Taimatsu Akashi Festival in Sukagawa, Fukushima.

11/12/2016

So I arrived in at Atogayama next to Midorigaoka Park in Sukagawa, Fukushima around 4pm and wandered around for a bit waiting for others to show up. I soon ran into a group of JETs and hung out with them for the remainder of the evening. We talked, hung out and walked around for a few hours because the fire didn’t start until 6:30pm.

Here are three different manhole covers I saw in Sukagawa.

I believe Sukagawa is famous for their flowers and roses in the springtime, which is why they have flowers on their manhole covers.

Here you can see some festival food stands lining the street near the festival.

I got a 'crepe' from one of the stands. In reality it was a crepe... pancake (?) that was filled with whipped cream with some raspberry syrup, sprinkles and a cookie on top.

Some background: The festival has been taking place for around 400 years and is one of the three biggest fire festivals in Japan. It is meant to remember the great Sukagawa castle that was burned down during a war. The castle was first built in 1448 by Nikaido Tameuji. The Nikaido were a samurai clan that was quite influential at the time. They were lords of most of the Tohoku area at the time. It was destroyed in 1598 after Date Masamune attacked the castle. Many wars were fought at this time to try and unify Japan under one rule instead of having many different leaders and a broken island. The Nikaido prepared a good defense against Date, but they were betrayed by Moriya Chikugonokami. Moriya set fire to the castle and joined Date’s side. After this the Nikaido clan was ruined. The people of Sukagawa then started to hold the Taimatsu Akashi festival in mourning of the destruction of the castle and the samurai clan. Today the festial definitely has more of a celebratory feel to it.

Many companies and schools take pride in the festival and build a taimatsu (torch) and carry them up to the top of Mount Goro. The torches typically are 10 meters tall and weighs three tons. There is a lot of cheering and fun to be had at this festival. There was music playing at the base of one side the hill, Jazz to be exact, as well as taiko drums at the base on the other side.  So even though the history is grim, the modern feel is fun.

After the sun sets is when they start lighting the torches on fire. First people lit some fuel soaked towels on sticks, and carried the fire balls up the hill to the effigies. In this picture you can see them from above, at a distance.

Here they are up close.

After that there was a ceremony where some men in white circled a bonfire. I was unable to see what exactly was going on, but here are some vague pictures.

So we found ourselves a good spot near the castle effigy that wasn’t too crowded. They soon started lighting the straw and bamboo pillars on fire. I have a few videos but I wasn’t able to combine them into one this time. Sorry ‘bout it. (Psych! I uploaded them to Youtube. Enjoy all in one video.)  They started out with lighting one pillar, and then they moved onto lighting more and more. Soon all of the pillars were on fire.

I have some good video of some of the towers collapsing, but It is too big to upload here.

I started wandering around looking for a better view, and also the restroom, when I realized that the path around the flaming pillars was one way and that you have to leave the hill and walk around the base and to climb the hill on the other side. The crowd to get back up the hill was huge and I had to wait about fifteen minutes in the crowd at the bottom before I was able to go back up and find my group of friends. In my absence they lit the castle and samurai effigies, but I was able to catch it while it was about half way done. It was truly beautiful. I wasn’t very close to the torches, but I still feel their heat from far off.

After the castle effigy was lit most people started slowly leaving. My group stayed until the end. The torches were nothing bush piles of burning ash by the time we left.

It was a really neat festival. I really enjoyed myself.  After that I made the long drive back to Minamisoma. I missed my turn once and added fifteen minutes to my trip, but Shouganai.