Mount Chokai dominates the northwestern border of Yamagata Prefecture, one end of a chain of mountains that embraces the Shonai plain. Farmers who grow rice in the fertile fields at its foot have for centuries regarded it as a sacred mountain where gods (kami) dwell. Until around 1869, when government legislation forced religious institutions to make a clear distinction between Buddhism and Shinto, the mountain was under the jurisdiction of a number of communities of shugenja, or yamabushi, adherents of Shugendo, who performed rituals on behalf of pilgrims and guided them in season to the summit. Because Shugendo was characterized by an admixture of Buddhist and Shinto elements, yamabushi were forced by the legislation, in the course of the 1870s, to make a decision whether to become fully ordained Buddhist priests or Shinto priests, or to give up their calling altogether. It was not easy to survive in those difficult times, and only a minority remained priests; those who did preferred to maintain association with their traditional sites, most of which the government decreed to be Shinto, since they were connected with sacred mountains that were generally deemed to be the abode of the kami, and thus Shinto. Temples became shrines or were demolished, and whole communities elected to affiliate themselves to the newly designated shrines by choosing to have Shinto rather than Buddhist funerals.

Below Mount Chokai, on its southern slopes, are two small, today rather sleepy towns, Fukura and Warabioka. In the middle of the nineteenth century though, they were thriving yamabushi settlements at the base of the two main trails from the south to the summit, with clusters of pilgrim lodgings run by yamabushi nestling close to shrine-temple complexes dedicated to the gods of the mountain. Today, nearly 140 years later, very few people remember the Shugendo past, yet in both places fleeting memories remain, particularly in the spring festivals performed in May. These festivals are also fascinating because they clearly retain the traditional pattern of organization based on parishioner groups rather than being dominated by priests and religious organizations. And although the two towns are less than twenty minutes' drive from each other, their festivals are uniquely different. I spent four days in the area in May 2007 and attended both festivals. They are not tourist spectacles but community celebrations, providing the local people with a focus for rites of passage, particularly for children and youths, farmers, fishermen, and shopkeepers in the locality to pray for prosperity in the coming year.

Climbing to the Heavens

Warabioka is a tiny village built on a lower ridge of Mount Chokai overlooking the green plains below. In the past, nearly all of its inhabitants were yamabushi, and even today a large number of houses, mainly strung along the single road that runs in front of the original shrine-temple complex, retain the traditional architecture of pilgrim lodgings called shukubo, with large gates and high sloping thatched roofs. The most important of these are called "----'in," a temple designation adopted by yamabushi in the past. Interestingly, most of the local people have no idea that this has any religious significance and think it is simply a "store name" used by prominent merchant families. May 2, the day before the festival, is very busy for the men of Warabioka, who congregate in the village hall to make the necessary preparations. The most important of these is the long decorated pole called the bonden. In the past, women played only an indirect role in festivals; in some places, they were not even allowed to participate. My friend Kanda-san and I were adopted as honorary males for the occasion and were welcomed to join the men as they prepared the festival apparatus and offerings, attended a dedicatory service conducted by a shrine priest, and then had a celebratory meal with a great deal of sake. The only other women stayed in the small kitchen to organize the food and drink.

The bonden is without question the centerpiece of the festival ritual. Directions for its design and decoration are passed down among the men of Warabioka from year to year. It consists of a long double-bamboo pole to which long white paper streamers are attached at the top. The green bamboos are tied together with rope, and the top two-thirds are covered with white and red cloth, tied in place with white cloth strips and straw cord. The top one-third is further decorated with a multiple layering of hanging white and red cloth, with a rich brocade overlay, on top of which is attached a long tuft of black horsehair. When the bonden is stood upright, this portion is normally hidden. A triangular white fan with a red sun symbol is placed at the very top, above the mass of paper streamers. This decoration is a representation of both male and female elements; its overall shape suggests the male symbol, while the (usually hidden) top section is the female (made apparent particularly through the horsehair). Such male-female symbolism is widespread in Shugendo rituals, and the bonden represents such a survival. But the symbolism of the bonden does not stop there. As we will see in the course of the festival, it is also a cosmic tree, a device by means of which the gods may descend to the ritual site and by which a human being (perhaps a shaman in the past) can penetrate the heavens.

Early next morning, the bonden is carried outside and erected at the entrance of the hall. Meanwhile, the young men of the village begin gathering in the gatehouse of the residence of the former headman, where they change into their festival gear and down large amounts of sake. Three of the youths have been designated pole climbers, but only one will actually climb to the top of the bonden after it has been dragged along the road to stand in front of the shrine gate, in what is the central rite of the whole festival. Their status has already been confirmed in a rite performed earlier that morning in the community hall, in the presence of the mountain kami (Gongen-sama) in the form of a lion, which dances its blessing on the occasion and purifies the participants. The youths wear a short indigo-colored kimono tied with straw rope, white split-toe socks (jikatabi) and straw sandals, with blue and white striped leggings, and a white headband. When all are ready, they erupt out of the gatehouse into the street and make their raucous way, scuffling rather like rugby players in a scrum, bursting wildly in all directions. They are contained by a number of officials carrying long sticks to keep them in order. Everyone is in the best of spirits. A middle-aged man told me that when he was young it was quite usual for there to be a number of injuries among participants, and being injured was considered a matter of pride. In the more safety-conscious present, though, the police have requested restraint, so while the boisterousness continues, it is controlled.

