Date: October 14th every year
Location: Kusiku Iwakura Hachiman shrine 櫛来岩倉八幡社
　　　　　Kushiki, Kunimi town, Kunisaki city, Oita prefecture
Access: Take a bus from Usa to Kunimi Post Office in about one hour. From there, walk 30 minutes. A cab will take about 30 minutes.

Schedule and outline ~up to the day before

Simply put, the festival is about a mysterious masked god named Kebesu ケベス, who is rushing towards the fire, but is stopped by a character named Tooba 当場. And finally, Touba joins in and sprinkles the area with fire. It takes about 30 minutes.

Getting to this point was a challenge. The first step is to decide which of the ten districts will be in charge this year on October 7, and then to decide on the roles of each of them, except the role of Kebesu.
On the 8th, we make a place under the eaves of the house of the person on duty to welcome the gods. Then all the people, led by the god’s caretaker called Okayo, move the god there. The Okayo purifies himself with sea water every day from this day on, and then makes offerings to the gods. They had to collect ferns for the festival.
The people in charge also go through a one-week purification period. Specifically, they do not eat meat. They do not mix fire with other areas. For this reason, they can only eat food that they have prepared themselves.
13 days. All of them go to the beach to bathe in sea water and make rice cakes. Finally, the role of Kebesu is decided by lottery.

On the day

At around 2:00, all staff members carry the gods and offerings to the shrine, the site of the festival.
7:00 p.m. The ritual begins. The person in the role of Kebesu wears a mask, and the priest draws the character for “victory” on his back with his finger. Around 7:30. Kevesu and all the others dressed in white appear at the venue. Already in the center of the room, a pile of ferns is ablaze with flames.

Highlight

At the venue, drums, flutes, and bells played a four-beat rhythm. The Kebesu and Toubas march in a line. Eventually, Kebesu sees an opening and rushes toward the fire. Tooba rushes to stop him. Both of them have long sticks, which they use to hit and stop each other. This is repeated three times. On the third time, Kevesu reached the fire and stirred it with a stick. But even there, Touba pushes him back again.
These series are repeated three times over, resulting in a total of nine times. Finally, on the ninth time, Kevesu stirs the fire and rolls a burning fern around a stick. However, even the Tooba, who is supposed to stop him, gather around the fire together. They hold up the lit sticks and face the audience. It is as if the people who tried to stop the zombies have turned into zombies.
And the festival ends in confusion and chaos. This is the sequence of events.

What is the Kebesu ?

What is Kevesu? No one has any idea what it is. There are many theories about when it started, some say it started a thousand years ago, others say it started around 500 years ago. The records have been destroyed in fire a long time ago, so there are no clues at all.
There are several theories. The first is that it is an abbreviation of the Chinese character for “fire kicker. This word appears in the incantations chanted by the Shinto priests.
The second one is that Ebisu has become bastardized. Ebisu is a familiar god in Japan who brings good fortune. He is always depicted as having caught a sea bream. As you can see, he is a god who originally came from the sea. The theory is that it was originally people who made their living on the sea, and that it represents the conflict between them and land groups.
The third is that this peninsula produces iron sand, and the people who work with it in blacksmithing took fire very seriously. Furthermore, there is this theory. In Greek mythology, a man named Prometheus stole the fire in God’s kingdom and gave it to the people. I can only say that I don’t know what’s going on here anymore.

In any case, it is certainly a festival full of mysteries. One person has this to say about the festival. It is a festival that no amount of words can convey.
You just have to experience it for yourself. However, please be sure to wear clothes that are safe from the fire.

Date: February 4 of the old lunar calendar (In the new calendar, it is a month late, in mid-March)
Location: Kirishima taguchi 2605-5, Kirishima city, Kagoshima prefecture
Access: 10 minutes by bus from Kirishimajingu Station on the Nippo Line. (About 1 hour from Kagoshima)

Kirishima Shrine is one of the most famous shrines in Kagoshima. However, it is located in a rather inconvenient place. It is about six kilometers away from the nearest station. There is only one bus every hour. However, it is also one of the places where Japanese mythology is handed down, with a history of over 1500 years. More than 100 rituals are held here every year. One of them is the “Rice Planting Festival”.

There are many rare statues in Kagoshima that are not found in other prefectures. They are called “Tanokansaa”. It means the deity of rice fields. In Japan, if you look at the side of the road, you may see a statue of “Jizo-san”. In Kagoshima, we have “Tanokansaa” like that.

It is said that there is a festival in which “Tanokansaa” appears at Kirishima Shrine, the home of Tanokansaa.

It starts at 10:00 on the day. After the Shinto ritual, the first thing to do is to bring in the shii tree with the cow in the lead and scatter the branches around the area. This is supposed to be fertilizer. After that, several rituals are performed, and then the old man and woman appear.

