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A 'Naked Festival' is a type of Japanese festival, or matsuri, in which participants wear a minimum amount of clothing; usually just a fundoshi loincloth, sometimes with a short happi coat, and rarely completely Nudity.
Naked festivals are held in dozens of places throughout Japan every year, usually in the February or November.
For a three-day period, the men who enter the area first purify their bodies in a hall located near the shrine. At five in the morning each day, they strip naked at a sacred well and douse themselves with the freezing water as they offer prayers: their own, their friends’ and their family members'. During this period, their diet consists of locally harvested hakusai cabbage and daikon radish, along with white rice steamed in well water.
On the first night, the participants, in loincloths, perform a ritual ceremony evoking rice farming. Drums beat in a representing thunder and clouds and the participants move in procession in circles, praying for rain. Then they collide together in a mock cavalry battle while crying "Yoisa!" to represent plowing by farm horses. They then pick up and drop tatami mats evoking rice seedling planting, while singing planting songs. The ritual ceremony ends with prayers for a bountiful rice farming year.
On the second day, in the nude, they pound mochi rice into cakes to offer to the gods. In another room, elders turn vegetables into male and female forms to be offered to the gods.
On the third day, from three in the morning, yama-gake begins. Participants wear tenugui (hand towel) head coverings and a white costume looking like ritual dolls, then ascend the mountain. They then stand in front of a shrine and listen to a bell rung to purify their hearts. A noriwara (an hereditary oracle) is then possessed by the gods and foretells the weather and the coming harvest.
This ceremony is the origin of the hadaka-matsuri, in which participants purify their bodies in preparation for contact with the gods.
The men participating wear only a loincloth named a fundoshi, and socks named tabi.
The festival has been regarded as off-limits to women since it was first held in the town about 1,250 years ago, but organisers have allowed a group of about 40 women to take part on 22 February 2024
On the 3rd Saturday in February, for the past 500 years, the Saidaiji Temple near Okayama city has celebrated Hadaka Matsuri
Every third weekend of September, for Ohara Hadaka Matsuri in Ohara, Chiba Prefecture, bearers of mikoshi, mostly dressed in a simple loincloth, and spectators pray for big harvests and good fishing.
The Somin Shōrai legend is the inspiration for the Somin Festival (蘇民祭 Somin-sai) held in various places within Iwate Prefecture, the most famous of which being the one held every February at Kokuseki-ji Temple in Ōshū City. In this festival, hundreds of half-naked men compete to grab the 'Somin bag' (蘇民袋 Somin-bukuro), which is said to bring good fortune.
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