Dosojin Himatsuri - The Festival of Fire

Though Nozawa is a notable place for snow sports such as ski and snowboard, we gladly settled for only three or so hours on the slopes. We weren't even there for the hot springs, which otherwise keep Nozawa active throughout the warm seasons. We had a different objective in mind.
The reason we came to Nozawa Onsen town was to experience firsthand the events that were to take place on that night of January 15th, as they did every year, while most of the rest of Japan is completely unaware.


 Every Winter, a truly wonderful festival occurs in this snowy town - the Dosojin Himatsuri. The festival celebrates newborn children, casts out bad luck, and brings in the good. In and of itself, that's nothing unique in terms of Japanese matsuri festivals. But while you might be right to point out that fire festivals happen in several dozen towns across the Japan archipelago, many of which are larger than Nozawa and draw bigger crowds, it's the way in which Dosojin is celebrated that makes it stand out from the country's other fire festivals.

The Dosojin festival is peculiar right from the get-go. As 7 o' clock in the evening nears, villagers gather towards an open area in the center of the town. It's a merry procession; sake is offered in cups to any one who's willing to take it, free of charge. Leading the procession of villagers and tourists are men charged with carrying items of cultural value to the site. These include lanterns and banners, but also a number of things that are hard to describe outside of context. But amongst these men are also those charged with carrying the flames.These men, for the most part drunk on sake already, brandish bundles of dried bamboo the size of their own bodies, the end of which is aflame. They twirl these enormous torches around and about their body, with little to no regard for their own safety and that of even onlookers. In the case where it looked like someone hit by the torch was about to be set ablaze, guards ran in to pat them out and clear them out of the area where the flame bearers were passing. But otherwise, there was no reproach at all to the flame bearers, and it was even a common occurrence. This happened to Kazue!

When at last everyone everyone had made it to the site of the main event, the poles and banners and lanterns were assembled, but one structure towered over all others. A wooden tower was erected at the center of the square, made of tinder and branches and wooden beams. I'm sure you can see where this is going, but you'd only be half right if you guessed the tower was to be set ablaze.

On top of that very same wooden tower were all the men of the village who had turned 42 years old in the previous year. At the bottom of the tower, defending them, were all the men who had turned 25. There was a beating of drums, a blast of fireworks, and, around 30 meters away from the wooden tower, the flame bearers set off a blazing bonfire.

 And the villagers, each with a torch in hand, set off to burn down the large wooden structure with the men still atop it, as the giant bonfire itself was slowly being dragged towards it. And only that handful of 25 year old defenders stood between them and their mark. It felt like war.

The onslaught was savage, vehement beyond belief. The 25 year old defenders, numbering no more than twenty in total, took on wave upon wave of villagers whose sole goal was to burn the tower - and they stopped at nothing in their attempts. Everything was permitted, from throwing their torches to downright bludgeoning the defenders with them. But this was mutual - defenders threw punches at the attackers. The air was filled with taunts and threats, and once they began, the attacks did not stop for any longer than a dozen seconds, as villagers who failed retreated and brought new torches, regrouping and renewing their attacks - and this would last three whole hours.

The defenders, in the smoke after a successful defense.

 The defenders stood unwavering, some of them holding on to ropes secured to the tower, so tired were they that they could not stand. Their camaraderie was remarkable, even as their odds grew more difficult. Many of them sported burns and cuts across their faces, and the large bonfire itself crept closer and closer to the main structure they were sworn to defend. This meant that, while initially villagers who attempted to renew their attacks had to walk 30 meters to claim a new torch, that distance was gradually shrinking to 25 meters, then 20 and so on. The charges were growing more frequent.

Still, the 42 year old men of the village welcomed the attackers to test their defenders. "Bring on the fire!" they chanted. "Bring on the sake!" But still the attackers were fought off.

The final bonfire.

 And after what must have been the longest three hours in those young mens' lives, the assault finally ended. The 42'ers were brought down, the 25's cheered by the crowd for their valor, and at the very end, the flame pushed under the tower.
 And we watched the biggest bonfire I had ever seen in my life blaze up, throwing cinders and smoke into the night sky. The banner poles, too, were thrown into the fire, feeding it further, and after 20 minutes there was a deafening crash and a searing heat wave as the structure collapsed in an explosion of fire, to the cheer of a crowd that had to look away for the heat that was unbearable to even face.

The tower explodes.

The danger of it all, the cheering and shouting and taunting, and the silhouettes of the defenders being celebrated by the very villagers that looked as if they were trying to kill them minutes ago, were imprinted into my memories as I walked back to our ryokan. Now that's a festival well done.