Guide to Noto’s Satoyama and Satoumi (Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems) by Photos and Movies
Name
Himura Sickle Festival
Address
Enotomari-machi, Nanao City
Category
Festival
Class
Custom
Designation
Sickle-knocking ritual of Suwa Festival in Noto: Ishikawa Prefecture Intangible Folk Cultural Asset (October 1992)
Comment
This is a festival of Suwa Shrine, which is located in the Himuro area of the east coast of the Sakiyama Peninsula, facing Toyama Gulf. People knock a pair of fish-shaped sickles into a sacred tree (Japanese machilus), and pray for calm weather and a good catch. Himura is located in the area facing Nada Bay, where fixed-net fishing is popular. It was a branch village of Enotomari, which was a major fishing village during the Edo period. On August 27, the festival head for the year, holding branches of Japanese cleyera bound to a sickle, and other local residents gather at the shrine, and undergo a purification ceremony in the hall of worship. The festival head is given the two sickles separated from the branches by the priest, and then knocks first the male sickle, and then the female sickle into the Japanese machilus tree in the sacred area behind the hall of worship, using the back of a hatchet. After that, the participants are given sacred sake. This unique festival has been designated as an Intangible Folk Cultural Asset by Ishikawa Prefecture.
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