HADAKA MATSURI

First, a brief history of Hadaka Matsuri (The Naked Festival)...

The Matsuri (Festival), I attended, takes place on the 13th of January on the Lunar Calendar which, this year, was on March 2nd. (Other Hadaka Matsuri take place on other days too). It was in Konomiya.

A week before the actual festival, a man is selected at random (Kind of a drawing straws type-o-thang). He then must shave all the hair off of his entire body and lives and prays in the Shrine the festival takes place at. He is the "Man of God" and represents a purified divine character. He eats nothing but rice and water for 3 days before the fesitval takes place. One the day of the festival he will be completely naked.

The day of the festival, a lot a lot a lot of men dressed in white loin clothes go to the shrine with their "team". A team, I understand, can have from 10 people to 200 people from their town/area. The bring a large bamboo tree, or many, bound with colorful cloth. They carry these down the street to the shrine screaming chants and stuff. They do this to have good luck and make their wishes come true. They drink lots and lots of sake at this time. Then they all stand around waiting for the "man of god" to appear. They then attempt to touch him and get good luck. This is very difficult for a few reasons. 1) everyone is drunk. 2) People beat the shit out of each other trying to touch him. 3) there are hundreds and hundreds of almost naked men trying to touch ONE naked man. 4) there are "goons" who try and stop people from touching the naked man. They run around with buckets of cold water and throw them in peoples faces and as i witnessed...hit people in the face with their buckets.

The festival is actually for people who are ages 23 and 42, in shintoism, these are unlucky ages. However, any age can participate.

After about an hour, the naked man makes it to the shrine. (He's been trying to get there for a while...it's kind of his "Finishing line". He will faint many times before making it to the finish line and will be covered in cuts scrapes and will be pretty bloody.

My Experience:

This festival is insane. We got there around 4:00 which is around the time the naked man is released. We were down towards the shrine enterance watching. We saw a lot of teams bring their bamboo to the shrine. There was tons of screaming, coins thrown, and cheering. I thought to myself "I could TOTALLY do this. It looks so fun!" Around 5:00 they set up a new guard/gate about 10 feet away from the gate we were watching from. This is when I started to question whether I could do this or not. The "Goons" showed up and were throwing water in peoples faces. People started to get a little rough. Twenty minutes later the naked man arrived. I actually saw him, which was surprising because he's almost impossible to see. BUT I saw his bald/not-so-happy-face pop up for a second then go back down. I feel like it's one of those things that seems like a good idea...then when he draws his straw and it's the naked man straw, he's like "uh oh. I dont want to!" Then after 3 days of rice and water he's like "DAMMIT. I AM SO FRUSTRATED! WHY DID I DO THIS???" Then when he steps into the street to run to the shrine, he's like "NO. NO. NO. NO. NOT FUN! NOT FUN! I DONT LIKE THISSSSS!!!! WHY AM I NAKED???" Then finally, the next monday at work, he's sitting at his desk, covered in bruises, scabs, and still bald, people are like "So, Craig, what'd you do this weekend?" (everyone giggles) "Why don't you just finish your work, Marcus. I didn't make fun of you when you forgot to finish those time sheets last month!" "yeah but I wasn't naked and bald and..." "just FORGET IT, MARCUS!" Except with Japanese names and in Japanese.

There were a lot of people carried out covered in blood and scrapes and were clearly too drunk to finish participating. There was a lot of punching, elbowing, and hitting going on. I won't lie though, it looked like fun. I would immediately regret doing it, if I were to ever try this festival. When some guys would try and step out of gates to take a break. These old men shrine guards would run out and start kicking them and pushing them and they'd have to go back in. It was hilarious.

Festivals in general here, are really fun. There is a ton of great food, funny people, and just a good vibe. Everyone has fun, except for the naked man. Today (and yesterday actually) was Hina Matsuri which is the girls festival. NOTHING like Naked Men's fest. There are just these really beautiful dolls put out in homes and at places. There is a lot of good festival food too. I had some last night. There's these little shoots of bamboo filled with jello stuff, it was goooood.

Over all, I love this place. As always, feel free to leave comments.