Day: July 5, 2020

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Parade composed by various folk entertainment at Tono Festival

deer and human dance

Each community in Tono city showcases traditional performing arts, for example, Kagura dance, Deer dance, Tiger dance, Sansa dance, etc.
We pay homage to the fact that many communities are maintained and traditional arts are inherited in Tono City, which has a population of only 30,000.

Let’s get mochi (rice ball) thrown from the mikoshi and deer hair after the deer dance for your good luck.  Never overdo it.

Gallery (click photos)

tono festival dance
tono festibal deer dance
at the end of deer dance
tono festival dance
tono festival dram
tono festival dance
tono festival mikoshi
tono festival dance

Parade Video

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horseback archery followed by certification horse riding (here is characteristic!) in Tono-go Hachimangu shrine at Tono Festival

horseback archery1
horseback archery back
horseback archery back

The origin of Tono horseback archery (Yabusame in Japanese) is in Kamakura (Tsuruoka Hachimangu shrine).  It was brought to Tono (Tono Hachimangu shrine) via Hachinohe (Kushibiki Hachimangu) in Aomori prefecture as well as ‘Kappa’ story.   But the distinguishing feature in Tono’s is that the another warrior runs to see if the previous warrior hits the target successfully or not.  If the arrow hits the target, he will yell out “Yo itariya (Good shooting) ! “, but it sounds like “Yo Italiano ! “.

Each warrior runs 3 times on the track and he shoots a bow three times on each run.