Aboshi Lantern Festival

On October 21st, I ventured to Aboshi, about 20 minutes from Himeji, to see this intriguing-sounding festival called the Lantern Festival. A festival of lanterns - what could that possibly entail?

It started with the parade of yatai...


...and flesh


The yatai lit up in the dark

Then we made our way to the shrine's entrance
to see the action.

It was hard to see close up what was happening - you can see from the photo above how far back we stood, but it seemed like 60 or so men carrying bamboo poles with lanterns attached to the top, jostling, circling and chanting. Watch the clip.

The round begins (15 secs)

Then, obviously on someone's say-so, the smashing began - lanterns were flying through the air and were being completely shredded. Then the whistle blew to stop the violent hammering of the lanterns and a new round began. Watch the clip.

Lantern flogging (28 secs)

Some of the lanterns were so painstakingly designed and painted, only to be hammered in seconds. The lanterns kept coming and the men kept smashing them. It lasted for hours. Watch for the man lantern with the dangly detail in the clip below. Brutal!

Someone spent a lot of time painting this one

Smash those lanterns!

Ready, setty, destroy! (46 secs)

In the meantime, we wandered around the food stalls (see earlier post - Festival Foods) and got to look at a yatai on display. It's an impressive structure.

Me, Taube and Taube's visitor
standing by the yatai

Huh, so that's what the festival is all about!

Until next post,
Monica