Mikoshi 神輿

I was once invited to participate in a matsuri, a Japanese Shino festival. An important element of such as procession is where the kami (Shinto "gods") are carried through the streets in mikoshi by dozens or hundreds of people in special costumes.

Today, having lost their religious significance, "matsuris" are practiced more for recreation and amusement and in the name of tradition. The matsuri in which I participated traveled throughout the different boroughs of Tokyo, each borough represented by thousands of people wearing the costume garb of their particular neighborhood.

"Matsuri" is a noun, derived from a verb, "matsu" meaning "to wait" or "to invite". In Shintoism in Japan, spirits of the deceased are worshiped to seek lesson and requests from ancestors, which are to regulate one's conducts and to be handed down to descendants. To express such worship and to gain understanding between the worshiped and the worshiper "matsuris" are performed.

The mikoshi procession is accompanied by decorated floats (kasahoko). On these floats, other people may play the drum, flute and other traditional Japanese instruments, others may carry dolls, still other mikoshi can be very expensive and are often gold-plated and sometimes encrusted with diamonds, rubies and sapphires. Such was the case with the mikoshi I carried around one afternoon. The bloody thing was heavy.

About 30 feet long, supported by two telephone pole-type logs, the shrine would be bounced up and down on the shoulders of the thousands of chanting young men and woman that would cycle through the procession as it moved from district to district.

This is all fine, but at six foot, I’m quite a bit taller than the average Japanese man or woman. I also didn’t catch the semi-religious (or testosterone driven) fervor experienced by some of my colleagues. As such, I only remember this three-ton piece of timber being thrown onto my shoulder over and over.

Perhaps with religious fervor, I could have ignored the pain. But as it was, that sucker hurt and it kept bouncing off my shoulder and my shoulder started to bleed. But it was one of my most memorable cultural Japanese experiences.