Journal of Religion in Japan 9 (2020) 10–36 brill.com/jrj Displaying Mythological Characters Changes in the Meanings of Decorations in the Sawara Grand Festival in Chiba, Japan Tsukahara Shinji 塚原伸治 Ibaraki University, Mito, Japan [email protected] Abstract The large figures displayed atop the floats in the Sawara Grand Festival portray char- acters drawn from mythology and history that have been strongly associated with Japanese nationalism and imperialism. In order to investigate the meanings that these float figures hold for the participants and audience of the festival, this article acknowl- edges the close relations between folklore and politics and interprets the works them- selves as agents that enact emotions and responses, rather than focusing on the creative intentions of the producers. The figure subjects were freely chosen by the people of Sawara, mostly during the prewar period, and were based on characters that were pop- ular at the time—namely, the emperors and their mythological ancestors and historical champions. In the present, however, the figures are rarely seen in light of their nation- alistic origins. Instead, they are appreciated more for their aesthetic beauty and as mascots of the various wards of Sawara. Keywords agency – festival – floats – folklore – materiality – nationalism 1 A Curious Display1 “It’s as if the festival is carrying the nation-state on its shoulders.” This was the impression of my friend and fellow folklorist upon seeing the Sawara Grand 1 This article was translated by Jude Pultz. Original title: “Shinwa no kyarakutā o tenji suru: © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/22118349-00901003Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 03:46:02PM via free access displaying mythological characters 11 Festival (Sawara no taisai 佐原の大祭) for the first time. By itself, this impres- sion may seem strange, but in fact, it succinctly expresses an important aspect of this festival. Held every July and October in the town known as Sawara in the city of Katori in Chiba Prefecture,2 the Grand Festival is famous for its floats bearing large figures, which are pulled through the streets by hand (Figure 1). Under the title “Sawara Float Event” (Sawara no dashi gyōji 佐原の山車行事) the festival was designated an Important Intangible Folk-Cultural Property of the country in 2004. Then, in 2016, it was also inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage as one of 33 examples of “Yama, Hoko, and Yatai float festivals.” It was the figures (ningyō 人形) on the floats in this festival that prompted my friend’s comment about “carrying the nation-state on its shoulders.” Certainly, at first glance, the figures do evoke the specter of nationalism. Even if it is an exaggeration to call the event itself nationalistic, it would be difficult to fully understand the festival without taking into account the nation-state ideology of modern Japan. Many of the large figures atop the floats were produced by professional artists in the early twentieth century and represent the gods regarded as the ancestors of the imperial line in mythological texts such as the Kojiki 古事 記 (Record of Ancient Matters, 712) and Nihon shoki 日本書紀 (Chronicles of Japan, 720). The theme of nationalism is also apparent in several float figures that represent real people, including the military commanders Dai-Nankō 大楠 公 (Kusunoki Masahige 楠木正成, 1294–1336) and Shō-Nankō 小楠公 (Kusu- noki Masatsura 楠木正行, 1326–1348), who were regarded as champions of the emperor’s regime and frequently appeared in shūshin 修身 (moral edu- cation) textbooks.3 Although these were real people, they have since been mythologized in stories and legends. Other festival figures, such as Kintarō 金 太郎, Urashima Tarō 浦島太郎, and other characters from old folktales, are not deeply connected to imperialism or nationalism, but these represent only a small minority of the floats. Of course, the Sawara Grand Festival is not the only float festival in Japan that reflects a strong nationalist ideology through Chiba ken no ‘Sawara no taisai’ ni okeru kazari no imi no henka” 神話のキャ ラクター を展 示する–千葉県の「佐原の大祭」における飾りの意味の変化. 2 Referred to simply as “Sawara” for the remainder of this article. 