
The Tokugawa bakufu assisted with the reconstruction of the
Shimosha, contributed gates to the Kamisha, and eventually in
1648 gave the shrines an annual stipend of 1500 koku, making them
a small fiefdom, independent of the Takashima clan.
In 1871, in the wake of the Meiji restoration, the Suwa shrines,
together with all other major shrines in the land, came under the
direct control of the Meiji government.33 In 1872 the Kamisha and
Shimosha were amalgamated and the Suwa Shrine was designated
as a National Shrine of the Middle Rank (kokuheichuishaEJM4Pt); in
1896, it was promoted to the position of an Imperial Shrine of the
Middle Rank (kanpeichuishaW'r4), and in 1916, it was elevated to
the position of Imperial Shrine of the Top Rank (kanpeitaisha'Muk
a), a status second only to that held by the Ise Shrine. With the dissolution
of the state shrine system after the Pacific War, the Suwa
Shrine became a religious corporation, supported by a parishioner
association (ujikokai Yi f ) constituted of representatives selected
from local towns and villages. In 1948 it was granted permission by
the Jinja Honcho z*L*fi (Association of Shinto Shrines) to use the
appellation of Suwa Taisha RXukt (the only shrine in Nagano
prefecture to possess the title of Great Shrine), and today it is the
main shrine of all the Suwa branch shrines in the nation.34
In the early part of the twentieth century, the Suwa kami became
a kamiof craftsmanship. Today, Takeminakata is a kamiof high tech
manufacturing and traffic safety. Nonetheless, the war-like rhythms
beaten out on giant-sized drums before the railroad station on the
morning of the day the pillars are to be pulled into the town recall
an age when samurai beat their drums along the lakeshore to call
the kamito arms. And banners and onbeSMhK (large gohei gt, i.e.,
3 The institution of the ohori was abandoned at this time and Shint6 priests appointed by
the government were assigned to the Suwa Shrines. For an account of the status and administration
of Shinto in the modern era see Helen Hardacre, Shinto and the State, 1868-1988
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).
34 If one includes shrines that have no priests in attendance, and shrines that once were
called Suwa Jinja but now go by other names, the total number of Suwa shrines comes to
10,000, according to Miyasaka Mitsuaki, "Suwa Taisha," p. 64. Helen Hardacre outlines
the ways in which branch shrines developed in the medieval period as follows: " 1) when clans
or their subgroupings migrated to a new area and established a new shrine of the clan deity;
2) through the dedication of fiefs to shrines; 3) through the appearance of worshipers of the
original shrine's deities in a distant area." (Shinto and the State, 1868-1988, p. 12.)
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332 ELAINE GERBERT
paper streamers attached to a stick, used especially in the onbashira
matsuri) flying in the stiff breezes blowing down the mountains and
off the lake remind us that some of the power of the Suwa kami still
resides in the wind.
Here, once every seven years, some 2,000 Suwa Shrine ujikoare
joined by about 150,000-200,000 spectators to celebrate the Suwa
Pillar Festival.35 The festival is organized about a series of rituals
that begin three years earlier, when eight trees from Okoya Mountain
1TlLJ east of Suwa in the foothills of the Yatsugatake Range,
approximately twenty kilometers away, are selected by a group of
hereditary shrine wood keepers (yamazukuriLLf1f') to serve as pillars
to be erected in the courtyards of the Hon Miya and Mae Miya of
the Kamisha. Two years before the festival ujikoand priests affiliated
with the Shimosha proceed approximately ten kilometers northeast
to the Higashi Mata National Forest V: tfi1 z and select eight
trees to be erected as pillars in the Haru Miya and Aki Miya. (See
Figure 1.)
The mirroring of the Kamisha by the Shimosha is reflected in
their virtually identical mulberry-leaf crests, different only in that
the crest of the Kamisha has four stems and that of the Shimosha,
five. As their crests are slightly different mirror images of one
another, so the rituals of the Kamisha differ somewhat from those of
the Shimosha. In almost every case, the Kamisha ritual takes place
before the corresponding ritual at the Shimosha. The mirroring
principle can also be seen in the three pairs of Treasure Halls (hoden
IM), where the jewel representing the spirit of the kami and gifts
offered to the kami are stored. There are two Treasure Halls at the
3 The term ujiko, literally, children of the clan (uji), today refers to shrine parishioners
who have traditional ties to the local tutelary shrine and support its functions. Shrine elders
(ujiko sodai fk-TC ), who are most directly concerned with shrine affairs, are men of wellestablished
families whose roots in the community go back many generations. The ujigami
(also called chinjzugami0, qFp) today refers to the local tutelary deity that protects the people
dwelling within its area, irrespective of their diverse lineages. The ujigami in this sense may be
different from the ubusunano kami, the tutelary deity of one's birth place. One can thus at the
same time be a patron parishioner (ujiko) of one of the four Suwa Shrines and a parishioner
(ubuko) of the ubusunashrine of one's natal place. Explanations of membership in ujiko associations
can be found in Jennifer Robertson, Native and Newcomer, Making and Remaking a
Japanese City (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991) and Winston Davis, Japanese
Religion and Society, Paradigms of Structureand Change (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1992).
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333
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334 ELAINE GERBERT
Kamisha Hon Miya and two each at the Shimosha Haru Miya and
Aki Miya. One of each of these three pairs is rebuilt each time the
Pillar Festival is conducted. While ujikoare engaged in pulling sixteen
tree trunks down from the mountains, the shrine priests supervise
the construction of exact replicas of the old Treasure Halls. At
the conclusion of the festival, they move the kamifrom the old Treasure
Halls into the new ones in a solemn ceremony (sengu-sai).
The Suwa Pillar Festival, which takes place from January to
May, is sponsored, organized, conducted, and paid for entirely by
ujikofrom the twenty-five parishes affiliated with the Suwa Taisha
(eighteen with the Kamisha and seven with the Shimosha). Savings
accumulated over the course of seven years are spent on elaborate
activities connected with the festival. These include parades organized
to greet the pillars and several straight days of feasting and
drinking at the climax of the festival when the pillars are dragged
through the town. The physical, emotional, and financial costs associated
with the festival are so great, in fact, that there is a traditional
taboo on marriages and house construction during a festival year.36
STAGES OF THE PILLAR FESTIVAL
SelectingthePillars (onbashira mitate !?v %)
The Kamisha Pillar Festival is anchored at one end in the sacred
shrine woods on Okoya Mountain, and at the other in the shrines in
Kami Suwa and Chino City in the Suwa Basin. The stages of the festival
symbolically traverse the distance between the timeless world
of the kamiin nature and the historical world of human society. The
matsuri begins quietly on Okoya Mountain, led by a select few
ritual specialists, and culminates in a noisy, joyous celebration in
Kami Suwa attended by several hundred thousand participants and
spectators. It begins, in the silence of winter, under the guidance
36
I.e., during years when not only great amounts of money but the services of priests are
likely to be in short supply. Today marriagesdo take place in a Pillar Festival Year (the most
recentbeing the monkey year of 1992), but recordsat the Suwa City Hall revealthat the number
of those marriages is about one fourth the number of marriages in an average year,
and that the taboo is still observed during the months of March, April, May, October,
and November, when townspeople are most busily engaged in festival affairs. (Miyasaka
Mitsuaki, Suwa Taisha,p. 248.)
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 335
of the yamazukuri. Unlike the chief priest of the Suwa Shrine, who is
an "outsider" appointed to the shrine by the Jinja Honcho, the
yamazukuri are members of eight Chino City families who have
tended the Kamisha woods since the Edo period.
The Kamisha yamazukuri select the trees to be used for the
Kamisha pillars three years in advance of the festival. The fir trees
are chosen for the appropriateness of their height, roundness, and
general appearance. Each of the eight pillars must meet a different
prescribed length and width requirement (approximately twenty
meters long, ranging from one to three meters in diameter, and
weighing between seven and thirteen tons).37 The selection is
confirmed twice. The first time, two years before the festival,
shimenawaand wooden plaques indicating the shrine and the number
of the pillar for which the tree is designated (e.g., Hon Miya
Number One) are hung on the trees. At the time of the second
confirmation, a year before the festival, the trees are marked by
hammering nagigama 4d into their trunks. This flat bird-shaped
piece of metal with notched edges is the emblem of the Suwa kami
and shows that the tree is sacred. The spiritual force of its "demon
crushing" power will protect the tree until it is felled. The nagigama
combines in its shape both a suggestion of a scythe (a reminder of
the kami's role in agriculture) and a suggestion of a halberd (a reference
to Takeminakata's martial character). Through its homophonic
name (nagu means both to mow or harvest with a scythe and to
quell or quiet the wind) and its shape, and through the yin-yang
symbolism in which metal controls wood, and wood controls wind,
the nagigamaalso symbolizes the wind-quelling power of the Suwa
kami.38
At the time of the selection (mitate), and throughout the various
3 The number of available trees of adequate size in the Kamisha wood has declined to the
point that in 1992 only the Number One pillar of the Hon Miya met the stipulated dimensions.
Rather than use trees from the Higashi Mata National Forest for Kamisha rites, the festival
managers decided to settle for smaller trees from the Kamisha wood on Okoya Mountain.
(Correspondence with Mitsuaki Miyasaka, May, 1994.)
38 Throughout Nagano, Niigata, Akita, and Yamanashi prefectures farm families in the
fall, when the winds are strong, traditionally attached a scythe at the end of a pole, which they
erected in the yard to cut (and control) the wind. (Such a pole, I am told, also exists at Zenk6ji
temple in Nagano City).
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336 ELAINE GERBERT
stages of the ritual, the high pitched wail of men and boy ujikosinging
kiyari *. 9 (traditional work songs sung by woodcutters) contrasts
with the solemnly intoned norito WIPprayers of the priests.
Ritual onbewands held aloft by ujikothroughout the festival are yet
another reminder of the way in which special ritual utensils and
vocalizations associated with the Suwa region are local inflections
on a national vocabulary of Shint6 ritual objects (e.g., shimenawaand
gohei) and utterances found throughout Japan.
At this stage the song is addressed to the kamiof the mountain, requesting
permission to take the tree and protection for the men who
participate in the rite. Suggestive of the intimacy that the Japanese
feel toward their local kami is the fact that the words of the kiyari(as
opposed to the elaborate classical literaryJapanese of the noritorecited
by the priests) are simple words with informal verb endings: e.g.,
kamisama, onegaida, "Oh kami, hear our humble request."
At every stage of the festival, Shimosha rituals closely resemble
but are different from those of the Kamisha. Unlike the Kamisha,
there are no yamazukuri attached to the Shimosha. The selection of
trees is made by ujikotwo years before the festival. Nagzgamaare not
used; shimenawaand wooden plaques alone identify the trees.
The Rite of Drawing Lots (chuisenshiki M*A)
Whereas ritual specialists are used to select the trees for the
Kamisha, a lottery is used to choose the ujikoto pull the Kamisha pillars
down from Okoya Mountain. On February 15 of the Pillar Festival
year, shrine elders from eighteen parishes assemble at the worship
hall of the Hon Miya to draw the lots that will determine which
pillars their parishes will pull. To ensure the drawing of a lucky lot
(the Number One pillar of the Hon Miya is considered the most
desirable), a series of preliminary lotteries is held before the lotdrawing
ceremony to select the lot-drawers. Those who pass the
rigors of the selection process enhance their luck further by praying
at dawn at local ubusuna shrines and again before the Kamisha.39
The atmosphere is electric at the final lot-drawing rite over which
priests preside in a ceremony marked by a great display of gravity.
