Attending a festival is the best way to get close to the local community and learn more about their culture and tradition. If you are planning to visit Kyushu for your upcoming new year celebrations, consider sparing yourself half a day to watch a group of men who brave themselves in the cold to celebrate the Tamaseseri, a traditional new year festival in Fukuoka.
Tamaseseri or Ball-Catching Festival is a traditional event that is held in the Hakozaki Shrine every year on the third of January. This festival is considered one of the major festivals of Kyushu and it has been around for more than 500 years since the Muromachi period. In a cold winter weather, the half-naked men in Shimekomi (loincloths) compete for an 8-kg wooden ball while getting showered with cold water. This purified wooden ball is believed that it can bring good luck and success to the person who can grab the ball and lift it high above his head.
Here are the highlights of the Tamaseseri festival 2017 that might interest you:
We reached Hakozaki Shrine around 12pm and there were already quite a number of photographers lining up along the passage just outside the Tower Gate (楼門) to secure a good spot for their photo shooting. Around 12:30pm, all the participants gathered in front of the Emaden (絵馬殿) and put on a drum performance as an opening act for the Tamaseseri Festival.
1pm - Balls Cleansing Ritual
At 1pm sharp in the afternoon, the commencement of ball cleansing ritual to purify the two balls, "Yin" and "Yang" representing femininity and masculinity respectively. This ceremony took around 15mins, and after which the purified "Yang" ball was brought to the Tamatori Ebisu Shrine nearby, which is the starting point of the competition.
The men dressed in Shimekomi (loincloth) were divided into two teams; Land Team, the men who work on the land and Sea Team, the men who work on the sea. The competition began when one of the wooden balls (Yang) was given to the men and they started to shout "Oisa! Oisa!" as a form of encouragement as they compete over the possession of this ball while they moved toward the Tower Gate of the Hakozaki Shrine.
A Shinto priest was waiting at the Tower Gate of the Hakozaki Shrine to receive the Yang ball; after the men hand the Yang ball over to the priest, then he carried it together with the Yin ball into the main hall as an offering to the kami of Hakozaki. Originally, the Tamaseseri was a rite of divination; if the Land Team managed to hand the ball to the priest, they will bring rich rice harvests in the coming year, and if the Sea Team won the struggle to hand the ball to the priest, they will have a year of great catches of fish. Today, the original rite of divination is no longer observed.
<< Tamaseseri Festival >>
Event Date: 3rd of January
Event Location: Hakozaki Shrine (Click Here For Map)
Written by: Q.J.
Photography by: Q.J. & K.K.