Seasoning the Seasons - 2012/06/06

Jun. 6, Wed.
Suwa: A Celebration Down Through Time
Onbashira Festival
Suwa Basin
Onbashira Festival
Great Suwa Shrine
Men slide down the steep mountainside astride great tree trunks at the Onbashira Festival, which has a history of more than 1,000 years at Suwa in Shinshu (Nagano). In the year of the festival, held once in six years, tens of thousands of trunks are raised at shrines large and small across the Suwa district.
The land of Suwa itself is mountainous and various extraordinary old customs and rites are preserved there. The year commences from the Crossing of the Gods when the frozen surface of Lake Suwa cracks in the dead of winter, providing omens for the year ahead. There is also the sacrifice of frogs to the god of hunting.
Suwa was a center of culture in Japan in the Jomon period before rice cultivation arrived. It is said that in those ancient times, too, people transported many great tree trunks for erection at their sacred places in much the same way as we see at the Suwa shrines today.
The environment was harsh and life and death so close for the people of Jomon times. Their spirit lives on in Suwa today. We introduce people who preserve a faith at the roots of Japanese prayer.
The next Onbashira Festival at the Great Suwa Shrine (Suwa Taisha) will be held in five years' time in April and May, 2016. For further information about the festival, please visit the website at
http://www.onbashira.jp/
http://www.onbashira.jp/english/index.html (English page)
Great Suwa Shrine (Suwa Taisha)
http://suwataisha.or.jp/ (in Japanese only)

The Great Shrine consists of four distinct sections as follows:

Kamisha Honmiya
Address: 1 Nakasumiyayama, Suwa City, Nagano Prefecture
(10 minutes by car from the Chuo Expressway Suwa Interchange)

Kamisha Maemiya
Address: 2030 Miyagawa, Chino City, Nagano Prefecture
(2km from the Honmiya above)

Shimosha Maemiya
Address: 5828 Shimosuwa Town, Suwa-gun, Nagano Prefecture
(10 minutes on foot from JR Shimosuwa Station)

Shimosha Harumiya
Address: 193 Shimosuwa Town, Suwa-gun, Nagano Prefecture
(15 minutes on foot from JR Shimosuwa Station)

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