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Honensai: Prayers for the Harvest

豊年祭 – 収穫への祈り –

202517minJapanese culture

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Honensai is a festival to thank the gods for the past year’s harvest and pray for abundant crops in the next. Among the many Honensai festivals held all over Japan, the “Four-village Puri” in Okinawa’s Ishigaki Island is not only an important spiritual event, but also one where a wide variety of unique performances are offered. Puri has come down through the ages from the time of the Ryukyu Kingdom (1429 - 1879) , and even today its scale remains undeniably exceptional.

In the local dialect, “Puri” signifies “gratitude for the harvest.” One of the important symbols at its heart is a large rope used in a series of rituals, starting with Ahyazuna, in which women pray for the prosperity of the community’s descendants . Later on, two warriors purify the rope in the ritual combat of Tsunanumin. And of course, the climax of the festival is Ozunahiki, the grand tug-of-war. Get a close look at the rituals and see how each one of them is imbued with the villagers’ prayers for the rope’s power to “draw in” a bountiful harvest.

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