39 These men also abstain from alcohol, meat, and sexual activity, take cold morning
baths, etc., to prepare themselves for the lot-drawing ceremony.
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 337
Men dressed in their parish's distinctively colored happi &VAcrowd
the shrine precinct and add to the tension by singing kiyari, hoisting
onbeand banners, and chanting. When a lucky ujikopulls the lot for
the Hon Miya Number One pillar his elated companions toss him
in the air and the courtyard rings with their shouts.
Once the pillar assignments have been determined, each parish
begins to prepare for the festival. No one works alone. Some groups
practice their parish's distinctive version of the kiyariin the shrines,
in the forests, and along the river. Committees meet to discuss their
tasks: the management of the levers, ropes, onbe, and banners that
will be used in the festival. Children and adults meet to rehearse the
dances and the drumming that will be performed to entertain the
kami.
Beating thePulling Ropes (hikitsuna-uchi %f,tJi)
From the last third of February through the first third of March
special ropes for pulling the pillars are woven by ujiko selected by
their parishes (approximately thirty men from each). Each parish is
responsible for providing the hand-woven ropes it will use to do its
share of the pulling. About 3,100 bundles of straw are beaten and
twisted into 216 ropes of prescribed thickness and length, reinforced
with wisteria vine.40 The "main ropes" (motozuna*a), which will
be passed through the holes ("eyes") drilled into the ends of the pillars,
are about thirty centimeters thick and eighteen meters long.
When the giant pillars are pulled, thinner ropes will be attached to
the main ropes.
The ropes serve a symbolic as well as a practical function. Made
of straw taken from thirty traditionally designated rice fields, they
represent the communal energy that goes into bringing the pillars
from the realm of kamito the world of human beings. Woven in community
centers in the winter evenings and on weekends, the ropes
that thousands of villagers will pull together also recall for late
twentieth-century residents their common agrarian past when ropemaking
occupied farmers on many a long winter night. Today the
40In recent years manila flax ropes and synthetic ropes have also been used, and occasionally
during the festival what appears to be a thick hand-made straw rope will upon
closer inspection turn out to be a commercial rope covered with straw plaiting.
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338 ELAINE GERBERT
rope-making gives ujiko,who work at diverse occupations, an opportunity
to come together again after seven years to renew old acquaintances
and to get into the spirit of "onbashira."Kiyari are sung, and
the mood of anticipation builds. Everyone shares in the consciousness
of the oncoming matsuri.
Purifying theSacredAxes and Saws in Fire (hiire shiki !kiUA)
In each stage of the matsurigoto(rituals to honor and celebrate the
kami) ordinary objects and farm tools are turned into sacred ritual
implements. On the first Saturday in March, after conducting
purification rites at seven shrines of local tutelary kami, Kamisha
priests proceed to the home of the head yamazukuri in Chino City,
where a special forge is located. Here the elements of wood, fire,
and metal are highlighted in a rite in which traditional cutting
instruments are purified in a sanctified fire. A white cloth bearing
the mulberry-leaf crest of the Kamisha is spread, and, following an
announcement to the kami, the head yamazukuri creates sparks by
pounding a piece of iron with a metal hammer on a metal plate,
and feeds the sacred fire with cryptomeria tree needles, box tree
wood, and charcoal made from pine. As shrine elders look on, the
priests purify saws and axes, including a ceremonial axe with a redlacquered
handle passed down from the Edo period.
In the case of the Shimosha, the trees are felled a year before the
festival. The hiire shiki of the Shimosha is performed on the day of
the cutting at a shrine located near the foot of the mountain in the
Higashi Mata National Forest from which the eight pillars will be
taken.
The Rite of Felling the Trees(bassai shiki ANA)
Snow lies deep on the ground on the first Sunday in March when
Kamishayamazukuri, shrine elders in charge of each of the eight pillars,
and priests gather before the small shrine on the lower slope of
Okoya Mountain." The axes and saws are laid before the shrine
41 Nowadays the men go fromthe town to the mountain partway by car, and begin cutting
the treesabout8 a.m. In the Edo period, parishionersused packhorsesand went up the mountain
by torchlight in the evening immediately after the axe purificationrite, arrived about 2
a.m., slept on the mountain, and began cutting the trees before dawn. By all accounts the
scene of hundreds of torchlights snaking up the mountain side in the night was very striking
and added much to the awesomeness of the rite. Miyasaka Mitsuaki, Suwa Taisha,p. 184.
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 339
and the chief priest prays to the mountain kami. The elders of the
eighteen parishes conduct a lottery to determine who will assist in
the cutting of which tree. There are twenty to thirty shrine elders
from each parish, and together with the other men who accompany
them, the party numbers several hundred men. The priests offer
more noritoprayers, and purification rites are conducted. The distinction
between purified space and non-purified space constitutes
an important invisible boundary that will be marked with rituals
throughout the matsuri, which cannot proceed unless the priests
continuously define a boundary between the sacred play sphere (in
which the kamiresides), and the undifferentiated profane sphere outside
the ritual space.
When the party reaches the site where the trees will be cut, an
ujikosings a kiyariannouncing the identity of the party to the mountain
kami and requesting permission to take the trees. A rite is
performed at each tree before it is cut, beginning with the tree designated
to be the Hon Miya Number One pillar. Every step of the cutting
is done according to a prescribed rite. Yamazukuristrike the tree
with their axes three times and use the saw three times. More rites
are performed and the tree is felled by teams of ujikounder the direction
of theyamazukuri, blessed, and cut according to prescribed size.
Following the noon break, during which the men drink "divine
sake" (omiki :sfi), there is another purification rite when the
branches and bark are stripped from the tree, leaving the "god
tree" shining brightly in the green mountain forest. Although ujiko
carried them in the past, today the denuded trees are transported
with machinery by professional operators to the spot called the
"pillar resting place" (onbashiraokiba t ),where they will rest
for a month. The area is marked by shimenawa to assure the kami
of the purity of this place where it can rest without being affected by
pollution.
A month later, the day before the trees will be pulled out of the
mountain, holes are bored into the ends of the pillars so that ropes
and guide bars can be passed through them. These holes are called
"loach mouths" (medoguchi , Frn) as their appearance resembles
the pursed mouths of loach fish. The reference to fish, which evokes
the lake and rivers at the foot of the mountain, and the designation
of "male" and "female" ropes (secured with "male" and
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340 ELAINE GERBERT
"female" knots) are some of the ways in which ritual names create
a sense of complementarity and balance, and through the harmony
of opposites, a sense of unity.
The ritual calendar is similarly governed by a principle of complementarity
and balance. Events take place during tiger and
monkey years and days, which lie diametrically opposite each other
on the twelve-unit sexagenary calender. When the festival is held
during the year of the tiger, the Kamishayamadashi (see the following)
begins on the first tiger day in April, but the Shimosha
yamadashibegins on the first monkey day following the seventh day
of the month. The Kamisha satobiki ffUt or "pulling through
the village" phase begins on the first tiger day in May, but the
Shimosha satobiki begins on the first monkey day following the
seventh. In monkey years the reverse order is observed, with
Kamisha yamadashi beginning on the first monkey day, and the
Shimoshayamadashi and satobikibeginning on the first tiger day after
the seventh day of April and May.
Pulling thePillars out of theMountains (yamadashi [M L)
The pillars for the Kamisha are dragged down from Okoya Mountain
during the first ten days of April. Heavy "main ropes" are
slipped through the "loach mouth" holes and "male" and "female"
guide ropes are attached to the main ropes.
The pulling is preceded by a purification rite consisting of salttossing
and a prayer for the safety of the participants. For the ujiko,
the yamadashi and the stages that follow are an occasion for displaying
manliness through stylized movements and shouts and acts
of physical daring. With a single kiyari cry, the men take up the
ropes and the pulling begins. The kiyari sets the pace of the pulling
and is answered in turn by a chorus of chanting by the ujiko.In addition
to ropes, the Kamisha pillars are each outfitted with four huge
jutting beams, two at the head and two at the back end. Inserted
into the loach mouth holes, they are called "loach levers" (medoteko
z KW) and are used to provide leverage to more effectively guide
the heavy pillars. Young men stand on ropes slung over the loach
levers (about ten men on each, that is, forty men on each pillar),
which are bound in festive red-and-white cloth, and by rocking back
and forth on their perches, help to nudge the pillar along. The
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 341
youths standing on the loach levers and on the heavy main ropes
wave onbe, which replicate the form of the pillars and provide the
kami with an additional means of transportation, and move their
arms rhythmically in time to energizing cries of "wasshol, wasshoi."
Their arm movements mimic the motions of pushing; the stylization
of movement discernible already at this stage will become more
pronounced as the pillars move closer to the shrines. The movement
of the pillars is also facilitated by the actions of the tekobo-shu/zii
squads of young men who walk alongside the pillars and maneuver
them with lever sticks (tekobo).They are dressed in woodcutter work
clothes: turtleneck jerseys under black jumper tops, tight-fitting
work pants and leggings, which are now worn to signify that they
belong to a group dedicated to celebrating the kami. As the pillars
are pulled along a nine mile route called the "pillar highway" (onbashirakaido
g iiA), bugles sounding a spirited signal to charge
(shingunkyokuIVA), commonly heard today at baseball games,
further invigorate the kiyari and the rhythmic cries of "wasshol,
wasshoi."
Dropping the kamisha pillars (Kamisha ki-otoshi *A1L). On the
night of the first day of theyamadashi the pillars are allowed to rest at
a shrine along the way. Shortly after leaving the shrine the next day,
the pillars come to the steep ki-otoshi ("dropping the tree") slope.
The noise level rises as the crowd prepares for the next move. The
pillars are slid down the slope, with men standing on the loach
levers and on the main ropes. Bodies are flung left and right as the
giant pillars tilt and slide. Two days are devoted to the event and
the sound of banzai, kiyari, cheers, whistling, and bugling fill the
cold early spring air to produce an out-of-the-ordinary experience
for participants and as many as 10,000 spectators.
Crossingtheriver(kawagoshi )II L) or washingthedeity(kami arai ItV
L'). After they are "dropped" down the ki-otoshi slope, the pillars
are drawn over a narrow bridge, which requires that the protruding
loach levers be temporarily removed. The pillars are then dragged
down the Chino City highway and across rice paddies to the frigid
Miyagawa River ("Shrine River"), fed by snow runoff from the
Yatsugatake Range. In a show of bravado men leap into the river
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342 ELAINE GERBERT
and pass the pulling ropes to the men waiting on the opposite bank.
The pillars, with their loach levers back on, are then drawn into the
river for a "purifying" bath. Those riding on the loach levers are
thrown into the icy water. Some men attempt to hang onto the ropes
that are extended across the river to the opposite bank, but within a
few minutes the writhing bodies drop from the heavy ropes into the
stream. The long heavy pillars are manipulated across the river and
moved to the opposite bank, where men waiting to receive them join
in the kiyari and pull with all their might to maneuver the pillars
onto the bank. The strange dragon-horn-like loach levers come into
view and finally the pillars themselves are hauled up by hundreds of
helping hands.