3 Shūshin was a subject in elementary schools in Japan following the Imperial Rescript on Edu- cation of 1890 and lasting until 1945. Although it literally means “moral education,” shūshin also incorporated material on military training. Journal of Religion in Japan 9 (2020) 10–36 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 03:46:02PM via free access 12 tsukahara figure 1 Float (dashi) with figure (ningyō) Photograph by author Journal of ReligionDownloaded in Japan from 9 Brill.com09/26/2021 (2020) 10–36 03:46:02PM via free access displaying mythological characters 13 its choice of motifs. Still, I believe my friend’s impression that this particular festival is “carrying the nation-state on its shoulders,” is no exaggeration. That being said, we must consider that just because the people of Sawara attach great importance to these floats and parade them through the streets each year does not mean that everyone in Sawara is a nationalist, nor does it mean that we should understand the festival solely in nationalistic terms. The residents of each part of the town that participate in the festival are not gen- erally motivated by political beliefs, and even those who are support diverse political parties. Still, on the surface it appears as if the festival is literally parad- ing the emperors, their ancestors, and their champions through the district. How should we interpret this? That is the question of this study. 2 Ethnography of Festival Figures 2.1 What Is a Float? In considering how to approach Japanese festival floats and figures, I would first like to briefly look back on how these subjects have been dealt with in tra- ditional folklore studies. The wooden floats that are pulled in Japanese festivals are generally known as dashi 山車. Depending on the region, however, floats are given different names, including yama 山, hoko 鉾, and yatai 屋台 (Itō 2001).4 According to Murakami (2008), there are as many as 1,300 or even 1,500 festi- vals in Japan featuring floats, whether they are known as dashi, yama, hoko, or yatai. Academic study regarding these festival floats can be traced back to the ear- liest days of folklore research, to discussions between Orikuchi Shinobu 折口 信夫 (1887–1953) and Yanagita Kunio 柳田國男 (1875–1962).5 Particularly influ- ential was the idea that the float (dashi) serves as a vessel into which a god descends, as put forth in Orikuchi’s “Higeko no hanashi” 髯籠の話. Orikuchi called these vessels yorishiro 依代. He later added to this concept with his 4 Representing all floats under the term dashi is problematic. As Ueki Yukinobu (2001) states, use of the word dashi, which should not necessarily be the overarching term, began with Orikuchi Shinobu and, due to his considerable influence in the field of folklore, was rapidly generalized into standard Japanese and came to represent floats of all forms. In order to rec- tify this trend, the festivals were given the title “Yama, Hoko, and Yatai float festivals” when they were officially inscribed as intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO. However, dashi is the term officially used for the floats in Sawara’s festival and, in standard Japanese, use of the word dashi as a general term is still prevalent. 5 Yanagita (1915); Orikuchi (1915). According to Ikeda (1978), these discussions eventually led to animosity between Orikuchi and Yanagita. Journal of Religion in Japan 9 (2020) 10–36 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 03:46:02PM via free access 14 tsukahara “marebito マレビト theory,” which, in a rather essentialist way, suggests that gods would at times descend to the world of people as an expression of a univer- sal ideal of Japanese godhood. In this regard, the understanding of the float as yorishiro (a place to which gods descend) was an important precursor of the marebito theory. This idea of Orikuchi’s that the dashi functioned as a yorishiro had such a powerful impact on festival research that it became a kind of dogma to inter- pret all floats (yama, hoko, and yatai) as yorishiro, preventing other interpre- tations from being considered (Ueki 2001; Murakami 2018). As a result, little progress was made throughout the twentieth century concerning the folklore of festival floats or their decorations. Finally, toward the end of the twentieth century, scholars began to challenge this received understanding of floats as uniform. For example, in his discussions of Kyoto’s Gion Festival, Yamaji Kōzō emphasized the difference between the sacred procession of portable Shintō shrines and the parading of yamahoko 山鉾 festival floats by townsfolk (Yamaji 1986). In addition, Ueki Yukinobu recognized that yama, hoko, and yatai floats originally had distinct roles and challenged the notion that all floats should be uniformly understood as yorishiro (Ueki 2001). Rather than interpreting floats as mobile places of worship, it is the general understanding of current folk- lore scholarship that floats should be viewed more as performances intended to add liveliness to the festivals to which they belong (Ito 2000). As a result of these recent trends, the roles and ornamentations of various types of floats have become serious subjects of research in Japanese folklore studies (Ueki and Fukuhara 2016). 2.2 The Figures on the Floats Festival floats exhibit a wide variety of forms (Ueki 2001). There are both two- layer and three-layer floats; in addition, some floats have roofs and others have dancers on top of them. Of these varieties, the present study concerns the type of float on display at the Sawara Grand Festival, a kind which notably carries large human figures.