The October 21st and 28th issues of Jinja Shinpō included numerous articles on harvest matsuri and the related Kan’namësai, a matsuri celebrated at Isë Jingū.
The harvest matsuri are called “nukiho” or “nuiho” matsuri. Both readings are written the same way, with characters that mean “pull out rice”, and this may mean that the origins of the tradition go back to before rice was harvested with sickles. Whatever may be the truth of that, sickles are used now.
Nukiho matsuri are carried out at the actual rice field, with the kami called to a himorogi at the edge, a norito read, and tamagushi offered. People then go into the field to harvest rice by hand, with sickles. Traditionally, women do this, dressed as “saotomë”, in short kimono that are deep blue with white patterns and red accessories. (This newspaper article in the Chūnichi Shinbun is from a couple of years ago, but has a photograph. The details of the costumes do vary by region.) They are, these days, often helped by men and children, who are more often not dressed up.
Nukiho matsuri are only performed today when the rice is being harvested for a special purpose. This may be to offer it to particular jinja, including Isë Jingū, and this seems to be something that the young priests in some prefectures organise. It might also be to harvest rice for the Tennō’s autumn matsuri, the Niinamësai, which is held in November, and which I might write about then. This seems to be centrally organised, although I do not know the details. It could also be simply to give local children the opportunity to experience the rice harvest, which is an important part of traditional Japanese culture but not part of contemporary daily life.
Quite a few of the articles mentioned offering rice for the Kan’namësai at Isë Jingū. This is the most important annual matsuri at Jingū, at which newly harvested rice is offered to the kami at both the Outer and Inner Sanctuaries. The offering is performed twice at each jinja. The first matsuri is at 10 pm on October 15th, at the Outer Sanctuary (Toyoukë Dajingū), and the second is at 2 am on October 16th, at the same place. During the day on the 16th, an Imperial envoy makes offerings at the Outer Sanctuary, and sacred dance is performed there. Then, at 10 pm on the 16th, the matsuri is performed at the Inner Sanctuary (Kōtaijingū), and then again at 2 am on the 17th, at the same place. Offerings are made and sacred dance performed at the Inner Sanctuary during the day on the 17th.
During the Kan’namësai, bundles of rice stalks with full ears of rice are hung on the fences surrounding the sanctuaries, as offerings, and one of these bundles is of rice sown, planted, and harvested by the Tennō himself. The others are offered from across the country, and some of them come from the fields where nukiho matsuri have been held.
The Kan’namësai is central to the ritual year at Jingū, and the twenty-yearly Shikinen Sengū, when the sanctuaries are rebuilt, was originally part of the Kan’namësai: the first matsuri was performed at the old sanctuary, the kami was moved, and the second was performed at the new. I have a vague memory that the matsuri did not always happen like this, and when the Shikinen Sengū was restarted in the late sixteenth century after the civil wars, it was definitively moved to a different date. Even so, this is a good example of how important rice agriculture is to Shinto ritual.