Dropping the shimoshapillars (Shimosha ki-otoshi). The drama of
the yamadashi reaches a high point with the Shimosha ki-otoshi. The
100 meter high, 45 degree Shimosha ki-otoshi slope is considerably
longer and steeper than that of the Kamisha. Publicity surrounding
the Shimosha ki-otoshi has grown over the years as it has become
more violent, and the media attention in turn has encouraged its
participants to display an even more daring recklessness. In a film
made of the 1932 ki-otoshi, for example, ujiko gently roll the pillars
down the slope sideways. Since then, the event has become more
dangerous as men have taken to riding the pillars down the slope
head first. The sight of a dozen to twenty men seated on a giant log
careening down a steep slope recalls the excitement of a wild bull
run. In spite of the recklessness of the act, the rite is carefully orchestrated.
The pillars descend the slope in a prescribed order, four each
day, at one hour intervals, and the hour of each pillar's ki-otoshiis
widely advertised in local papers. There is much display prior to
each of the runs. Men stand on the pillar, poised precariously on the
lip of the cliff, and take turns moving to its front end to lead the
kiyari. The man who sits at the front when the pillar descends is
called the "first rider" (hananori4 0). It is a highly coveted role,
and at times fisticuffs occur in the final moments before the descent
as riders compete for this prime position. As the pillar nears the bottom
of the slope, crowds of men rush forth to leap on the hurtling
missile. Injuries are frequent, and on occasion, even fatal. A rider
may be pinned under the log, but most of the injuries occur in the
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 343
melee of punching, hitting, and kicking as men compete for a place
on the moving log. Ambulances waiting in the background give the
event an extra edge. But when a serious injury, or death, occurs,
there is little to-do. The life of the rider, they say, was taken by the
kami.
Dressing the pillars (shimenawakake AIMRte). Following the
ki-otoshi the Kamisha pillars are taken down the old Nakasendc
highway two kilometers to the site of the shimekake(lit: "putting
on the shimenawa"), where they are decorated with the straw ropes
festooned with white paper strips. Facing Mikoya Mountain in the
East, the ujiko sing a kiyari to send the kami back to the mountain
(yama no kamigaeshino kiyari).
The pillars will rest at this site, called the "pillar estate" (onbashirayashiki
k) for a month. To assure the maintenance of ritual
purity, bamboo poles are erected to form an enclosure for the pillars,
and the priests perform a purification rite to protect the pillars
in the absence of the mountain kami.
Shimosha pillars are protected by a fence of shimenawahung from
white-birch branches while they wait to be pulled into Shimo Suwa.
Retiring the Old Pillars (furuonbashira yasume ftfaN?6)
Once the yamadashi is completed, the old pillars which have stood
in the shrine courtyard since the previous festival are toppled and removed.
At the Kamisha this task has been performed by the residents
of Nakashima Village since the Edo period. The old Kamisha
pillars are sold to be used in the construction of station platforms
and golf driving ranges. The old Shimosha pillars are removed by local
businessmen and shrine attendants to be made into amulets, as
well as material for building and repairs.
Pulling the Pillars throughthe Town (satobiki !
To prepare the pillars for their town debut, ujikoput on new pulling
ropes, replace the dirty loach levers, and prettify the pillars.
Priests, yamazukuri, shrine elders, the foreman of the shrine carpenters,
and men whose hereditary role is to wind ropes around the
pillars when they are erected (tsunamaki St ?) walk at the head of a
solemn procession in which a boat-a palanquin for the kami made
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344 ELAINE GERBERT
of small tree branches bent into a hull and covered with a purple
cloth-is born by ujikothrough the town. Straws mats are spread inside
the boat and a curtain bearing the shrine's mulberry-leaf crest
is hung outside. A nagigama(symbol of the authority of the Suwa
kami) and a bell (a traditional shamanistic implement) are attached
to a ritual wand set up in the middle.42
The entourage starts from the Hon Miya shrine precinct and proceeds
in the direction of the oncoming pillars. Though they are but
ordinary citizens on other days, the yamazukuri and tsunamakinow
take on an extraordinary aura dressed in the stiff white angular
robes of Shint6 priests. These ritual specialists leading the procession
represent and affirm ritual hierarchy.
The solemnity of their procession contrasts with the noisy festive
atmosphere of the people's parades that follow. For two days
throngs of townspeople and visitors, particularly from prefectures
where Suwa Shrines are numerous, parade through town to welcome
the oncoming pillars. Local industries and businesses shut
down, and, rain or shrine, the satobiki takes place according to a
tightly defined schedule, for it is believed that failure to properly entertain
the kami and to erect its pillars in the shrine courtyards on
time may bring down its wrath on the community.
Space ordinarily given over to business and commerce is transformed
into a special space wherein the transformative power of matsuriwill
work its magic. Popular theater comes to the fore in all its
diversity of color, shape, sound, and rhythm in the satobiki. Gender
roles are crossed as young men dress in women's clothing; social
propriety is thrown overboard as youths prance about half-naked
and display enormous artificial phalluses strapped to their waists.
Social hierarchies are ignored as marginal groups of people join in,
and through their rambunctious and sometimes violent outbursts
add to the atmosphere of license. Historical time is reversed, as
celebrants dress up in feudal costumes and assume the identities of
42 Perhaps to scare away the devils. A.W. Sadler (in "Carrying the Mikoshi," Asian
FolkloreStudies31.1 (1972), p. 110) reports on an interview that he had with a shrine priest during
a festival. According to the priest festival time is a critical time when the kami are among
the people, but the devils are also abroad. The streets down which the mikoshi ("kami palanquin")
will travel is full of devils, so the way is prepared for the mikoshi by making sounds:
pounding the drum and jangling the priest's staff.
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 345
Edo period jugglers, entertainers, and samurai. A young local
child, dressed like the medieval oholriand escorted on horseback
through the town by child attendants dressed like samurai retainers,
recalls the medieval era when the oholriwas in fact a child and led the
Pillar Festival parade.43A horsemen's parade (kibagyretsu ,. _IJ)
that moves to the edge of town in a symbolic gesture to greet the pillars
reiterates the theme of travel and suggests the age of the daimyo
processions.44 The days of daimyo processions are also mirrored in
the nagamochiparade: members of young men's associations carrying
heavy wooden chests (nagamoch/i-A ) suspended from hinoki
(Japanese cypress) pillars, who move slowly through the town executing
rhythmic dance-like steps to the nagamochisong.45 As they
bear on their shoulders the weight of the six-meter-long stripped pillars,
they swing their staves and sway in a manner that causes the
chests, cushioned with oil-soaked cloths, to produce peculiar squeaking
sounds. Their stylized steps, which suggest knees buckling under
the heavy weight of the chests, show off the magnificence of the
hinoki pillars and herald the grandeur of the giant fir pillars yet to
come.
43 I.e., much as the earlyJapanese emperors were children when they were enthroned. For
an interesting discussion of the child as a vehicle for the kami see Sadler, p. 113. Sadler quotes
Taka Yamada's account of the child who rides on horseback at the head of certain shrine processions:
"The child is called hitotsu mono (- 6)), literally, "one thing," which indicates
that he is unique and has no substitute. A boy chosen for this position purifies himself
for seven days prior to the festival. Then on the day of the festival a priest repeats magic formulas
and puts make-up on him. Suddenly the child falls into ecstasy, in which state he
remains until the festival is over and the make-up is washed off." The boy took the place of
the mikoshi. It was said that the "divine spirit" (shinrei) possessed him.
44 In the days of alternate attendance (sankin kotai) at the shogunal palace in Edo,
the mounted horsemen's parade (kiba gyoretsu) led by the ohori (who was a member of the
Suwa clan and was taken to be a "living kami" descended from Takeminakata), escorted the
pillars through the town. There were then many riders, "more than one could count" (i.e.,
over 300). This practice was discontinued in 1872, the year after the feudal system was dismantled.
Today, the function of the "kiba gyoretsu" is purely decorative. Members of
culture preservation societies (hozonkai) organize a simple mounted horsemen's parade, which
does not lead the pillars into the town, but instead goes to meet them. (Miyasaka Mitsuaki,
Suwa Taisha, pp. 237-41.)
45 In earlier times, when the nagamochibearers went up the mountain to meet the pillars,
the nagamochiboxes (smaller than those used today) contained food, clothing, and levers for
the use of the men pulling the trees down from the mountains. (In the sankin kotai of the
Tokugawa period nagamochiwere used to transport the daimy6's belongings on the journey to
and from Edo). Today, the nagamochiparade takes place only in town and its function is more
for entertainment than anything else. (Miyasaka Mitsuaki, Suwa Taisha, pp. 243-44.)
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346 ELAINE GERBERT
There are great quantities of "divine sake," much of it freely distributed
to passersby by various community organizations. People
troop in and out of houses and shops lining the street, where festival
dishes are offered to festival-goers. The familar red-and-white awnings
of the tekiyaAW_(itinerant vendor) stalls mark the spots where
octopus dumplings, vegetable pancakes, cotton candy, bean jam
buns, plastic masks, and a variety of other cheap sweets and toys
can be purchased. Celebrants make their way up and down the
street filling themselves with food, drink, and the sights and sounds
of matsuri.
The pillars are pulled through the town on the last two days of the
satobiki. Some shopkeepers as well as the owners of larger companies
open their buildings to enable spectators to climb to the top floors
for a better view of the pillars, which are practically buried by the
thousands of people who pull them, prod them with levers, and
stand on them as they snake their way through the streets. The pillars
pass along a prescribed route in a pre-determined order, announced
in the local papers ahead of time; their identities are
moreover signified by the color of the happi of the parishioners assigned
to pull them. The repeated calls of "wasshol, wasshoa, kiyari
singing, and bugle music signal their approach. As a pillar draws
nigh, banners and onbewaving in the air come into view first, followed
by the bright colors of the happiof the ujikopulling and the turtleneck
jerseys of the tekobo-shuipushing the pillars with their levers.
Tekobo-shu/stand triumphantly on the slowly moving pillars, and as
they chant, bend their arms rhythmically at the elbows in a movement
that imitates a pushing motion, as if to help the work along.
The pillars stop frequently, and spectators run to stand on them and
have their photographs taken, or try their hand at pulling, attaching
a small rope to one of the numerous ropes that have been hung
around the pillar to facilitate maximum participation.
The theme of transport and travel, evoked by the daimyo procession,
the horsemen's parade, and the parade of the brushwood
boat-float, is further dramatized by a procession of ujikowho lead a
horse to a bridge by the Hon Miya. There the horse, a symbolic
mount for a kami, is ceremoniously presented to the chief priest.
The Shimo Suwa satobiki parade takes place a week after the
Kami Suwa parade, and schools, plants, and businesses close for
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 347
the occasion. The Haru Miya Number One pillar leads the procession
of pillars, with the Aki Miya Number Four pillar bringing up
the rear. Again, a procession of shrine elders and priests goes forth
from the Aki Miya to greet the pillars, stopping at the Haru Miya
for special rites along the way. Two days of festive parades by
costumed townspeople precede the parade of the pillars. It takes two
more days to move the pillars from the shimekakesite to the Haru
Miya precinct. The last pillar enters the Aki Miya precinct according
to schedule, at 6 p.m. on the last day of the satobiki.46
The Rite of ErectingthePillars (tateonbashira-sai 4--CX14)
The celebration of life and renewal is epitomized in the erection
of new pillars in the spaces vacated by old pillars. After spending
months in a horizontal position on the ground, leaving huge snaking
trails in the dust, the spectral trees, uprooted, delimbed, and debarked,
will be beheaded and erected in an elaborate ritual consisting
of many prescribed techniques and requiring the ministrations
of many ritual specialists.
