Namahage Sedo Festival

なまはげ柴灯まつり

Over three winter nights at Shinzan Shrine in Oga, *namahage* — the masked, straw-clad visiting deities of the peninsula — come down out of the dark, snowy mountain with torches.

12–14 February 2027

106 days away

Every year, the 2nd Saturday of February, minus 1 day, for 3 days

Future dates: 12 February 2027 · 11 February 2028 · 9 February 2029

Origin

According to the organising committee, it joins two things: the saitō-sai, a fire rite held at Shinzan Shrine every 3 January for more than nine hundred years, and the Namahage of Oga. It began in 1964 as a "snow festival" at Hoshitsuji Shrine in Kitaura-Yumoto, meant to bring winter visitors to the Oga hot springs, and moved to Shinzan Shrine from its fourth year as the crowds grew. It has never once been cancelled. The Namahage itself belongs to New Year’s Eve, when young men of each village put on the masks and go roaring from house to house. To the people of Oga the namahage are visiting deities who scold idleness and bring health and the yield of field, mountain and sea. The custom was designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1978 and inscribed on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2018.

What to look for

It opens in the early evening with the chinkama-sai, a rite in which a priest stirs a cauldron of boiling water with a straw broom, and the yu-no-mai, a purifying sacred dance found only around Oga. Then, at the foot of the shrine steps, the young men who will play the namahage receive masks into which the deity has been called, and go back up the mountain as namahage. In the sacred dance hall the New Year’s Eve house visit is re-enacted; before the bonfire comes the Namahage Dance, made in 1961 by the dancer Ishii Baku and his son, the composer Ishii Kan; then namahage drumming. The climax is the descent: the namahage come down out of the dark snowy mountain with torches held high and stride through the precinct. In the kenpei that follows, a priest holds out a great rice cake toasted on the sacred fire — but it carries the deity’s power, and the namahage struggle to lay a hand on it. To close, namahage from districts all over the city burst into the grounds.

How to watch

According to the committee, you are free to move around the grounds outside the closed-off areas, following the programme from the dance hall to the approach and back. Umbrellas, tripods, monopods, selfie sticks and stepladders are not allowed, nor are pets.

If you go

Entry is by advance registration only, and the fee must be paid when you register — there is no cash payment at the gate. Each night has a cap, and the committee notes that Saturdays in particular tend to fill early. Registration opens in the December before. The festival runs from 6 to 8:30 p.m. The shrine is in the hills with no regular bus nearby; paid shuttle buses run from the Michi-no-Eki Oga roadside station next to Oga Station and from the Oga hot-spring area.

Where

Shinzan Shrine

Oga, Akita

Open in maps

Sources

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