Once the youths arrive at the community hall, six or more ropes are attached to the bonden and it is dragged along the road, precariously balanced in an upright position, supported by men holding long sticks. It is not easy to balance the bonden, as it has no external support such as a trolley to aid the transport. But though it tipped dangerously at times, it was not allowed to fall. When the group arrived at the bottom of the steps to the shrine, they came to a stop, and those holding the ropes tightened them, while a number of men took hold of the base to steady it. Then without warning, one of the youths swarmed to the top, pulling himself up by means of the rope and cloth ties around the trunk of the bonden. This accomplished, the bonden was dragged along again, under the shrine gate and up the stone steps to the area in front of the main shrine building. There it was inserted in a wide round hole that had been dug in preparation, and twirled rapidly clockwise and then counterclockwise by men holding the ends of the ropes, rather like a whirling maypole.

The various rituals involving the bonden have many points in common with the hashiramatsu (pillar-pine) rites that used to be performed all over Japan. In their simplest form, they consisted of two tall brushwood pillars topped with white zigzag streamers (gohei) that were set alight in order to perform divination regarding the year's harvest. Such rites were almost always performed by yamabushi. For example, at Mount Hiko in Kyushu, a yamabushi would climb the pillar, set fire to the gohei, and then cut it off with his sword. Like the saito goma (outdoor goma ritual) of Mount Haguro nearby, fire signified purification of the senses by consuming the passions; villagers, however, may have seen it as a way of subduing the potentially malevolent spirits that were believed to reside in the mountains. And yet, perhaps we can discern an even earlier form in the Warabioka rite, one that does not incorporate fire. Records, again from Mount Hiko, mention that a single tall pillar surmounted with a gohei would be set up at the beginning of a festival. At its conclusion a yamabushi would shinny up and cut off the gohei, without, however, setting it alight. This signified the descent of the kami through the pillar at the beginning of the festival and the send-off of the kami at the end. A further layer of meaning is suggested by the rite of bonden-taoshi performed at the beginning of the Autumn Peak (Akinomine) ritual at Haguro. A bonden of similar shape, but undecorated, has an important phallic meaning; it is rotated three times in three cycles and then thrown up the steps of the temple. This is interpreted as the moment the reborn souls of the yamabushi are conceived, just before they enter the womb of the mountain, where they undergo training that symbolizes ascent through the realms of enlightenment. Another yamabushi dimension is suggested by the possibility of interpreting the physical action of climbing the pole as a kind of gen-kurabe, a test of physical and spiritual strength. At Warabioka, people cannot now explain the meaning of the pole climbing and tend to interpret it simply as confirmation, if successful, of a good harvest that year. Nevertheless, memories of the villages's Shugendo past are there for those who have the knowledge to recognize them.

The Warabioka festival concludes with a series of sacred kagura dances performed by different age-groups--lower primary school, middle primary school, youths, and adults. Formerly only boys could perform, but in recent years the falling numbers of children in general have opened the way for girls to be included, though so far this has occurred only in the youngest age bracket.

Fish and Flowers

Fukura is a small market town and port on the southwestern side of Mount Chokai, and here the kami of the mountain, Omonoimi no mikoto, is regarded as a protector, particularly of fishermen and shopkeepers. Fukura was the site of an important Shugendo shrine-temple complex until 1868, but today there is very little left of the section of the town where the yamabushi used to have their residences. Here, too, the Shugendo past has been erased, yet it continues to live within festival rituals. The Fukura festival is on a much larger scale than Warabioka's and in form follows a standard series of rituals, centered on dedication, procession, and kagura dances. Of particular interest is the existence of rituals that focus on the lay management of the festival, although it takes place completely within a shrine context. In particular, there is a ceremony held on the eve of the festival, May 4, where the responsibility of managing the festival is handed over from the person organizing the current event to the person doing the next year's. Shrine priests make offerings, and then a lion dance is performed to purify the laymen concerned. It is structurally very similar to the dedication ceremony performed at Warabioka the previous day.

That same evening another important rite takes place, an outdoor kagura performance by men wearing elaborate hats decorated with real flowers. The dance is slow and circular. At its conclusion, spectators scramble to secure flowers from the hats. This is a form of spiritual souvenir, but it is probably more accurate to regard the flowers as representing the god of the mountain, brought down by means of the flowers. In this sense, by taking one home, a person has divine protection. The identification of flowers with the god also has Shugendo connotations: the Spring Peak ritual was known in a number of places as the "Flower-Gathering Peak" (Hanaku no Mine). At this time, yamabushi would go into the mountains and bring flowers and grasses back to the shrine-temple. This symbolized the descent of the god of the mountain down to the plains in spring to become the god of the rice paddies.

The chief event on May 5 is the procession, whose long route covers most of the town. Besides the usual mikoshi (portable shrine), there are two distinctive types of participation: young children carrying elaborate flower arrangements or carrying a mikoshi-type fishing-boat model. The participation of young children is centered on three-, five-, and seven-year-olds, so again we can see the festival as a rite of passage.

The fishing-boat mikoshi attests to the close ties Fukura has with the fishing industry. At the end of the procession, just as the boat was about to reenter the shrine gate, it stopped, and fish began flying through the air. People vied to catch them, as if receiving a charm in the form of the bounty of the sea. Modernity, though, had again made its presence felt, since the fish raining down on the enthusiastic crowd were frozen and prepacked.

The final portion of the festival was, as at Warabioka, a kagura performance of a distinctive type of dance called bangaku. The final dance was performed by men wearing hats brightly decorated with red paper flowers. To acquire one of these flowers was the object of many of those who had come to watch, and the competition was so rough that shrine officials divided us, letting only a limited number of people into the roped-off area near the stage. These were the hardcore "collectors," who knew from past experience the best place to stand to catch flowers or to pull them off discarded hats. Luckily I was adopted by a couple of veterans and stood with them in a favorable place. Still, when the moment came when the hats were thrown into the crowd, the pushing and shoving was severe. Nevertheless, I acquired a flower, which I brought back to Tokyo as a souvenir of my journey. Perhaps I, too, was taking one of the gods of Mount Chokai back to the city.