Encyclopedia of Shinto

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カテゴリー1： 5. Rites and Festivals
カテゴリー2： Rituals in Daily Life
Title
Shimotsuki matsuri
Text
A folk harvest festival held in the eleventh month of the old (lunar) calendar. There is a court harvest festival called the niinamesai in which the emperor dedicates the new grain on the "day of the rabbit" (u no hi) in the eleventh month, but the date of the commoners' shimotsuki festivity varies according to region. In Kitakyūshū the ritual takes place on the first "day of the ox" in the eleventh month and so it is called ushi no hi ("ox day") or oushisama ("august ox") festival. There, the ritual entails the head of each household cutting some of the post-harvest rice stubble from the fields and carrying it home on his back while repeatedly saying, "Omoi, omoi (heavy, heavy)." He then fills a winnowing basket placed on top of a large mortar with mochi, sake, and daikon. The rice stubble is regarded as the yorishiro (an object inhabited by a kami's spirit) for the ta no kami (kami of the fields) returning from the rice field to the house. Shimotsuki matsuri are also conducted as household festivities and are known by different names in different regions, such as the ae no koto (an occasion on which families welcome the "kami of fields" back into the home by filling the bathtub and preparing an offering of food and drink for it) held in the Nōtō region on November 5th. There are also many instances of shimotsuki festivals being held as a shrine celebration for welcoming in the New Year to the accompaniment of a kagura (a ritual dance performance), primarily in the yudate style (in which the performers dance around a large pot). Examples of these rituals, which are collectively referred to as shimotsuki kagura, include the horobasan shimotsuki matsuri of the shrine Haushiwake jinja on Mt. Horoba (Hiraka district, Akita Prefecture), the Tōyama matsuri in Nagano Prefecture's Tōyama region (Shimo Ina district), and the flower festivals of Aichi Prefecture's Kita Shitara region. Shimotsuki matsuri in most cases can be characterized as a rice harvest festivals, but examples may also be found of ones that more in the nature of a potato harvest festival.
— Iwai Hiroshi

Pronunciation in Japanese/用語音声

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