Cuttingthecrownof thepillar (onbashira kan-otoshi 59WiL). The Hon
Miya pillars arrive in the evening, by which time the Mae Miya pillars
have been moved to their designated spots, and are laid alongside
the holes vacated by the pillars from the previous seven years.
Sacred axes and saws are carefully lined up at the head of the pillars
and prayers are recited by the shrine priests while the shrine elders,
yamazukuri, tsunamaki, and other officials stand reverently with
bowed heads. One by one the pillars are purified with paper amulets
(taima ;kg) and salt. Using a sacred axe, the head of the shrine carpenters
cuts the top of the pillar three times and is then joined by
others who assist him in whittling the top into a three-cornered
shape. (According to tradition, Suwa Taisha pillars are whittled
into three-cornered shapes but pillars of other Suwa shrines are whittled
into four-cornered shapes.) Wood chips from the sacred tree
are thrown to spectators, who scramble for them eagerly. The chip
46 The Shimosha pillars turn off the highway and descend a slope (a second ki-otoshislope)
to enter the Shimosha Haru Miya shrineprecinct fromthe backof the shrine. Haru Miya pillars
are erected that same day and Aki Miya pillarsare taken on to the Aki Miya shrine to be
erected the following day.
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348 ELAINE GERBERT
amulets are regarded as parts of the shintai of the kami, and as such,
are endowed with protective power for warding off accidents and
bringing prosperity.
Parishioners from Nakashima Village clean out the hole in which
the pillar will be fitted, and members of the Kobayashi clan, who
have performed the role of tsunamaki"rope winders" since the Edo
period, take hold of the ropes attached to the top of the pillar and
proceed to wind them about the pillar, in patterns of seven, five,
and three windings, in rhythm to a special chant, and pull the ropes
in four directions to balance and stabilize the pillar as it is erected in
the hole.
A youth selected at the beginning of the festival sits atop the pillar
with a ritual wand in his hand as the pillar is erected. He passes the
goheiover its top for the last time, then sticks it into it. A loud banzai
goes up from the crowd. A final kiyariis sung to send the kami back
to the mountain one last time, and the youth slips to the earth, sliding
down one of the ropes used to hoist and stabilize the pillar.
Shimosha pillars slowly inch their way to the Haru Miya and Aki
Miya precincts following a prescribed route, in a prescribed order.
The last pillar to be erected, by midnight, is the Aki Miya Number
Four. The tateonbashirarite proceeds as at the Kamisha, but as the
Shimosha pillars are to beyorishiro and not kami, instead of affixing a
goheithe youth on top of the pillar at the end of the ceremony simply
waves a purifying sakaki a* branch over the top of the pillar.
Packingtheeartharoundthefootof thepillar (onbashira nekatame t1
&b).The day following the tateonbashiracelebrants gather as officials
from Nakashima Village use a giant sixty kilogram mallet to pound
the staves set up at the base of the pillar to hold it in place. Each official
pounds each stave three times. A prayer is recited to implore the
pillar "to remain as it is, to become a majestic pillar, without rotting,
without moving, without leaning." Following the ceremony
a himorogifence is set up around each pillar. Another ceremony,
called the "great festival of the ceremonial year of the sacred pillar"
(shikinenonbashirataisai ft.kf), held in the morning before the
Treasure Hall, concludes the festival.
At the corresponding ceremony at the Shimosha, a giant mallet is
wielded by a single ujiko, and the concluding rites are conducted in
the afternoon.
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 349
The Rite of TransferringtheKami (sengiu-sai i9M)
In mid-June, the kamiresiding in the Kamisha is transferred from
the Treasure Hall east of the Hon Miya to an identical newly constructed
Treasure Hall west of the building. The old hall will be
torn down and rebuilt in time to receive the kami at the end of the
next six-year cycle. In the sengui-saithe sacred jewel, representing
the kam4;is carried by priests in a sacred palanquin, covered with
brocaded cloth. The cloths are never removed, and a new one is laid
upon the old ones every seven years, resulting in a considerable
layering of old moth-eaten cloths.47In carrying the sacred palanquin
the priests walk over a white cloth, donated by parishioners, laid
on the ground between the two Treasure Halls. This cloth is said
to have the power to protect one against illness if made into clothing
after the ritual.
In a reversal of time order, the sengui-saiof the Shimosha is conducted
not after the pillars are brought to town, as at the Kamisha,
but before, and not during the day, but at night, before the satobiki.
All lights, save that of a bonfire burning in the garden, are extinguished
during the rite.
The Little ShrineFestivals (komiya matsuri 'J"ff )
The mirroring of the Kamisha festival does not stop with the virtually
identical festival conducted at the Shimosha. From September
to December small duplicate pillar festivals are conducted at
small neighborhood shrines in both Kami Suwa and Shimo Suwa to
honor local kami of springs, streams, mountains, and hills. Tree
trunks pulled down from the same "tree cutting" sites whence the
larger pillars were drawn are pulled through the local neighborhoods
by ujiko and erected in the precincts of small neighborhood
shrines. Occasionally the pillars erected are the cut-off tops of trees
that were used for the large pillars. Unlike the Kamisha and
Shimosha pillars, however, these pillars do not stand for seven
years, but are removed shortly after their erection.
47 The shintaiof Amaterasu (and other kami)is also wrapped in layers of cloth. Alan Miller
in "The Garments of the Gods in Japanese Ritual," Journalof RitualStudies5.2 (Summer
1991) discusses the cloth used to wrap the mirror that symbolizes her presence and suggests
that their function may be to at once hide/withhold and reveal/expose the presence and the
power of the kami(revealing the invisible through the visible cloth).
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350 ELAINE GERBERT
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL
Before the furusato zukurit 2 3 K ' ("old village making")
movement of the 1970s led to a conscious attempt on the part of
local governments and local and national media to create a sense
of nostalgia for the rural village past, the Suwa Pillar Festival, like
many other local festivals, was not well known in Japan as a whole.
Although it is believed to date back at least to the late Heian
period, it was not until the Kamakura period (1185-1333) that
written references to the Pillar Festival appeared. The Omiya
zoei mokuroku . H ("Record of the Construction of Large
Shrines," 1329) tells of money being collected throughout Shinano
province, mainly by selling amulets, and used for reconstructing the
Treasure Halls and pulling down old pillars and setting up new
ones.48 There are also references to a procession of mounted warriors,
led by the oholri,to greet the pillars.49 The festival took on a
popular air during the Edo period, when it was described in Shinano
kunimukashisugata 'A.ij 1 ("Old Customs of Shinano Province,"
1819) as a very lively affair featuring a horse parade and hundreds
of ujikoclinging to ropes "like leaf hoppers."'50 Popular support of
the shrine was not necessarily voluntary, however. According to the
Suwa Kamisha onbashirasatobikihikinin soku-choIz6"7 ?1ft@, I
ARK ("Register of Pullers in the Suwa Kamisha Onbashira
Satobiki," 1812), participation in the rope-beating and pillar-erecting
was done at the behest of the Takashima daimyo, and each village
in Suwa was assigned a role to play.5"
At the time of the Meiji restoration, the breakdown of the rigid
feudal system led to increased competition on all levels of life in
Japan, and social conditions were unsettled. The Pillar Festival was
delayed in 1868, and when it was finally held that winter, it was on a
considerably reduced scale. The festival was not held in 1874, a transitional
time soon after the fiefs were dismantled and local prefectural
governments were set up. It was revived in 1890. That year for
the first time a lottery was held at the Kamisha to determine assign-
48 SuwaShiHakubutsukan,Onbashirato tomoni, p. 3.
49 Ibid.,p. 8.
50 Ibid., p. 5.
5 Ibid.
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 351
ments for pulling the pillars, and detailed regulations governing the
procedures to be followed were issued. These measures were intended
to help maintain social order at a time when local communities
were keenly engaged in acrimonious quarrels with each other.
These quarrels were so intense that for a while during the Meiji
period, the Pillar Festival was known as a "fighting festival" (kenka
matsuri). Villages competed furiously for primacy of place especially
during theyamadashi and satobiki. In 1902 a fight involving several
hundred persons broke out between the team pulling the Hon Miya
Number Two pillar and the Mae Miya Number Two pillar. Two
people were killed and many others were injured. Another fight
erupted in 1908 when members of the Komezawa Village team pulling
the "female rope" quarreled with the Kitayama Village team
pulling the "male rope" of the Hon Miya Number Four pillar over
how to handle the levers. Some men came prepared for trouble, storing
rocks and extra tekobosticks in the nagamochiboxes, and before
the day was over the quarrel escalated to a major rock battle. As a
result, in the 1914 festival it was decided to spend two days instead
of one to pull the pillars through the towns, and to extend the spaces
separating the pillars from two blocks to five. Pillar pulling assignments
were given to the communities in advance to prevent squabbling
during the festival. In 1926 the number of tekobosticks allowed
to each village was limited, and the names of the villages were written
on them to encourage a greater sense of responsibility. From the
beginning of the Meiji period most of the participants were firemen
who identified the units they belonged to by wearing their firemen
uniforms; in 1914 the mayor of Suwa limited the number of firemen
who could participate and ordered the same new uniforms for everyone
to discourage partisan fighting.
By the Taisho period local regional customs had become better
known among city dwellers as a result of improved transportation
and communications. Suwa had become a favorite watering spot for
Tokyo literati, attracting well-known writers, including Akutagawa
Ryuinosuke and members of the Shirakaba coterie. In 1920 the
festival was the setting of a comic play written by Arishima Takeo
with the assistance of his half-brother Satomi Ton and Fujimori
Narikichi 1ii;W . Based on the story of Tachikawa Tomoshiro vJilI
UEIRD,a late Edo period architect, sculptor, and author born in
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352 ELAINE GERBERT
Suwa, Onbashirawas performed at the Tokyo Shintomi-za theater
and, in spite of complaints about the excessive use of dialect, which
made it difficult to follow, was generally well-received by critics (including
Nagai Kafu, who reviewed it in the magazine Shin'engeiVfim
Three years later the novelist Uno K6ji ; (1891-1961)
published a novel, Yamagoi1U2J(Love of Mountains), in which he
describes the satobikiportion of the festival. For the main character
of the novel, who is in love with a Shimo Suwa geisha, the significance
of the festival lies in the way in which it sections off a lifetime
into seven-year segments. Townspeople are born, grow up,
marry and bear children, and die in the seven-year intervals between
pillar festivals. Young men, who could not imagine seven
years ago that they would still be stuck in Shimo Suwa, reflect ruefully
upon their dashed dreams. Oldtimers wonder if they will be
around to see another festival. The festival figures predominantly in
the lives of the country folk, who are brought together to rehearse
the kiyari and the nagamochiparade. Country folk come from miles
around, decked out in their festival clothes and carrying their festival
foods. The protagonist watches it all with a bemused eye, from
his inn window, through his binoculars, and wishes that he were the
Wind God so that he might blow away the hateful figure of the child
daimyo riding through the town on horseback, clothed in layers of
brocaded kimonos provided by his father, the rich silk manufacturer
who is the protagonist's rival in love.
