Fire cats (w/ video)

Winter is ending, and the cats come to play in the fires at Hazu.

We went to the Toba Hi Matsuri or Toba Fire Festival in Hazu again this year. We went by train and then met some friends down there.

Festivals are one of my favorite things. In America, festivals are great.. Irish Fest, Indianapolis Labor Day fireworks, Indiana State Fair, your hometown's random city festival ^_^). In Japan, they REALLY know how to make a festival, and they have had hundreds of years to perfect them.

Sum up of the basics of this festival: After walking around at the booths.. catching your fill of goldfish, eating your fill of chocolate-covered bananas, get your spot around the two giant bonfires-to-be. We have a secret spot in the trees behind the bonfires. Well, we thought it was secret but, this year there were about a hundred people there :(

At the starting time, you'll hear the chink, chink, chink of flint against stone: building a fire from the bottom up. A victory shout signals the successful spark, and then the bonfires are lit.



There is a sacred tree inside each of the fires--one for each team, the east and the west. Once the fires begin to roar, the two teams of local Hazu-ites--dressed in traditional festival wear--begin to race up ladders, into the bonfires! They are racing to pull out their team's sacred tree. If the east wins, then there will be a good harvest. If the west wins, there will be a bad harvest. But, our friend says, both teams try hard to win anyway. This is a video! Note the fire falling all over the guys and them jumping off as they catch on fire!




The festival wear is one of the best parts: they fashion the black and white banners of last year's festival into costumes that cover them from head to toe. The end result makes them look just like little calico cats! Meow! or since they're Japanese, nya~! ^_^