Gods, Myths, and Heroes - Part 72

Hakada Matsuri

Hadaka Matsuri is the Japanese Naked Festival, a time-honored festival in the Shinto religion that is held in many places around Japan.  Depending on the location, it may be held in February or November.  Participants wear only a fundoshi (loincloth) and tabi (socks).

Part of the festival is a ritual for getting rid of bad luck.  In Japan, it is considered unlucky for a man to be age 25 or 42, so many men aged 25 and 42 participate.

One man is chosen as shin-otoko (God man).  The chosen man is not lucky.  He is literally unlucky.  His purpose is to draw bad luck from everyone else.  He is 42 years old, or 25 if no 42-year-olds can be found.  Sometimes the shin-otoko is completely naked (above).  He is carried through the crowd.  The belief is that if you touch him, your bad luck will be transferred from you to him.

The shin-otoko is mobbed by the crowd of nearly-naked participants trying to touch him, so he is accompanied by attendants who throw buckets of cold water to try to ward off the mob (above).  Remember that this happens in February or November in Japan, when it is very cold.

Above, the men in the crowd are jostling to try to touch the shin-otoko before he is carried into the Konomiya shrine in Inazawa.

We end with a short video of the naked shin-otoko being dragged into the Konomiya shrine.  Drenched with cold water or not, they try to touch him.  In fact, they try to hit him, because they believe that the harder they hit him, the more bad luck will be transferred to him.

In the olden days, after the shin-otoko had received everyone's bad luck, he was driven out of the village.  Nowadays, the Shinto priests perform a special ceremony to cleanse him.  He ends up covered in bruises from being touched and hit.  So, even if you don't believe in the Shinto religion, you have to admit that it's unlucky to be the shin-otoko.