Fujisaki Hachimangu Grand Festival

藤崎八旛宮例大祭

The autumn grand festival of Fujisaki Hachimangu shrine in Kumamoto, held for more than a thousand years and called by the shrine the biggest festival in Kumamoto. Rites fill the shrine from 13 to 15 September every year, and on a weekend day or public holiday from the 16th on, a procession of portable shrines, mounted warriors and decorated horses driven by crowds of handlers moves through the city.

13–15 September 2027

315 days away

Every year, 13 September, for 3 days

Future dates: 13 September 2027 · 13 September 2028 · 13 September 2029

Origin

Fujisaki Hachimangu is said to have been founded in 935, when the deity of Iwashimizu Hachimangu in Kyoto was brought here to pray for the defeat of the rebel Taira no Masakado. The festival began as hōjōe, a Buddhist-influenced rite of compassion for living things, and was held under that name until shrines and temples were separated in the Meiji era. The present form of the zuibyō, the warrior escort of the portable shrines, is said to go back to the warlord Katō Kiyomasa. The decorated horses were once mounts for the priests in the procession; once they came to be led rather than ridden in the Edo period, the decorations on their empty saddles grew larger, and since the Meiji era they have been offered by the townspeople.

What to look for

On the day of the procession the portable shrines leave the shrine at dawn, at the traditional hour of the hare (6 a.m.), and move along the main streets to a resting shrine in the city. Priests, men in white robes, a hundred armoured warriors and spearmen, and the Shinmachi lion dance, nearly 400 years old, follow the portable shrines, and last come the main attraction: the decorated horses and their handlers. Wrapped in red-and-white or blue-and-yellow cloth, the horses are driven along one after another by groups of handlers in matching happi coats chanting “Dōkai, dōkai”; in 2023, 57 groups and about 11,000 handlers took part. Noh is performed at the resting shrine, and in the afternoon the procession returns to the shrine.

How to watch

The festival used to be known by another name, which has been criticised as fostering discrimination; it is no longer chanted, but human rights groups in Kumamoto still ask people not to use it. The shrine calls it the Fujisaki Hachimangu Grand Festival, and hopes visitors will understand its original meaning as a rite of compassion for living things, not just the decorated horses.

If you go

The shrine sets the date of the procession each spring and announces it on its website, so check before you go. On the procession day there are wide road closures around the shrine and in the city centre, and it is crowded. The Noh at the resting shrine is free, but seats are limited. On the 13th the Shinmachi lion dance is performed at the shrine, and a few days before the procession the decorated horses are blessed there, with the handlers driving them around the grounds. The shrine is about five minutes on foot from the Fujisakigū-mae bus stop; its car park cannot be used on the procession day.

Where

Fujisaki Hachimangu

Kumamoto

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Sources

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