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Hounen-sai
Blessing of a fruitful year
May 8th, 8:00a.m.-
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Hounen-sai is one of the two Atsuta Shrine's very important ceremonies
with Yodamashi-Shinji
which related to agriculture.
It is held at Honden (main shrine) and we can not view it
The ceremony is held to appreciate Yamato-Takeru-no-mikoto (hero of Japanese
mythology)
who taught people the technique of agriculture and sericulture, on the
way to
the East part of Japan to conquer.
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| after Norito offering ceremony is over, the doors of Nishi-gakusho are opened. |
farmers and representatives of their area are waiting |
two kinds of dioramas are set in Nishi-gakusho right: rice left: other crops |
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| check the details of diorama | How do they augur ? | |
| dioramas in 2006 | |||||
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Those dioramas are made by Atsuta Shrine Shinto priests along their special methods. People divine the weather or how much they could harvest rice and other crops of this year by themselves. They compare the sketch of the dioramas made in the previous year with the ones which made this year. example You can see three gods on the left diorama, and four gods on the right (They are almost on the top of the pic.) The god wearing red clothes shows drought or condition of the sun. The white one shows wind and green one shows water or rain. They are lined up, but the god in white clothes on the right is slightly ahead and the door behind him is opend and there is another god in white clothes. So, some farmers who pruduce rice might worry about strong wind. They are displayed from 8th to 13rd of May. .ex.
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| On the day of Honen-sai, seedings are sold on the paths in Atsutashrine. | |||
