Girls became leading roles in the Himi Gion Festival. The first case in its 300-year history [25-year ago today]

 

Before the festival on the 13th, for the first time in its 300-year history since the mid-Edo period, elementary school girls will play the star roles in the parade of the Gion Festival, a well-known festival in Himi City, Toyama Prefecture.

 

Due to the declining birthrate, residents could not secure only boys for the leading roles, which required ten people containing reserves. Of the ten needed, four boys and six girls became the roles.

Q. Is the Gion Festival also held in Himi?

When it comes to the Gion Festival, Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto is famous, but in the middle of the Edo period, to dispel an epidemic prevalent in Himi Town, a branch of the Gion god was welcomed from Yasaka Shrine and enshrined at Hiyoshi and Hinomiya Shrines in the center of Himi.

 

As an expression of gratitude after the epidemic subsided, the Gion God was transferred to portable shrines, and a parade was held through the town in imitation of the Gion Festival in Kyoto.

 

Every year, in the district of the beginning place of the festival, parade cars with drums stroll through the town together with the portable shrines.

参考
富山新聞
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