UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage: Kakunodate’s Yama Float Festival 

Every year from September 7 to 9, a parade of colorful floats winds through the historic streets of Kakunodate toward Shinmeisha Shrine and Jōjuin Yakushidō Temple. Unlike most parades, however, the route each float takes is decided by the people pulling it, often during the event itself. Over the three days of the festival, the floats travel all around the town and must make their way through its narrow streets. If two floats meet head-on, the two parties must negotiate to decide who has the right of way. If they fail to reach an agreement, the floats are then rammed against each other until one side gives way and both groups depart to their next destinations.
The eighteen neighborhood associations that take part in the festival each have their own float, which they decorate with elaborate, life-sized dolls of samurai and Kabuki actors. Each doll weighs about 30 kilograms. The dolls are arranged on a “mountain” made with black cloth in the middle of each float. On a wooden platform at the front of the float, young dancers perform “hand-dancing” (teodori) to traditional folk music played on drums, gongs, flutes, and shamisen by a small ensemble sitting underneath the “mountain.
During the festival, large wooden carts decorated with elaborate tableaus(yama) are paraded through the city’s preserved Edo period streets. The tableaus feature samurai and kabuki dolls, which have their roots in the Genroku era (1688–1704), and are arranged around a mokko, a symbolic mountain made of black cotton.
On the night of September 7, each float journeys to Shinmeisha Shrine to pray for prosperity, a bountiful harvest, and good health. The following day, participants may choose to visit the Former Ishiguro-Kei Residence. There, the design of their float is evaluated by a panel of judges. The participants greet the current head of the Satake-Kita, the samurai family who governed the former castle town of Kakunodate, unveil their new float design and perform folk dances. All floats must then pay their respects at Jōjuin Yakushidō Temple by the end of September 9 to complete the festival.
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- In the town of Kakunodate
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- Septemeber 7, 8, and 9
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