In the early 1930s, when interest was focused upon local histories
and customs, in part in reaction against the Europeanization of culture
during the Meiji and Taisho periods, a documentary film was
made of the Pillar Festival that suggests a festival of a distinctly
different mood from that of the present.52 In the 1932 film (as well
as in photographs taken during the Meiji and Taisho periods)
hundreds of people are shown moving up the mountain paths in an
endless snaking procession to meet the pillars. The atmosphere
of theyamadashi conveyed by the background music is light-hearted.
Women in kimono carry parasols and walk alongside the pillars as
they are pulled down the mountain path. The pillars are rolled gent-
52 Segments of this film, which is the propertyof the Suwa City Museum, are shown in the
1992 NHK production Suwaonbashiramatsuri:kodaikaranomesseji.
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 353
ly sideways down the ki-otoshi slope; men do not ride the pillars
rodeo-style headfirst down the slope as they do today. These were,
after all, sacred trees, and in 1932 they were still treated as such.
The Suwa Shrine and the Pillar Festival appear to have played an
important role locally during the years of the Greater East Asia
War, when matters concerning preparations for the festival, the
methods of pulling the pillars, and the routes along which they were
to be pulled were spelled out in great detail by a committee of firemen,
policemen, and ujiko. In a group photo taken in 1938 the
Japanese war flag is held in the middle of a group of men wearing
head bands and colorful garb (a far greater array of patterns and
colors than the festival clothing worn today), and holding their
tekobosticks conspicuously before them.53 The 1944 festival, however,
was smaller and more subdued, and the pillars erected that
year were greatly reduced in size, for by then most of the adult men
had been conscripted and school boys from the sixth grade and up
were recruited to take their places in the yamadashi and satobiki.
Provisions were scarce, and refreshments were not served, so that
the extra food might be sent to the front. In addition to banners inscribed
with the words "Japan's Number One War God" (Nippon
dai-achiJikusa-kami H*M-)i V), banners inscribed with prayers
for victory were placed about the shrines, including the Misayama
Shrine on Okoya Mountain. Amulets from the pillars distributed at
the kan-otoshirite were taken to the front in red-and-white woven
amulet bags to help raise soldiers' spirits.
In 1950, the size of the pillars was increased, in an attempt to persuade
the kami to bestow special favors in difficult times, and the
details of the festival were even more closely prescribed. Women,
freed from taboos that had prevented them from setting foot on
sacred mountains and participating in festivals before the war, were
permitted to join in pulling the pillars for the first time. Responding
to a questionnaire passed out in 1950, respondents favored continuing
the Pillar Festival but expressed concern about the excessive
cost, time, and labor involved and about the damage to rice paddies
and dry fields caused by dragging giant pillars over them-reservations
perhaps rooted, at least in part, in the failure of the war god to
53 Suwa Shi Hakubutsukan, Onbashirato tomoni, p. 31.
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354 ELAINE GERBERT
achieve the victory that many residents were convinced would
come, in spite of the hardships.54
Judging from a black-and-white documentary film of the festival
made by NHK in 1962, seventeen years into the post-war period the
festival had already begun to reflect a more prosperous economy
and to acquire some of the more exuberant, sporting overtones that
it displays today.55 A few men are seen sitting on the pillar as it
makes its descent in the ki-otosh;i now no longer rolling sideways
down the slope but moving base-of-the-trunk first. Dramatic orchestral
music from the opera Sylvia by Delibes establishes a heroic
romantic mood for the pillar-pulling and pillar-riding that year.56
With the exception of Miyasaka Kiyomichi's book Suwa noonbashira-sai
(The Suwa Pillar Festival), which appeared in 1958, publications
on the festival did not appear in significant numbers until the
late 1980s and early 1990s. These publications coincide with the
notably increased degree of prosperity of the Suwa region, due partly
to the role in international trade played by high-tech Suwa companies.
At the same time, videos and television programs about the
Suwa Pillar Festival, made by both local television stations and by
major national communications corporations, such as Iwanami Publishing
Corporation and the national broadcasting network (NHK),
have attracted national attention to the festival.
Theories concerning the meaning of the pillars have been summarized
by the two principal researchers of the Pillar Festival, Miyasaka
Kiyomichi and Miyasaka Mitsuaki.57 These can be grouped into
six general categories as follows:
I. The pillars are set up to demarcate a pure place and to attract
the kami, in a manner similar to the way in which carp banners or
flag poles are used to attract the attention of the kami. Some say that
the pillars serve to bring the kami of the mountains and the forests
into the community. This view holds that the pillars function as a
yorishiro or media of travel, and that without them, the kami will
not come to Suwa.
14 Ibid.,p. 44.
5 Shown in Suwa onbashiramatsuri: kodazkara no messeji.
56 Identified as such by Brian Priestman, directorof the University of Kansas Orchestra.
5 Miyasaka Kiyomichi, pp. 29-58, and Miyasaka Mitsuaki, Suwa Taisha,pp. 251-57.
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 355
A closely related view is that the pillars are shintai, objects in
which the kamiresides, and are worshiped as kami. The idea that the
pillars become kamiwhen they are erected is supported by the lyrics
of the kiyari sung by the festival participants and was the explanation
readily offered by participants whom I interviewed in 1992.
II. Another group of theories sees the pillars as marking the territory
of the kami. According to these explanations: a) The pillars serve
as a warning, marking a taboo area belonging to Takeminakata,
where ordinary people are not allowed to set foot. The pillars are
thus functionally analogous to bamboo pillars that remain on sacred
land after the shimenawa preventing entrance have been taken
down. b) The pillars were intended to ward off attack by hostile tribes
by showing that a kamiprotected the area. c) The pillars mark a place
of refuge for the defeated god. d) Origuchi Shinobu tf 1r , for example,
explains the presence of the pillars as a means to demarcate
land that has been chosen by the kami and to suppress and pacify
restless earth spirits. e) A related interpretation holds that the pillars
designate the sacred ground of the original earth deity. At the
Kamisha, this earth kami is believed to rest within Moriya Mountain
itself and within the "inkstone rock" (suzuri-ishi {RB) located at
the base of the mountain. At the Shimosha a cryptomeria in the
Haru Miya precinct and a yew tree in the Aki Miya precinct are
taken to be the places where the kami lodges.
III. Another set of theories holds that the pillars were originally
erected to control the wind and rain. This explanation coincides
with the finding of poles with scythes attached to their tops used by
Japanese farmers in Nagano, Niigata, and Akita prefectures to
quell the wind. In Oshino Village in Yamanashi prefecture a pole
with a scythe attached to the end is erected to make the "wind god"
avoid the village. (Similar kinds of wind poles are said to exist
among Ural Altaic tribes of northeast Asia.)
IV. There are also theories that consider the pillars to be gifts
given to Takeminakata by ujiko. A related view holds that they are
set up as a sign to the kamithat a building has been erected for it; the
reasoning behind this is that since the kami is invisible, the building
provided for the kami need not have a physical form. Yet another
view finds the enormous size of the pillars to be a way of extolling
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356 ELAINE GERBERT
the authority of Takeminakata. Firs are cut because they are lighter
than the surrounding hemlock, cypress, and Chinese pine, and not
of much use for building.
V. Explanations of a numerological nature emphasize the symbolism
of the four pillars and seek a correspondence between the
four pillars in each shrine precinct and the four directions. Dating
back to the medieval period when Buddhism and Shinto were practiced
as practically one and the same religion in the synthesis known
as Ryobu Shinto, and Buddhist temples were located within the
Suwa shrine precincts, the pillars are also said to represent, variously,
the four Bodhisattva "hearts": compassion (ji ,); sorrow (hi jt),
joy (ki e), and resignation (sha M); the four bodhisattvas: Fugen
*E, Monjul SZ, Kannon IN', and Miroku BJU;58 and the four
guardian deities who keep watch over the four cardinal directions
and protect the Suwa Shrine.59 The fact that the erection of new pillars
takes place every seven years (when the year of a pillar festival is
counted as the first year of a cycle) is ascribed to the fact that seven
is a sacred number in Buddhist numerology.
VI. A sixth set of theories emphasizes the role of the pillars as cosmic
pillars linking heaven, earth, and the underworld of the dead.
The belief in a cosmic pillar that joins the three worlds is found
throughout Asia and is especially prevalent in Korea. (The mythic
Mt. Sumeru in Asia is another expression of this same concept.)
These theories speculate that the custom of erecting a pillar was of
continental origin and that the people of the Suwa region may originally
have erected a single pillar. Of late, according to Miyasaka,
ethnologists have sought connections between the Pillar Festival
and related practices in other parts of Asia. According to a report by
Ohayashi Taro, the custom of taking a tree from the forest and drag-
58 Buddhism was slow to enter Suwa, as the power of the Suwa clan, centered about the
Suwa Shrine, was strong and not easily brought under the influence of the central court's
proselytizingefforts.The erection of Buddhisttemples within the Suwa Shrine courtyardsbegan
in the Kamakura period. Fugen Bosatsu = was enshrined at the Kamisha and
SenjudKwannon -19I E (the thousand armed Goddess of Mercy) was established at the
Shimosha. The combined faith of Buddhism and Shint6 then continued for 600 years until
the Meiji period, when Shint6 came under the management of the central government and
the Buddhist temples in the Suwa Shrine, as well as in other shrines throughout the nation,
were torn down.
5 I.e., Jikokuten 4MW, K6mokuten )2SHi, Z6ch6ten *Aw, and Tamonten-+i.
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 357
ging it to the center of the village, and holding a feast at harvest
time or at the new years, for example, is found among hill people
throughout southeast Asia.60
CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES
In the Meiji period the nationalization of Shinto shrines, together
with the creation of a national compulsory education system, constituted
important steps in the creation of a sense of national unity.61
After the war, the Occupation authorities ordered the Japanese
government to sever official ties with the shrines, and the principle
of separation of church and state was written into the new constitution.
IJlpost-war Japan television, in addition to newspapers and
the centrally controlled education system, has emerged as an important
means of molding a sense of national consciousness. In the
late twentieth century local provincial festivals such as the Pillar Festival
have been brought to the attention of a national audience mostly
through the television screen. Increased tourism and travel to
"the heartland" ("--- I 7 v F'), and films and videos made by publishing
conglomerates such as the Iwanami company and smaller
operations such as Visual Folklore, have additionally made it possible
for more people outside Nagano prefecture to become acquainted
with the Suwa Pillar Festival. The festival's organizers seem to
have reacted to this attention by making an ever growing spectacle
of it. The ki-otoshi, in particular that of the Shimosha, has come to
acquire the trappings of show business. Photos of men riding on
logs hurtling down the slope decorate the covers of video cassette
programs selling for the equivalent of 100 dollars each and appeared
in nearly all the brochures distributed in the 1992 festival year.
