Gion Matsuri: shrines, floats and neighbourhoods

Gion Matsuri is the festival of Kyoto’s Yasaka Shrine and its parish neighbourhoods. Its usual July cycle runs from opening observances and preparations early in the month to the Eki Shrine rite on the 31st. Shrine ceremonies, journeys by portable shrines and neighbourhood activities around the festival floats belong to the same connected cycle. The conspicuous float processions are one part of it.

A mikoshi is a portable shrine carried by people for a deity’s journey. On the evening of July 17, three leave Yasaka Shrine and follow separate routes through parish areas to the otabisho at Shijō Teramachi. The deities remain at this temporary resting place for seven nights before returning on July 24. The outward and return rites are Shinkōsai and Kankōsai. Each float procession takes place before the corresponding mikoshi journey.

The central mikoshi carries Susanoo and has a hexagonal roof topped by a phoenix; the Sanwaka association serves it. The eastern shrine carries his wife Kushinadahime, with a square roof and a rounded giboshi finial, and is served by Shiwaka. The western shrine carries the eight child deities, has an octagonal roof topped by a phoenix, and is served by the Nishiki association. They follow different prescribed routes through parish neighbourhoods before spending seven nights together at the otabisho.

Yamahoko is a collective name for several forms. A typical hoko has a tall central pole; a large wheeled hikiyama instead carries a pine above its roof. Smaller kakiyama present figures or a story scene. Boat-shaped fune-hoko and large parasols accompanied by performers form other types. These names preserve differences in appearance and development.

Tōrō-yama places a large mantis on a court carriage. Its forelegs and wings move, as do the carriage wheels. The preservation association relates the design to the Chinese story of a mantis confronting a carriage and to a tradition about the bravery of Shijō Takasuke; its account of a first procession in 1376 is an origin tradition. The mantis now carried was made by the seventh Tamaya Shōbei for the 1981 revival. Its Edo-period predecessor survives for display during Yoiyama. The subject is thus expressed through a moving figure as well as a float name.

The floats are dismantled for storage and rebuilt in their neighbourhoods before the festival. Timber frames are secured with rope lashings that accommodate movement during the procession. Frame arrangements differ between floats. Trial pulling follows assembly, checking movement and coordination. Their annual appearance depends on a cycle of storage, rebuilding, testing and dismantling.

At a junction, large floats turn through a coordinated operation called tsuji-mawashi. Split bamboo is laid beneath the wheels and wetted, then a signal coordinates the pull that turns the body. The wheels do not steer like those of a modern car. Leaders, rope pullers and wheel attendants work together.

Most floats draw lots on July 2 to establish procession order, but some positions are fixed. Naginata-hoko always leads the earlier procession. A later ritual, kuji-aratame, checks the order on the street: float officials present document boxes containing their lot slips, Kyoto’s mayor inspects them in the role of magistrate, and a fan signals permission to pass. Naginata-hoko carries a living boy serving as chigo, a sacred child. He cuts a shimenawa, a rope marking a sacred boundary, across Shijō Street in a symbolic opening of the procession.

The usual Yoiyama periods fall on July 14–16 and 21–23, before the two processions. Lanterns illuminate the floats, festival music sounds, and neighbourhood meeting houses display figures and decorative textiles. Some shops and older houses open their street-facing spaces to show screens and other treasures, a practice called Byōbu Matsuri. Objects normally kept indoors become part of the festive street.

Gion-bayashi is instrumental music associated with the floats. Its familiar combination uses flute, drum and a metal gong. Repertoire differs between floats and stages of the procession. Yasaka Shrine traces the present instrumental combination to the late Edo period. Rehearsals and Yoiyama evenings make the music part of the festival well before procession day. Tsukihoko and Kankoboko use the nōkan transverse flute. Ayagasahoko mainly uses another type, the shinobue, but also uses nōkan for some outward- and return-procession pieces. Tsukihoko gives a concrete example: its slower outward-procession music continues as far as Shijō Kawaramachi; after the turn towards Kawaramachi, the music changes to a faster return repertoire.

The festival’s protective chimaki is a leaf-wrapped charm, usually hung at an entrance rather than eaten. Yasaka Shrine’s version bears a talisman identifying the holder with the descendants of Somin Shōrai. Its story concerns hospitality to a travelling deity and protection for the host’s descendants. Float neighbourhoods also distribute their own chimaki, with differing associations.

Koi-yama’s tapestry was woven between 1575 and 1620. Its B.B. mark connects it with production in Brussels in Brabant, and its figures depict the Trojan War story in Homer’s Iliad. Its route to Japan is uncertain, and no purchase record survives; the association places its acquisition around 1800 by inference. One large textile was cut into nine pieces for hangings around the float, adapting a European narrative composition to a Kyoto festival. Its imagery is distinct from the carp-leaping-the-Dragon-Gate story represented by Koi-yama itself.

Discussion of Koi-yama’s reproduction project began in 1982. An initial trial aimed to reproduce the faded surface, but the project shifted towards the original colours. Removing the backing revealed protected, vivid colours on the reverse and later painted additions on the face. Investigation, design drawings, dyeing and trial weaving informed the replacements. The first rear hanging was completed in 1989, with further sections following. Newly woven working decorations and the conserved old textiles have different identities.

During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, pine-bearing yama and pole-bearing hoko developed alongside the organising role of urban merchant and artisan neighbourhoods. War interrupted the festival; the 1500 revival included a lottery for procession order. By the late sixteenth century, textiles, metalwork and carving enriched the floats. A seventeenth-century pair of festival screens in the Idemitsu Museum depicts both float processions and mikoshi journeys.

The fire of 1864 damaged many floats. The shrine’s religious organisation changed too. Its deities had been venerated under names including Gozu Tennō. At the 1868 separation of Shinto and Buddhism, Kanshin-in Gion Shrine became Yasaka Shrine, and its deity names were changed to Susanoo, Kushinadahime and the eight child deities. Meiji changes then affected their support and surroundings: the yori-chō system, in which associated neighbourhoods helped fund the floats, ended in 1872, while telephone, lighting and tram wires created obstacles for tall floats. Calendar reform brought changes to the dates, which settled on July 17 and 24 during the Meiji period. The float federation was founded in 1923 to coordinate matters involving roads, authorities and funding. Continuity required new organisational arrangements.

The float processions stopped during 1943–1946. A limited rebuilding and procession resumed in 1947, and by 1952 most floats were processing again. In 1966 the later float procession was merged into July 17, while a flower-parasol procession developed for the 24th. The later float procession returned in 2014, when the rebuilt Ōfune-hoko also rejoined. Today’s two-part arrangement has a history of merger and restoration.

Ōfune-hoko lost its roofed structure, frame and wheels in 1864, while its figure of Empress Jingū and some textiles survived. Music and stationary display resumed in 1997. In 2012 a ritual mask travelled in a karabitsu, a chest for festival objects, before the rebuilt boat-shaped float returned in 2014. Design involved more than enlarging an old picture. A working group formed in 2010 measured the surviving Fune-hoko’s structural members, materials and joints. It fitted Ōfune-hoko’s surviving hangings to the proposed frame, used full-size mockups to adjust proportions, and compared roofs and railings in eleven historical images. Surviving objects, a related structure, pictures and present-day craft worked together.