Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Obon Festival
Yesterday, Kelly and I were fortunate enough to see a parade of "Eisa" dancers marching down our street to the rhythm of "taiko" drums. (Check them out in the video link below.) Actually, we were lured to them. We were sitting on the couch watching TV when we heard drum beats outside. We grabbed the camera and followed the sound. Low and behold, there was a group of dancers and musicians performing traditional Okinawan music and dance right in the middle of the Shell gas station across the street. The dancers and drummers were slowly working their way through the village, stopping intermittantly to drum and dance and send the spirits of the deceased back to where they came from. This marks the end of the Obon festival.
Here's a little information about Obon, courtesy of www.japanupdate.com :
Obon, a three-day holiday on Okinawa, is a time for locals to pay homage to their ancestors with visits to the family’s Buddhist altars and tombs. The first day of Obon, Unkeh, is a time for families to gather at the primary family residence to purify the home and its altar. Family members will place fruit, water, sake, tea and a pair of sugar cane stalks on the altar in preparation for the visiting sprits. In the evening, the family lights candles both at the altar and the gateway to the house to invite the spirits inside. Obon is a time of celebration, and Okinawa’s second unique custom, Eisa, is performed in streets everywhere. Eisa is a traditional dance to entertain the visiting spirits. Obon is also a time of gift-giving, and a time for sharing. Tuesday, the final day of Obon, is Uukui, a time when the family gathers and celebrates with a lavish dinner before preparing to send the ancestral spirits back to the other world. A variety of foods are offered and special paper money, Uchikabi, is burned as an offer to the spirits for use in the other world. Uchikabi is paper imprinted with a coin pattern.About midnight, family members will remove the offerings from the altar and move them to the family gate in front of the home. Incense will be lit, the uchikabi burned, and the families say goodbye to the ancestral spirits for another year. Okinawa tradition is that spirits will carry the uchikabi money with them, and use the sugar cane stalks as walking sticks.
Here's a little information about Obon, courtesy of www.japanupdate.com :
Obon, a three-day holiday on Okinawa, is a time for locals to pay homage to their ancestors with visits to the family’s Buddhist altars and tombs. The first day of Obon, Unkeh, is a time for families to gather at the primary family residence to purify the home and its altar. Family members will place fruit, water, sake, tea and a pair of sugar cane stalks on the altar in preparation for the visiting sprits. In the evening, the family lights candles both at the altar and the gateway to the house to invite the spirits inside. Obon is a time of celebration, and Okinawa’s second unique custom, Eisa, is performed in streets everywhere. Eisa is a traditional dance to entertain the visiting spirits. Obon is also a time of gift-giving, and a time for sharing. Tuesday, the final day of Obon, is Uukui, a time when the family gathers and celebrates with a lavish dinner before preparing to send the ancestral spirits back to the other world. A variety of foods are offered and special paper money, Uchikabi, is burned as an offer to the spirits for use in the other world. Uchikabi is paper imprinted with a coin pattern.About midnight, family members will remove the offerings from the altar and move them to the family gate in front of the home. Incense will be lit, the uchikabi burned, and the families say goodbye to the ancestral spirits for another year. Okinawa tradition is that spirits will carry the uchikabi money with them, and use the sugar cane stalks as walking sticks.