Through the ki-otoshithe Pillar Festival has come to stand for a kind
of rough masculinity. Words to a popular song sum up its macho image
that has been cultivated in the media: "If you want to see a
man, [look at] the once-in-seven-years descent down the ki-otoshi
slope in Suwa" (otoko miru nara, shichinen ichido, Suwa no ki-otoshi
60
Miyasaka Mitsuaki, Suwa Taisha,p. 254.
61 For information about the role of Shint6 in the creation of the Japanese nation state in
the twentieth century, see Helen Hardacre, ShintoandtheState,1868-1988 and Carol Gluck,
Japan'sModernMyths(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985).
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358 ELAINE GERBERT
saka-otoshli ,Q-L 1Lt,L ).62 In 1968 NHK
made a thirty minute film organized around this theme of manly
courage. "Giant Trees Run" (Kyobokuga hashiru Jth>k ;), aired
on national network televison, illustrates the way in which the athletic
aspects of the Pillar Festival have been dramatized for popular
consumption.
"Giant Trees Run" features four veteran pillar riders in their fifties
who have earned the name "pillar man" (onbashiraotokoOM1i9)
and who aim to become the "first rider" (hananori)of the biggest pillar:
Aki Miya Number One.
A vital healthy life in a natural setting and manly virtues associated
with traditional masculine occupations are promoted in shots
of the "tree cutting" scene, preceded by the closeup of the ruddy
smiling face of a man singing the kiyari-the very picture of health
and happiness.
Like other films made about matsuri, "Giant Trees Run" promotes
the bonding of fathers and sons through physical activities
limited strictly to males. A pick-up truck traveling up a mountain
road stops, and a father and his son get out at the "pillar resting
site" to check out pillars that have been labeled and lined up in
preparation for the yamadashi. The twenty-eight year old son, a
novice rider, straddles the Aki Miya Number One, trying it out for
size. His fifty-five year old father, a housepainter, is a three-time
rider and, the narrator announces, "a warrior" (tsuwamono ). The
next shot shows father and son crouched at the top of the cliff examining
the forty-five degree slope that the son will descend on a pillar
for the first time this year. The slope plunging down to the highway
below appears breathtakingly steep when viewed from the top.
This, the narrator tells us, is where a man shows his mettle (otokono
kokoroikio shimesuno desu r The young man's
determination to follow in his father's footsteps is conveyed in a scene
in which he is shown running up a steep road, a section of the five
kilometers he runs every morning to prepare for the ki-otoshi. His
runs end at the shrine where he prays for strength and for protection
for his legs. We see him with his father again in the kitchen of their
home. The camera focuses upon the father giving his son advice on
62 Miyasaka Mitsuaki,Suwa Taisha,p. 220.
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 359
how to ride a pillar (while the mother-out of focus and in the background-tends
to a child). The son responds by telling the father
that he will make him proud.
All the "pillar men" introduced in the film are blue-collar workers:
reliable men, it is suggested, with the maturity and skill needed
to successfully ride the pillars. We are introduced to a fifty-three
year old cab driver, a six-time veteran who followed in his father's
footsteps and rode a pillar for the first time when he was sixteen. We
see him at a community center, teaching young boys the movements
of the sandal juggling dance to be performed in the satobiki
parade. He talks about the challenge of riding the pillars; there are
no guarantees of success or safety; not an activity for the foolish or
faint-hearted.
The theme of danger is dramatized by shots of the Kamisha kiotoshi.
Men perch precariously on the medotekobeams as the pillar
slides down the steep ki-otoshislope, and there is extensive footage of
men braving the cold water as they maneuver the pillar in the
kawagoshi "river-crossing. "
But daring and courage are counterbalanced by an emphasis on
planning and readiness. A bus bringing policemen and firemen
from other locations in Nagano prefecture to Suwa is shown to
dramatize the precautions taken to ensure as safe a ki-otoshias possible.
The narrator warns that during the previous festival one man
was killed and twenty-nine were injured. A large group of
uniformed officials are shown examining the ki-otoshi slope. The
theme of preparedness is further underscored by shots of a medical
center, where men prepare oxygen tanks and nurses in starched
white uniforms carry large boxes of supplies to a waiting am-
bulance.
The theme of (mature) manliness is dramatized again as a fiftyfive
year old factory worker who first rode the pillar nineteen years
ago, and a fifty-one year old carpenter, a three-time rider, are introduced.
We see the factory worker first in his workclothes, examining
a lens, and then at the men's hall where the men in charge of the
Aki Miya Number One have gathered to discuss their roles in the
festival. Representatives of the different parishes, all of them workmen,
introduce themselves, some abruptly and awkwardly with an
air of embarrassment. The walls are dingy and the atmosphere is
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360 ELAINE GERBERT
noisy and den-like. The men drink, smoke, and talk. A man slaps
the factory worker on the shoulder. The words "You're a man!"
(otokodayo!) are heard repeated several times.
The carpenter is shown working on a roof with his fellow crew
members and later smoking and relaxing with them in his shop. His
face, though kindly, appears coarse and distorted with its protruding
teeth and deep lines-the face of a race of men who have spent
many years at hard physical labor outdoors in a cold windy climate.
Seeing the carpenter sawing and hammering, and the taxi driver as
he washes his cab, and the factory worker as he inspects a lens, the
viewer gets the subliminal message that these are competent, careful,
and reliable workers, men who would know how to prepare for
a challenge as risky as the ki-otoshi.
On the morning of the Shimosha ki-otoshithe house painter and
his son walk through town in the special close-fitting garments worn
by workmen (and pillar men), who need to move quickly and surely.
The narrator carefully introduces each of the garments by name,
reminding the viewer of the tradition of the woodcutter in Nagano.
The sequence of the all-important ki-otoshi pillars is duly intoned:
Haru Miya Number Three; Aki Miya Number Two; Haru Miya
Number Four; Aki Miya Number Four; Haru Miya Number Two;
Aki Miya Number One. The narrator notes that experienced riders
are seldom injured; it is the inexperienced hotheads in the crowd
who rush to jump on the pillars as they reach the bottom of the slope
who get hurt. A man is injured and taken away in an ambulance,
the fourth accident this year. The atmosphere becomes tense as men
gear up for the competition of riding the Aki Miya Number One.
Soon a fight erupts. A flurry of waving arms and legs. The wail of
kiyari. A crowd of men clustered around the pillar perched on the
edge of the cliff. Our last glimpse of the young novice finds him
among many other pillar men seated on the Aki Miya Number
Three pillar just before it is pushed off the edge of the slope. He appears
crushed in the crowd of seasoned jostling riders. The log
plunges, the lead rider is identified as a construction worker named
Fujiwara. The ride is over in seconds. The ki-otoshislope is covered
with the bodies of men who have run out to mount the pillar before
it comes to a halt. The film that opened with a shot of a pillar lurching
off the lip of the cliff as heavy metal music with a rapid drum
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 361
beat played in the background ends with the camera focused once
again on the ki-otoshi slope to the sound of heavy metal. While its
visual images are of a traditional country festival in which mature
Japanese men display foresight, skill, and courage, its music sound
track suggests the youth culture of an urban westernized Japan.
"Suwa Pillar Festival" (Suwa onbashiramatsuri), aired on a commercial
television station in Tokyo in May, 1992, celebrates community
and underlines the festival's meaning for male and female,
young and old, by presenting an idealized picture of social harmony
in a beautiful lakeside setting. Focusing mostly upon the satobikiand
"pillar erecting" segments, as opposed to the ki-otoshi, the film introduces
the festival as a community affair in which all can participate.
It lasts fifteen minutes, and with about 165 different frames at
an average of eleven frames per minute, it is a fast-paced film that
might well be retitled "glimpses of a festival for busy people." It
reels through shots of the lake, the shrines, the shrine crests, priests
and ujikoat a miwataririte by the frozen lakeshore, and ujikotwisting
straw for the ropes. A light tune with a "New Age" feel played on
an amplified acoustic guitar sets the pace for the quick, light presentation
of the festival, suggestive of a modern progressive Japan.
The theme of inter-generational harmony is introduced when an
eighty-year old man, who holds the hereditary role of "rope winder"
(tsunamaki), instructs his grandson in the art of wrapping a
rope around the pillar. The boy practices at home in the winter on a
small model under the watchful eye of his grandfather. There are a
fair number of older people in the film, including a frail-looking Dr.
Takei who is shown leading a kiyari, and a humpbacked grandmother
pulling a rope. There are also many small children, and
groups of young people, organized into age cohorts, engaged in
kiyari singing, dancing, and eating. Emphasizing the theme of inclusiveness,
the film focuses generously upon the role of women,
who in pre-war days were prohibited from touching or pulling the
pillars. Most women, however, are shown engaged in traditional activities:
buying groceries, making shrimp tempura and sushi, feeding
guests (the average household prepares food for an anticipated
eighty people), sharing food, and tending children. The narrator,
whose voice is mellow and soothing, asks "What is a festival?" The
answer is implied in the footage of people doing things together,
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362 ELAINE GERBERT
mostly outdoors in the sunshine. The camera cuts from a scene of
young girls happily munching on snacks to a scene of men in work
clothes maneuvering a pillar around a bend. Through the presentation
of people in groups, the theme of people deriving satisfaction
from living and working together in a festival is communicated in
nearly every frame. The narrator, as solicitous as a middle-school
teacher, asks at one point, are not these the faces of people who are
fulfilled and happy?
A similar message concludes the Iwanami publishing company's
1986 film "Suwa Pillars" (Suwa onbashira),in which a crowded city
sidewalk appears and the narrator comments on how the meaning
of kami is lost in an urban setting where people are disconnected
from one another. The contrasting shot of a gohei fluttering in the
breeze on top of a pillar against the background of the beautiful
Yatsugatake Range is a rhetorically powerful means of impressing
upon the viewer the benefits of traditional social activities in the
natural setting of a provincial community.
A similar didactic tone is mixed with a good dose of humor and
self-conscious role-playing in the NHK broadcast of the 1992
festival: "The Suwa Pillar Festival: a message from the past"
(Suwa onbashiramatsuri: kodai kara no mess-/i i :k-M /S0)
7 t_>p) 63
The film incorporates the festival into the on-going public debate
about the identity of Japan and the meaning of Japanese culture
that has occupied intellectuals and journalists since the Meiji period.
The live two-and-a-half-hour broadcast conveyed by satellite
transmission is a study in contrasts that juxtaposes a late twentiethcentury,
western tele-communication style with a discussion of the
festival's connection with the formation of Japanese identity in the
neolithic Jomon period, three thousand years ago.
The staged playful quality of the discussion is obvious from the
start in the unexpected and somewhat startling setting: the panel of
"experts" assembled to discuss the festival's "message from the
past" is seated outdoors at a rough-hewn table under some trees in
front of a cluster of reconstructed Jomon period huts made of mud,
63 I am indebted to Hirai Naofusa and Mogi Sakae of the Institute for Japanese Culture
and Classics at Kokugakuin University for sending me a copy of this video.
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 363
reeds, and twigs. The hostess is the actress Arai Harumi, who, by
virtue of the fact that her paternal grandfather is from Suwa, has
been selected to interview the four men gathered together to share
their informed opinions on onbashirawith the television audience.
