✳︎ Book Title: Festivals and the World of Gods ✳︎ Author: Haruo Misumi ✳︎ Photography: Yoshimasa Watanabe ✳︎ Publisher: NHK Books Color Edition ✳︎ Size: B6 ✳︎ Pages: 156 ✳︎ Publication Date: November 20, 1979 Author Haruo Misumi, born in 1927, was a Japanese folklorist and performing arts researcher with many published works. "Why do people wear terrifying masks?" "Why do they smear themselves with mud and dance in strange costumes?" This book is a guide to unraveling the mysteries for those captivated by such bizarre festivals, and it is not merely a "record of festivals." Over 40 years ago, before local festivals sold their souls to "tourism," the raw "presence of another world" permeates the entire pages. ① Witnessing Overwhelming "Transformation" Look at the "Hyongge" of Shizuoka and the Noro (priestesses) of Okinawa in the images. What you see is not sophisticated entertainment, but the awe-inspiring power of humans who have "become something else." The moment when "Tengu" and "Oni" (demons), motifs of local toys, leap out from wooden carvings and paper clay dolls, using living humans as vessels (yorishiro), is captured in vivid color photographs. ② The Stage Device of "Yorishiro" (Vessel) The "Dashi" (floats), "Hoko" (ceremonial floats), and the festival stages that we love. This book interprets them not just as decorations, but as "antennas (devices) for the gods to descend from the sky." A simple hut made of bamboo, a roadside stone, all of these transform into "entrances for the gods." Knowing this theory, your future festival viewing will change from "stage appreciation" to "otherworldly experience." ③ The Aesthetics of the Defeated: "Unsubmissive Gods" Chapter 6, "The Drama of Those Who Defy the Gods," reveals that behind the glamorous stage, those who were once defeated and oppressed continue to live on in the festivals as "Oni" and "deformed gods." The true nature of that unique "sorrow and enthusiasm" that permeates the bizarre festivals throughout Japan is revealed here. The Izaiho of Okinawa, introduced as the "origin of theater," unfortunately has not been held since 1978. Although 2024 (the Year of the Rat) was a year for it to be held, there are no women to succeed the priesthood (Noro), and it is in a state of de facto "extinction." The color photographs in this book are records of the last moments when this festival "lived." The figures of the "phantom festival," which can never be seen again, are contained within. #BizarreFestivals #FolkReligion #TaroOkamoto