Tōka Ebisu

Origin

The shrine’s own account places its founding in the year 600, when Prince Shōtoku is said to have enshrined a guardian west of the Shitennō-ji temple he was building — and it was revered as **the deity who guarded the marketplace**. That Ebisu is now the god of commerce in Osaka, known here simply as *Ebessan*, follows directly from that. Tōka Ebisu is the New Year festival at which the year’s trade is asked for: the ninth is the eve, the tenth the day itself, the eleventh what the shrine calls the remaining Ebisu and everyone else calls the luck that is left.

What to look for

You receive a bamboo branch and have charms and small tokens of good fortune tied to it, then carry it home. A chant runs through the precinct the whole time: *good trade — bring your bamboo*. The tying is done by the *fukumusume*, young women the shrine describes as shrine maidens who stand between the gods and the visitors, and who work the three days at the hall of offerings. They are chosen by open competition each year: around forty-five places, reportedly some two thousand applicants. The precinct and its approach fill solid; across the three days the crowd is reportedly in the order of a million.

How to watch

The branch is not merchandise; it is received. The custom is to keep it in the house or the shop for the year and return it the next. The precinct runs on a one-way route during the festival, so choose where you stop.

If you go

**The three days are not alike.** The ninth is comparatively calm, the tenth is the peak, and on the eleventh the crowds run late. The dates are fixed, so the weekdays shift each year. It is reachable by subway within Osaka and stays open late into the night.

Where

Imamiya Ebisu Shrine

Osaka, Osaka

Sources

• Imamiya Ebisu Shrine, official calendar of rites
• Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau
• Imamiya Ebisu Shrine, official page on the fukumusume