OBACHAN'S SCRIBBLES

Most Shinto festivals are organized and run by the staff called “touya 頭屋,” and my dad was one of them this year. In my hometown, one family (actually, the man of the house of the family) from each neighborhood has to do this task. There are 3 or 4 neighborhoods there, so the festival is usually taken care of by 4 touya people. In order to be fair, the families take turns to be touya, and a turn comes apx. every 30 years or so.
(Click on the photos with * mark to enlarge.)

Touninko
They need to find people who can perform the important roles in the ritual on festival days.









The important participants include care-takers or make-up staff called kehainin 気配人, old ladies who serve sake called touji-baa 杜氏婆 or tosa-baa 土佐婆, little boys who play a shaman-like role called touninko 頭人子 and young girls who dance in front of the altar called maihime 舞姫. And there have to be others who join the parade to carry mikoshi (portable miniature shrines) or other ornaments/offerings to the gods.

My dad had a hard time finding a sake-serving woman. He couldn’t ask mom to do it because she had to cook the feast both days of the festival so couldn't leave the kitchen adjacent to the shrine. And my great-aunt said “No” when she was asked because of her health problem. Mom suggested that I could be a sake-serving woman, but one of our relatives told her, “No kidding! Only postmenopausal women are allowed to do that job!” Wow. :P

According to the printout given to the main staff of the festival (I read dad’s copy), the first part of the ritual was performed in late September. Looks like they got together to offer some foods to the altar and clean and decorate the shrine. The printouts were obviously prepared with a word-processor and had detailed instructions about how much of food/decorations in what size were needed as well as the phone numbers of the people to contact.

The altar of the shrine
October 13th was the day of purification ritual, according to the schedule on the printout. I didn’t have a chance to see that, but according to the printout, touya and sake-serving women went to the Cape Muroto and went through the purification ritual. (I don’t know if they actually bathed in the ocean to get purified.) It seems to be a tradition to use the ocean water for purification in my hometown. The instruction said “Bring ocean water in 2 sake-bottles and offer to the altar. Use one bottle of water to wipe the faces of Touninko boys.” Also on this day, rice was offered to god in a special straw bag and shiratama dumpling soup was given to all the staff. Mom had to cook the soup with 3 other women (touya’s wives) and she said it was quite a work.

To be cont'd...

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Categories: Kochi