The mikoshi procession started at 1pm, but the matsuri to transfer the kami to the mikoshi started at noon, and so we were asked to gather at 11am. That is doable from Tokyo, and you do not even need to get the first Shinkansen of the day. The second will do… So it was an early start for me.
I arrived at the jinja just as the chief priest was arriving, and he leaned out of his car window to call to me. “Are you Mr Chart?” I guess I stand out. However, they decided that I needed to stand out even more, and had me change into a special outfit to pull the mikoshi. Admittedly, everyone else was wearing similar outfits, although most were white. There was a group in orange, and I think the yellow was for visitors from distant places, because the other people in yellow were also from Kanagawa.
The matsuri to transfer the kami was fairly short. For this, the priests all had a white fabric band tied around their kanmuri (the formal headgear), and wore white sashes over their vestments. This is common for events like this, although I am not sure whether it is universal. While the kami is being moved, all the attendees bow their heads, so I did not really see what happened. However, I did see that the chief priest, Revd Tamura, put on white gloves and a white surgical mask, and that other priests held a white cloth, like a portable tent wall, attached to wooden poles around him while he carried the kami to the mikoshi. One of the priests did the “keihitsu”, which means he was saying “woooooOOOOOoooooo”. This is a formal part of such ceremonies, performed while the kami is in motion. Nominally, it is a warning to everyone to bow their heads, but in practice there is a separate announcement for that. During this process, all the lights were turned off — although that did not make a great deal of difference at midday.
The procession got itself organised after that matsuri. I will try to reconstruct it from memory, but I was pulling a mikoshi in the middle, so I never actually got to see the whole thing.
At the front, there were two people with lanterns on poles. Behind them were musicians, with a drum on a trolley, and they played music while we were processing. Next came someone dressed as Sarutahiko, who is actually one of the kami of the jinja. However, it is standard for him to be represented in a mikoshi procession even when he isn’t. Behind him was a truck with water barrels and a large sakaki. Somewhere around here were a group of dancers for a local traditional dance, and I think this group swapped out in shifts. Similarly, a group of the sōdai, dressed as samurai (not in armour, although they did have simple helmets) were around this point. They did not have shifts, and I overheard the discussion with the most elderly one about the car he could ride in when he needed a break.
This was, I think, followed by a horse, with a gohei on its back. This, in theory, is another vessel for the kami. Then there was a mobile offering box, again on a car, and next another horse, with the “feudal lord” of the area. For most of the procession, this was one of the sōdai, in an old-style warrior outfit. For the final bit, which is the climax of the procession, this was the current head of the old daimyō family. Next came two teenage boys carrying flags with the jinja name on, and then the mikoshi.
The mikoshi was mounted on a cart, with one person sitting on it to control the brake (very important on descending slopes) and two more on a steering bar that they could both pull and push. The rest of the volunteers were pulling ropes that stretched out in front of it — this is where I was. We had little to do when going downhill, but uphill was hard work. Kami are heavy!
Behind the mikoshi was another horse, with the chief priest on, and some other people, who were behind me, so I never really saw them. We were quite close to the back, however; I think there was only one group behind the chief priest.
And I’m going to pick this up again in the next post.