Hakata Gion Yamakasa

Tradition dates the festival to 1241, when the priest Enni (Shōichi Kokushi), founder of Jōtenji temple in Hakata, was carried through the town on a platform sprinkling blessed water to drive out an epidemic. The festival became attached to Kushida Shrine, whose Gion cult, like that of Kyoto's Yasaka Shrine, was devoted to protection from pestilence.

The racing element is said to date from the late seventeenth century, when two rival floats turned a procession into a contest; it has defined the festival ever since.

The participating teams are organised by nagare, groupings of neighbourhoods that go back to the reconstruction of Hakata by Toyotomi Hideyoshi after the wars of the sixteenth century. Seven nagare each field a kakiyama, and every float is carried by teams from its constituent neighbourhoods who take turns under the carrying poles while running.

Membership is hereditary in practice and demanding: teams train in the evenings, observe rules of conduct during the festival period and wear the festival dress of happi coat and shimekomi loincloth.

The kazariyama go on display on 1 July. In the following days the teams make practice runs and ceremonial runs through Hakata, and on the afternoon of 12 July a timed rehearsal of the full course is held. On 13 July the floats are carried to the Fukuoka side of the river and presented to the city in the Shūdan Yamamise.

The festival ends with the Oiyama at dawn on 15 July. The first float enters the grounds of Kushida Shrine at 4:59 a.m., circles the pole in front of the shrine and then races a course of about five kilometres through Hakata; the others follow at intervals. Each float is timed, and the fastest times are followed closely by the city.

The most intense moment is the Kushida-iri, the entry of each float into the shrine grounds at the start of the Oiyama, before a packed stand of spectators. The team sings the Hakata iwai-uta, a celebratory song, before the first float departs, and the whole run is over in around half an hour. After the race the kakiyama are dismantled the same morning, in keeping with the idea that the floats serve the deity for the festival alone.

The kazariyama can be viewed throughout the first half of July, including a permanent one on display at Kushida Shrine outside festival time. For the dawn Oiyama, spectators line the route through Hakata from the early hours; the stands within Kushida Shrine are allocated in advance. Hakata Station, the terminus of the Sanyō Shinkansen, lies close to the course.