The first guest, Harada Taiji, a well-known Tokyo design artist
who grew up in Suwa, has tied his long hair back with a leather
headband, in keeping with the primitive (and staged) setting. The
other panel members are Miyasaka Mitsuaki, a local historian who
has written extensively about the Pillar Festival; Takada Hiroshi, a
novelist who has written novels set in the Suwa region and is seeing
the festival for the first time; and Umehara Takeshi, identified as
the director of the International Japanese Culture Research Institute
(Kokusai Nihon Bunka Kenkyui Senta) in Kyoto. The wind
is blowing. It is a raw day. Arai looks cold in her fashionable green
raincoat. Miyasaka and Takada brave the chill wearing only sweaters
and suit jackets. Umehara and Harada, both sturdy men, seem
best equipped to withstand the cold. The impression of cold is
sufficient to move the viewer to reflect on the inconvenience of life
during Jomon days.
The panel members fall into the spirit of the occasion and obligingly
exercise their imaginations in decoding "the message of the
past." The lively enthusiasm of their "readings" provides a good
show, in keeping with the exuberant festival atmosphere. The recurring
theme of their discussion is the connection between onbashira
and the Jdmon era of three millenia ago. Suwa is described as having
once been the center of Jomon culture, when the climate was
warmer, and plant and animal life were more abundant. Umehara
refers to the area as the capital (miyako)of Japan during the Jomon
period (a startling statement for some viewers, perhaps, accustomed
to the traditional view that the people of the Japanese islands were
simple migrant hunter-gatherers and that there was no Japan,
much less a "capital" of Japan, in those remote times). The Pillar
Festival is described as Japan's oldest festival and one that holds the
key to the puzzle of Jomon culture. This festival, says Professor
Umehara, is the kind in which everyone can participate, as they
could during the Jomon period, unlike the festivals of the later
Yayoi period (Japan's bronze age, when metal implements for cutting
the trees would presumably have been introduced), which were
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364 ELAINE GERBERT
more in the nature of spectacles to be passively watched. Miyasaka,
who is seeing the Pillar Festival this year for the seventh time, hears
the "voice of Jomon" (Jomon no koe) in the kiyari.
Discussion by the panel members is interspersed with shots of
Lake Suwa, the Yatsugatake Range, and the shrines. Maps are held
up to pinpoint locations. Arai pulls out a chart that outlines theories
of the meaning of the pillars. She talks about her mother's girlhood
experiences at the festival. Miyasaka discusses traditional taboos on
the participation of women. Harada discusses the notion of Japan
as a culture of wood (ki no bunka)andhow natural it is for aJapanese
festival to be centered upon trees. References are made to the Ise
Shrine, rebuilt once every twenty years, and to the pillars at that
shrine and at the Izumo Shrine. Harada points out that the Suwa
Shrine pillars would not last twenty years, and the panel discusses
the meaning of the seven-year cycle. Miyasaka brings in the connection
between the wooden pillars and phallic-shaped stones that have
been discovered in Kanazawa. Footage shifts to photos of a national
park of pillar remains in Kanazawa City on the Japan Sea coast.
These remains are located in a series of holes arranged in a circle.
The panelists speculate that the pillars were originally erected before
the large graves of important people, to enable their souls to
ascend to the realm of the kami, and as the custom of erecting many
pillars declined, what had once been a circle of pillars became a
square marked by only four pillars. Harada suggests that people at
first tried to pull up the trees that would be used as pillars by their
roots, but later cut the trees because the unsightly roots were rude to
the kami.
The panel's discussions are interspersed with footage of the
ki-otoshi slope and commentary delivered by an NHK reporter, a
middle-aged man who wears a pink happi in the spirit of the occasion.
The rest of his apparel-eyeglasses, earphones, and a handheld
microphone-are the familiar tools of trade that mark him as a
reporter for the prestigious and influential national television broadcasting
company. He is accompanied by an elderly, tanned, whitehaired
man wearing a pale yellow happi, a former pillar man and
veteran of many rides down the steep slope before which he now
sits, sheltered from the wind and rain by the shed from which he
and the reporter watch the ki-otoshiproceedings. The conversation
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 365
of the pillar man, who smiles often, showing a pair of gleaming
white teeth, consists mostly of just "Yes, that's so" (So desune), and
"That's probably so" (Si desho)in response to the reporter's valiant
attempts to maintain a flow of conversation for the television audiences
at home.
Indeed, most of the two and a half hours of broadcasting time is
spent waiting for the ki-otoshiof the Haru Miya Number Four and
the Aki Miya Number One pillars, scheduled to take place at 2 and
3 p.m. respectively. The NHK reporter makes contact with other
reporters who move about in the crowd of pillar men. The camera
pans the standing crowd of spectators waiting patiently in a light
rain for the day's events to begin. About 12,000 people are gathered
on both sides of the steep slope where the pillars are to run and on
the other side of the national highway at the bottom of the slope. A
helicopter hovering overhead broadcasts aerial shots of the waiting
crowds that spread out in formations reminiscent of spectator
crowds at golf tournaments.
A uniformed brass band plays under the direction of a band leader
at the top of the hill. Firecrackers go off. Balloons, banners, sakaki
branches festooned with white streamers, and onbefluttering in the
cold wind help to mark the location of the all-important pillars waiting
at the top of the slope. Men in happi take turns standing on the
pillar hanging over the cliff top and leading other men in the kiyari.
Men standing at the motozuna"main rope" push and pull on the
ropes to make the pillar sway.
When the rope securing the pillar to the "onbashirapine tree" on
top of the slope is to be finally cut, the thin-legged axeman wearing
a Tyrolean-style hat (clearly not a person who does physical labor
for a living) is not strong enough to strike a decisive blow with the
axe, and the blade is deflected off the thick rope. Others join in to assist,
and the pillar leaves its moorings, scattering riders as it lurches
off the cliff top. As it moves toward the bottom of the slope, dozens
of men fly upon it, flailing away with arms and legs, punching and
shoving and kicking as they vie for a seat.
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366 ELAINE GERBERT
ONBASHIRA AS RETRIEVAL OF THE PAST
AND RENEWAL FOR THE FUTURE
The people of Suwa no longer depend on Takeminakata for success
in hunting, or protection of their crops, or success in war.
Technological interventions (e.g., cars to transport ujikopart way
up the mountain, cranes to move the pillars from the bassai felling
site to the onbashiraokibawaiting site, electrically powered winches
to help erect the pillar at the tateonbashirarite) have altered some of
the physical activities of the festival. Growing urbanization and the
building of more roads have altered the ambiance of the route over
which the pillars are pulled. The large trees that once lined the roadside
leading to the Shimosha have been cut down to expand the highway,
and taken with them into oblivion the feeling of the sacred they
once imparted to that section of road where the pillars are pulled.
Large trees have also been disappearing from the shrine wood on
Okoya Mountain. The loss has been so severe in fact, that in the
1992 Pillar Festival only the Hon Miya Number One pillar measured
up to its prescribed size, and the alternative of taking trees
from the Shimosha wood was broached.
The economic successes of local Suwa industries and the growing
affluence of the community, along with television and other technological
innovations, have led to larger and more elaborate festival
entertainments since the end of the Pacific War. The nation-wide
furusato-zukuriproject has further fostered the promotion of festivals
such as the Suwa Pillar Festival.64 And communications technology
has stimulated the role-playing aspect of the festival. Ujiko who
previously performed for the kamiand each other now perform for a
national audience on television. Often the same ujiko appear in
several films and acquire a kind of stardom. The factory worker who
appeared in "Giant Trees Run," for example, is shown standing
on a pillar and leading a chorus of chanting men in the film "The
Pillar Festival," and the house painter who appears with his son
throughout "Giant Trees Run" is interviewed in "The Pillar Festival.
"
64 SeeJennifer Robertson for a discussion of the role of festivalsin thefurusatozukurimove-
ment.
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 367
Of late, Pillar Festival participants and promoters have also been
aware of performing for an international audience. In addition to engineers
from Europe and the United States who work at high tech
firms in the Suwa basin, foreign guests hosted by organizations such
as Suwa International Rotary and the Suwa International Friendship
Society have figured on the scene in recent festivals. The sister
city relationship has also played a role, in this case, Suwa-St.
Louis. In 1991 Suwa sent the young taiko drum corps, that opens
the satobiki with a rousing performance before Suwa Station to
"awaken" the kami, to St. Louis to perform. And the city of St.
Louis planned to send a delegation of twenty representatives to the
Shimosha satobiki.
The geographic scope of kami efficacy has thus spread. Once worshiped
locally as a kamito protect the Suwa region from potential invasion
from other parts of Japan, the Suwa kami was later called
upon to protect Japanese in their encounters with people outside
Japan: first Asians (Koreans and Mongols), then Westerners as the
West supplanted the Asian continent as the dominant Other.
Today, the festival is a means by which Suwa can claim international
attention. As writings by Miyasaka Mitsuaki and Miyasaka
Kiyomichi suggest, Japanese ethnologists have manifested a growing
interest in setting the Pillar Festival alongside celebrations involving
trees in other parts of the world. So far, the findings suggest
that few festivals measure up to the Pillar Festival in the extent and
detail of their planning or the numbers of their participants.
Ironically, at the same time that it has become a vehicle for
displaying "Japaneseness," the festival has also become more
Americanized. Just as the bronze character-embossed seal of the
Shimosha bespoke a moment centuries ago when cultural influences
absorbed from the mainland would begin to transform life in Japan
for hundreds of years to come, today features such as the inclusion
of women in the festival, and the athletic atmosphere of the
kawagoshiand ki-otoshi, complete with whistles, bugling, and band
music of the sort associated with baseball stadiums, bespeak an
American influence. And pillar-riding down the ki-otoshislope may
be seen as the Japanese equivalent of the American rodeo, in which
late twentieth-century men demonstrate skills of a kind no longer
needed for economic survival.
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368 ELAINE GERBERT
Despite politico-economic and technological changes in the society
at large, the Pillar Festival continues to serve as a means of
retrieving the past, renewing relationships with nature and community,
and infusing psychic health and balance into the lives of
participants.
Through its rites, dedicated to its ujigamiTakeminakata, the community
reawakens historical memory and reconnects with its myth
of divine origin. The Pillar Festival is a time for townspeople and
former residents to renew their identities as ujiko of the Suwa
Shrine, to visit local historical museums, and for members of "culture
preservation societies" to come together to sponsor a nagamochi,
or contribute to the horsemen's parade. Through an emphasis upon
the hereditary functions and the special terms used by the yamazukuri,
the tsunamaki, and others whose families have held special
roles in the Pillar Festival for centuries, onbashiraresuscitates a special
identity, which is further reinforced through the use of special
sacra with special names (e.g., nagigama, onbe). The atavistic turn
is enhanced by the strangely moving cry of the kiyari, coming from
woods and mountain, fields and town throughout the festival. Processions
in which ujiko display costumes harkening back to feudal
times are further reminders of a shared historical identity.
Marking life into seven-year stages, the festival invites participants
to reflect on the meaning of community and the cultural
and spiritual inheritance bequeathed by their ancestors. A number
of residents, including a local "official" historian, explained to me
that the festival was a gift of the kamito their ancestors to teach them
to cooperate, that what one individual could never accomplish alone
could be done when all, literally, pulled together. Local competitions
between individual village teams notwithstanding, for hundreds
of years the onbashirahas been a social force uniting the people
of the area into a common unit working toward a common goal.