These two perform a skit.
“Do you know where the cow is?” “I don’t know where the cow is,” “That cow is always annoying me.” “It’s because you don’t take care of it,” and so on. Then the cow finally appears. But the cow doesn’t listen to them. It does everything on its own and annoys the couple.

After this, the “rice field gods,” who should be called the main characters, finally appeared.

It looks as if a roadside “tanokansa” has just stood up and walked away. He is holding a large rice ladle in his hand. After this, they say a few words and end with a dance. The performance is scheduled to end around noon. Japanese have always lived on the basis of agriculture. Rice has always been the staple food, and in the past, rice itself was the standard of national power, and salaries were paid in rice. This festival is a precious opportunity to experience the original scenery of Japan.

The area is also dotted with hot springs and an art forest. Above all, the shrine itself stands in the midst of a mythical setting. It takes an hour and a half from Fukuoka to Kagoshima by Shinkansen.

Enjoy the spiritual world of Japan and heal yourself in a hot spring. One way to enjoy Japan.

Date: July 14 of the lunar calendar (around mid-August)
Location: One of the Tokara Islands, Toshima Village, Kagoshima County, Kagoshima Prefecture
Access: By air, from Kagoshima airport there is a limousine bus (1250 yen) to Kagoshima Honko Minami port. By train, from JR Kagoshima Chuo Station take the Sakurajima shuttle bus (160 yen) and get off at the High Speed Boat Terminal, or take a 15-minute cab ride from Kagoshima Chuo Station. Then take a Ferry from Kagoshima Port which runs twice a week.

Prologue

Boze is a strange visiting deity. Or maybe it’s not even a deity. It could just be a monster. He does not resemble any masked deity in all of Japan. Just by looking at his appearance alone, it is difficult to instantly determine which country he is from. Access is also poor. The only way to get there is by ferry, which only runs twice a week. Moreover, the season is typhoon-prone. There was a high possibility that even the ferry would be cancelled. Moreover, the ferry only takes 15 to 20 minutes to arrive. Still, there is no end to the number of people who are eager to see Boze every year.

Akusekijima (Akuseki island)

Akusekijima 悪石島 (Akuseki island) is a small island with an area of 7.49㎢, a circumference of 8.8km, and an elevation of 584m. The population is about 80. As I briefly explained in the ”Access”, you need to be prepared to go here. The only ferry that goes to Tokara Islands (Toshima Village), where Akuseki Island is located, is the village-run ferry “Ferry Toshima”, which usually departs from Kagoshima Port only twice a week. From Kagoshima Port, you can take the ferry that leaves on Monday or Friday. Each will arrive at the island the following day.
If you want to go to Kagoshima Port from the island, you can take the ferry on Wednesday or Sunday. However, it is highly recommended that you book your accommodation for the last day in Kagoshima if you live outside of Kagoshima, because the because the ferry arrives at Kagoshima Port late at night.

The island is also reluctant to engage in tourism. On the day of the Boze, all the people on the island come together to prepare for the Boze, and they shut down all the guest houses. This is the reason why the island has refused to allow tourists to come to the island. However, this changed in 2009 when the solar eclipse occurred. At that time, a very large number of visitors came and brought a lot of benefits to the island. Since then, the island has been actively accepting visitors during the Bose period. Nowadays, tours are also organized.

“Boze” festival

Usually people call it the Boze Festival, but it’s actually a Bon dance. It is also a valuable dance that has been passed down from generation to generation and is unique to this island. The festival is held for three days starting on July 14 of the lunar calendar. On the evening of the last day of the festival, the masked god Boze suddenly appears.

Boze wears a strange mask made of a bamboo basket with gods and other objects pasted on it. He wears leaves of a palm tree wrapped around his body. In his hands, he holds a stick called a “bozemala.” This stick has red clay on its tip.
At the end of the dance, they suddenly appear out of the forest. They chase the people around. Children and women are especially prone to attack, as it is believed that if they are poked with the sticks, they will become healthy and have children. Then, after throwing everyone around into confusion, he vanishes into nowhere. In the past, everything was burned down right away, but nowadays, they are left for while to take a photo with tourists later. The dance continues throughout the night.

What is “Boze” ?

What is this “boze” that destroys Bon dance, causing chaos and leaving like a whirlwind? According to one theory, they are responsible for returning the souls of the dead to stay forever in the other world after life. Others say it is a way to purge the surroundings of the souls of the dead. No one knows the real reason now. The only thing I know for sure is that his appearance is nothing like any other masked deity in Japan. I think it’s worth a visit to check out the human imagination.

Escaping from the real world

There is also a rare hot spring here called Underwater Hot Springs. There is also a hot spring with a view of the sea. There is also a jungle-like walkway. Even if you wanted to go home, you couldn’t until the ferry arrived. You just get lost in a different world where strange monsters rule. It’s not a bad idea to have such a summer once in a lifetime.