Intense white steam rises as hundreds of men in light loincloths purify themselves in cold water and compete for talismans: This centuries-old ritual in northern Japan took place for the very last time on Saturday.
Passionate chants of “jasso, joyasa” (“correct and remove evil”) will no longer resonate as they echoed for hours in this cedar forest in the Iwate region of eastern Japan on Saturday evening.
The remote temple of Kokuseki hosted one final time for this popular annual rite, which legend has it is more than 1,000 years old.
Organizing the event, which attracted hundreds of participants and thousands of tourists each year, became too much for the often grizzled monks and followers of Oshu and its region.
The “Sominsai” festival, considered one of Japan's strangest, is the latest victim of the demographic crisis hitting rural communities hard.
“It is very difficult to organize a festival of this magnitude,” explains monk Daigo Fujinami in front of the temple, which opened its doors in 729.
“There are so many people there [samedi soir] and it's motivating. But there is still so much to do behind the scenes. I cannot be blind to this reality,” laments the religious man.
Aging of the population
In Japan, the population is aging faster than in most other countries: a third of the population is aged 65 and over. Numerous schools, shops and transport companies had to close, especially in small towns and villages.
Luckily for this traditional country, other temples across Japan still hold similar festivals, where men in loincloths, for example, bathe in ice-cold water or honor their deities by competing for talismans.
Some festivals adapt to continue to exist, particularly by allowing women to participate in ceremonies previously reserved for men.
The coronavirus had already forced Oshu organizers to limit prayer ceremonies and practice more modest rituals.
On Saturday evening, this final edition of the festival ended around 11pm, but attracted a crowd rare in local memory.
At sunset, men in white loincloths come to the temple on a mountainside. They bathe in an icy stream and walk around the temple as the winter breeze blows. They clench their fists to withstand the cold and shout “jasso joyasa”.
Some of them immortalize these moments with their cameras.
The crowd follows the men as they climb the temple's stone steps and stroll along the dirt streets.
Sadness and understanding
The festival reaches its climax when hundreds of “naked men” crowd the wooden temple building and aggressively shout, sing and compete for talismans for over an hour.
Toshiaki Kikuchi, a resident of the area, wants to believe in the return of these men in loincloths and this crowd.
He helped the temple and organized the festival for years. “I hope that this tradition will be continued in a different format,” he explains at the end of the evening.
Many participants and visitors expressed both sadness and understanding at the end of the festival.
“This is the final edition of this great festival that has lasted 1,000 years. I really wanted to join in,” said Yasuo Nishimura, 49, a geriatric nurse from a region west of Osaka, more than 10 hours away.
He notes that there is a lack of young people who could take on this type of work.
Starting next year, Daigo Fujinami and the temple's other monks will replace this festival with prayer ceremonies and find other ways to continue these spiritual practices. But the loincloths will be put away and the “Jasso, Joyasa” will be silent.