Rituals performed by ancestors and passed down to the present give
the participants a sense of transgenerational continuity dating back
through history and legend to the distant mythical past. Consciousness
of one's identity as an "inside" person, an ujiko of the Suwa
Shrine, is reinforced through the ritual objects, chants, and songs
that are specific to the festival.
Onbashira'spromise of renewal is symbolized by the new pillarThis
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 369
at once a dead tree and a living kami-that replaces the old pillar
every seven years. The tree brought down from the mountain to
the town with ropes woven of straw from local rice paddies also symbolizes
the tie that binds ujikoto nature and to kami.
The renewal of this relationship with nature is established intensely
and unforgettably over a period of several months at a time of the
year when nature is at its most stimulating. A sense of union with
nature is recaptured, especially for today's ujiko, who mostly work
indoors, as they walk up the mountain to the woods in the snow,
experience the chilling mountain winds, handle the rough straw
ropes, pull heavy pillars over the fields in early spring, and erect
them in the shrine precincts under the sun-flecked canopies of burgeoning
leaves in May. For some of the young men the experience
of intimacy is even greater as they mount and ride the tree trunks,
"bathe" with them, stand on them as they are pulled through
the town, and cling to them when they are erected in the shrine
precincts.
The ability of the Pillar Festival to produce in its participants a
renewed sense of belonging to the earth and to a group of people
with a common past is also due, and in large part, to the sheer scale
of the festival and its duration over many months.
For four months local residents are assailed by the sound of kiyari
coming from all quarters. And during the yamadashi and satobiki
phases, the sounds are amplified by thousands of voices and reflected
in the rhythms of body gestures repeated countless times by thousands
of fellow men (and to a lesser extent, women). The steady
cumulative effect of those activities is overpowering. As the pillar
pulling procession travels over the land, celebrants lend momentum
to the forward movement of the giant pillars through their stylized
motions of raising onbesticks in unison with the chants of "wasshoi,
wasshoi." This rhythmic force regulates the movements of the hikinin
pullers and tekobo--shulpushers, and of the men who stand on
the medotekobeams and help the pillar along by gesturing with
their arms. The pillars move along routes traced upon the surface
of the earth according to a prescribed cadence as movement gives
way to cessation of movement at designated intervals for "resting,"
"washing," "purifying," and "dressing the pillars." These intoxicating
rhythmic forces seem to integrate participants and their
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370 ELAINE GERBERT
surroundings into a yet larger rhythm that unites them all. The
continual processions and flow of human beings pressing on toward
the shrines with sounds of shouting, whistling, and kiyaricreates an
inexorable forward momentum that will cease only when the pillars
are raised and pointing into the sky.
In writing about the "Rio Carnaval" Victor Turner describes
the experience of ilinx or vertigo involved in games and play that create
disequilibrium or imbalance or otherwise alter perception or consciousness
by inducing giddiness or dizziness.65 The Pillar Festival
celebrant experiences a similar euphoric transport through the endlessly
repeated rhythmic movements and vocalizations, the large
number of participants, and the tension in which they live for
months on end. A number of young men I interviewed in 1992, for
example, members of the tekobo--shu-lever squad, spoke of the "frightening"
("kowai" Lb*,) and-all consuming "pillar fever" ("onbashiranetsu")
they experienced from February to May.
Other celebrants spoke of a sensation of being swept up and held
in something larger than themselves. For other participants onbashiraoffers
an opportunity to forget and lose the self in a completely
engrossing activity in which the individual becomes one with the
environment as children might. Normally inhibited young men
paint their faces, dress in outlandish costumes (or go semi-naked),
and display themselves in public. Loud vocalizations, obstreperous
behavior, and rambunctious physicality are encouraged. The Pillar
Festival, like the "Rio Carnaval," seems to be "propelled by paidia
(childhood play)," with the free improvisation and carefree gaiety
that mark the "anarchic and capricious propensity characteristic of
children. "66
Matsuri is referenced by the image of a return to a childlike state
through its language as well, which positions the ujikovis-a-vis the
clan (uji) and clan kami (ujizgami)in a relationship analogous to that
of parent and child. Traditional Japanese beliefs hold that children
65 Victor Turner, TheAnthropologyof Performance(New York: PAJ Publications, 1986), pp.
123-38.
66 Ibid., p. 129. The concepts of ludic and paidiac play are contained in Roger Caillois,
Man, Play and Games, trans., Meyer Barash (New York: Schocken Books, 1979). These and
his other categories of play: agon, alea, mimesis, and ilinx (vertigo) have often been cited in
literary and anthropological studies that employ the concept of play.
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 371
are the gifts of the kami and that childhood is the state in which humans
come closest to kami. In Shinto, as an adult, one is closest to
the kami when one's heart is "clear," and one's mind and intention,
guileless, as a child's. In matsuri,the presence of kami provides
a context for a return to an uninhibited childlike state of celebration
of one's physical being and simple enjoyment of sensuous contact
with nature. Matsuri through its explicit focus upon the child (e.g.,
the elaborately clothed and powdered child daimyo, who leads the
parade and in whom the kami resides) exemplifies the insight articulated
by Turner, who found the clue to the basic feature of Carnaval
to lie in its return, through play, to "childhood's golden land.',67
A counterpart to the paidiac play seen in the kawagoshi and kiotoshi,
where men tumble and roll about, and in the town parades,
where they dance about, engage in horseplay, and disport themselves
freely in various stages of dress and undress, is the ludic
aspect of play found in the strict rituals.
Ludus (characterized by highly organized absolute forms and
rules) can be found in the rules that regulate the spatial and temporal
limits within which the festival takes place. It can be seen in
the careful balance between tiger and monkey years and days, and
in their alternation which creates a complicated pattern of time cycles
revolving within time cycles. Strict rules govern the placement
of objects, ranging from the huge pillars and their "resting places"
(onbashiraokiba)and "estates" (onbashirayashiki) to the arrangement
of the purified cutting tools at the hiire and bassai and tateonbashira
sites. Numerical relationships are similarly regulated. Axes at the
bassai are struck three times by priests and three times by ujiko.
Saws are used three times by priests, followed by three times by
ujiko. Shimosha woods are half the distance from their shrine as the
woods of the Kamisha from their shrine. Stages of the festival evidence
a careful inclusion of all five elements (gogyo-Ef): wood in
the tree-pillar; fire in the purifying hiire; metal in the nagigamaand
in the cutting tools; water in the purifying "god washing" (kamiarai)
and "river crossing" (kawagoshi), earth in the earth-pounding
with wooden mallets to make the pillars stand still.
The Pillar Festival also incorporates alea (luck or chance). Men
67 Ibid., p. 129.
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372 ELAINE GERBERT
may compete with one another and perform austerities and spiritual
exercises to enhance their luck at the lot-drawing ceremony, but ultimately
the lot they draw, and the pillar they pull, is decided by the
luck of the draw. Tree-cutting is decided by lottery. Pillar-riding is
a combination of skill and luck, and men who die or are injured are
said to have been taken by forces outside themselves.
Agonistic displays of skill and determination are as much a part
of the festival as is cooperation. Events such as the ki-otoshi and
kawagoshioffer outlets for individual competition in a group-first society
where people "pull together." Teams are pitted against teams
in pulling the pillars in the yamadashi and satobiki; groups vie with
groups in putting on a show in the nagamochiparade. According to
Miyasaka Mitsuaki, the Pillar Festival once offered local folk the opportunity
to display their strength and vitality, in a kind of threat
display, to manifest to outsiders their resolve to stand firm against
interference. Today, the men of Suwa, once renowned as doughty
warriors, are called "warriors" still, and a local song and pictures
and videos spread word of the courage of these pillar men. The festival
is a source of pride for the local population, some of whom
claim to have "the oldest festival" in Japan. And as Miyasaka
Mitsuaki suggests, Japanese ethnographers have lately begun to
compare the Pillar Festival to other festivals in Asia (Korea, Tibet,
Cambodia, and India) centered upon trees; and the Pillar Festival,
of course, has emerged as the premier tree festival of them all. In
"Visual Folklore" shots appear of single pillars being dragged into
the village for use in rituals in Tibet and India; next to the enormous
size of the pillars of the highly organized Suwa Pillar Festival,
these Asian counterparts look poor and puny. Nor do the May poles
of Europe depicted in the film measure up to the magnificent Suwa
Pillars.
Role-playing in this festival is undertaken with great solemnity.
The celebrants assume new identities, asyamazukuri, tekobo-shul,hikinin
"pullers," tsunamaki"rope winders," and so forth. Their freely
assumed identities are displayed in the special clothes they wear, the
special tools they use, their special vocalizations, and the special
austerities they observe prior to and during the festival. Celebrants
become even further engaged in role-playing when they appear in
front of the cameras. The men in "Large Trees Run," for example,
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THE SUWA PILLAR FESTIVAL 373
perform both in the festival and for the television audience, adhering
faithfully to the conventions of costume, of prescribed behaviors,
and the courageous dignified demeanor expected of pillar men.
The members of the panel of experts organized by NHK and interviewed
by a professional actress, play their roles with panache.
Allowing themselves to be filmed in front of imitation Jomon period
huts, they lend their presence to the endorsement of the claim (not
taken seriously in significant academic circles) that the Suwa Pillar
Festival dates back to the Jomon period and is the oldest festival in
Japan. Their free-wheeling associations, spun off for the edification
and entertainment of television audiences, are generated in a spirit
of fun. The ludic quality of their speculations is further underlined
by the frequent bursts of laughter from the actress moderating the
discussion. In a spirit of play, they contribute to a television broadcast
that teaches what is is to be Japanese, and at the same time,
parody that lesson. As one watches the panelists, one is led to reflect
again upon the ubiquity of role-playing in Japanese culture, and the
seeming willingness and readiness with which many members of
this society retrieve the child retained within.
Onbashiratransforms spaces normally reserved for the conduct of
business, government, and commerce into a giant playground for
kami asobi *cU~ ("god play" or entertaining the kami). A highway
is renamed the "pillar highway" (onbashirakaido-)and becomes the
site for greeting the kami. Once ordinary work clothes and activities
(e.g., woodcutting) become patterns of color, movement, and
sound that iconicize the landscape, turning it into a space for play.
Play pervades even those aspects closest to the sacred core of the
matsuri. Even the sacred trees in this festival are assigned a role to
play. What Turner calls the subjunctive "as if" mode of festival
is doubly underlined in the words sung in the kiyari. These words
attest to the make-believe that the pillars become not kami, but as
if they were kami. According to the lyrics, trees descend to the town
(sato ni orite~R>% ) --C)and become as kami (kami to naru *t ).
As if to underline the make-believe quality of it all, seven years
later those temporarily sacred trees are hauled off and turned into
railroad ties and supports for elevated golf courses.
One might say that in the Pillar Festival, the desire for union with
nature is manifested in play that creates a liminal sphere within
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374 ELAINE GERBERT
which restorative psychic transformation takes place. Through its
"theater of mask, trance, simulation, and vertigo" the festival
brings about liberating psychic recreation necesary to the life of
the people.68 Erected in the midst of the basin, providing a point of
reference and sacralizing the space about them, the new naked
pillars promise renewal in visible concrete form, dramatically, with
their white bird-like gohei on their summits soaring skyward.
68 Ibid., p. 128.
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