AICHI, Mar 01 (News On Japan) –
The Konomiya Hadaka Festival, an uncommon Shinto ritual courting again greater than 1,250 years wherein males sporting solely loincloths collide violently with each other, was held on March 1st at Konomiya Shrine in Inazawa, Aichi Prefecture, drawing round 10,000 individuals who surged towards a chosen “sacred man” believed to soak up misfortune via bodily contact.
The competition facilities on the “Shin-otoko,” or sacred man, who is chosen to shoulder the neighborhood’s dangerous luck for the yr. It is believed that touching him transfers one’s misfortune, and as he makes his means via the shrine grounds, waves of males in white fundoshi loincloths press ahead in a chaotic crush, shouting and grappling in a dramatic show of devotion.
The long-standing ceremony, formally often called a ritual to thrust back evil, is thought to be certainly one of Japan’s most intense winter festivals, combining non secular perception with uncooked bodily power as individuals search purification for the yr forward.
Source: Kyodo