Saijo Matsuri
Japan
- Saijo, EhimePosted on October 16, 2009 by Stefan
Filed under Gallery, Matsuri, Saijo, Saijo Matsuri
Not everybody knows about the Saijo festival, but it is gaining in popularity. The festival is held from the 14th to the 17th of October and up to 77 portable shrines dedicated to 4 local shrines will be paraded through the streets and districts of the city.
The festivals features 3 different kind of floats:
- ‘Mikoshi‘ with two big wheels covered in fine cloth decorated with intricate golden dragon stitch-work.
- ‘Taikodai‘ with a weight of up to 2.5 tons but without wheels as it is carried aloft by as many as 150 men.
- … and the ‘Danjiri‘, up to 5 metres in height and adorned with beautiful carvings of traditional Japanese scenes.
The highlight of the festival is happening on the evening of the 16th of October with a number of the gorgeous floats getting carried into the Kamo River.
Besides this highlighted event on the 16th, there are also individual festivals held at each of the four Shrines: at Kamo Shrine on Oct. 10th & 11th; at Iwaoka Shrine on Oct. 14th & 15th; at Isono Shrine on Oct. 15th & 16th; and at Iizumi Shrine on Oct. 16th & 17th.
Website: Saijo City has a website about the festival.
Transport: JR Yosan Line to Iyo-Saijo Sta., and then walk 20 min. to the Kamo River or come by car – there is plenty of free parking available on the west side of the river bank.
[...] has also made another great video about the Saijo Matsuri festival which celebrates the fall [...]
I was there this year, and it was truly one of the most intense experience I have witnessed.
Do you know if the Taikodai (I didn’t see any) are in import from nearby Niihama Taiko Matsuri that takes place at the same time?
Hi David!
Glad to hear you enjoyed the festival! I hope i also get to see it again sometime in the near future. As for the Taikodai float, the things you can see at the Niihama Taiko festival look quite different – i don’t think they are in any way related other than that both involve drums. But this isn’t exactly unusual in Japan as almost every festival involves some drums and flutes for background noise.
Oh wait … i start getting confused, just looked up taikodai on the web – it’s clearly a niihama thing ( http://www.city.niihama.lg.jp/english/taiko_festival.html ). I got most of my festival info from different websites (togehter with that info about taikodai taking part in this saijo matsuri) – but thinking back i can’t actually remember having seen any of those taikodai floats in saijo – did you see any? Maybe it was because back in 2009 the two festivals were on the same weekend so none of the taikodai floats was taking part in Saijo?!
Hi Stefan,
Thanks for your answer.
I saw only one “unidentified” float at the very end of the Matsuri, on the other side of Kamogawa, which may have been a Taikodai although in the film by Brad Kremer (that I assume you’ve seen as the first comment mentions it), there are Taikodai present, but they look slightly different from the ones in Niihama.
If I’m not wrong both festival take place at the same time every year.
I hope I’ll be back as soon as possible (hopefully next year) and I’ll investigate the matter more.