Fire It Up

Gyoda City in Saitama Prefecture has recently celebrated their Sakitama Fire Festival. The event was held to commemorate the ancient ritual of burying the dead during the Yayoi period. Gyoda is home to two famous ancient burial tombs which were once part of the ancient history of the Yayoi people. Aside from this, numerous artifacts have been unearthed and are now on display in Gyoda Museum and served as a proof to the ancient history of early Japan. So what? Anyway, we were invited by our colleagues to witness the commemoration of this ancient tradition. The Ancient Tombs of Sakitama is around twenty minutes on foot from Chichibu-Gyoda Station. Upon reaching the site, it was jam-packed with people where the entire field was surrounded with families doing picnic in the gardens of Sakitama. On the center was a stage where various activities and cultural presentations were performed. We arrived a bit late in the afternoon so we just saw the taiko performance and the modern aerobics dance number by some of the Gyoda citizens. In the middle of the field was a model haystack-straw house where offerings were laid. Produce from the nearby Tone River were offered to simulate the ancient practice by the Yayoi people. The surrounding perimeter was also surrounded with beacons of propane-gas filled flame basins to illuminate the area and to put a more eerie ambience within the vicinity. On the nearby side of the house was a troop of old-men and women armed with their powerful DSLR cameras with overly decorated lenses. We were envy as our lenses and cameras are not high-end, thus, we do not even have tripods. The adjacent side of the park was a stretch of food stalls selling takoyaki, okonomiyaki, snow cones, grilled saury, cuttlefishes, chicken, and hotdogs, and many more. All stakeholders in the city partake in this event from teachers and students in the academe, and even people in nearby cities like us who came all the way from Hanyu City.

My colleagues in the ALT profession are all based in Gyoda. They actually invited us for the event and even encouraged us to participate in the procession. But it felt like I had to prepare a lot of things plus the fact being there earlier, by then, we did not bother joining the event. Of course we just took a lot of pictures. Along the way, while taking photos of the area and the people around, I did not notice that two of my colleagues were in the picture and I saw them smiling.

When darkness covered the area, the program started. It was first opened with a ritual being uttered by two Shinto priests. Taking each other their turns to utter the prayers, a sound of silence surrounded the area and clapping of the priest’s hands can be heard during the end of each stanza of prayers. After the prayers, a strange yet eerie tune was played which signified the start of the procession of torch bearing people and adorned princesses lifted using specially built carriages that resemble ancient royalties’ mode of transportation. The male participants of the procession were dressed in Roman-like attire while the females resemble that of the Disney character Pocahontas. Three of my colleagues were there. Robert, our district head, Elly and Cathy, are all ALTs of Gyoda City. This seemed like a scene from a Ku Klux Klan initiation ceremony where people paraded in a slow manner carrying the lighted torch. The flames overwhelm the lens of my camera. Even nearby spectators feel the tremendous heat generated by the torches. Photographers were in panic in taking pictures. Even me, I had tremendous mistakes in taking pictures because it’s difficult to capture moving subjects in an incandescent lit night scene. When my colleagues passed my side, I took numerous pictures. Everyone gathered and circled the haystack-like house. After that, they burned the house. The heat was tremendous. Gradually the house was turned into ashes. As what I have heard, the dead will be placed inside the house then it will be burned. So that was how the ancient way of disposing the body during the Yayoi period. After several minutes, people from the two adjacent hills, who are the remnants of the ancient tomb, also parade bearing their torches. They gather in front of the stage and raised their torches over chants of which I could not understand. I hurriedly went uphill to take pictures of the gathering from above. It was astounding and the light from below illuminated the entire area. After several minutes, the event was culminated with a short 3-minute fireworks display. Everyone felt like it was early summer, since fireworks are normally being done here in Japan every summer. Gyoda City’s Fire Festival was a historically and culturally significant festival depicting the early customs and beliefs of the early settlers of Japan. Do not miss this festival next year. It is commemorated every Golden Week. Just pray it won’t rain.