Karatsu Kunchi is a Japanese festival that takes place annually in the city of Karatsu

Karatsu, Saga

is a city located in Saga Prefecture on the island of Kyūshū, Japan. Its name, formed from the Japanese word roots 唐 kara , and 津 tsu , signifies its historical importance as an ancient trading port between Japan with China and Korea...

, Saga Prefecture

Saga Prefecture

is located in the northwest part of the island of Kyūshū, Japan. It touches both the Sea of Japan and the Ariake Sea. The western part of the prefecture is a region famous for producing ceramics and porcelain, particularly the towns of Karatsu, Imari, and Arita...

, on Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

's island of Kyūshū

Kyushu

is the third largest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands. Its alternate ancient names include , , and . The historical regional name is referred to Kyushu and its surrounding islands....

.

About

The festival, which begins on the evening of November 2 and concludes on the 4th, features daily parades of fourteen hikiyama, massive floats in the form of samurai

Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...

 helmets, sea bream, dragon

Dragon

A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...

s, and other fantastical creatures, all constructed from wood, lacquer, and other materials. It is the major event of the Karatsu calendar, regularly drawing crowds of anywhere between 150,000 to 500,000 people from the surrounding area over the course of the three day holiday.

Each float — which stand between five and six meters, and which weigh anywhere from two to five ton

Ton

The ton is a unit of measure. It has a long history and has acquired a number of meanings and uses over the years. It is used principally as a unit of weight, and as a unit of volume. It can also be used as a measure of energy, for truck classification, or as a colloquial term.It is derived from...

s — is drawn through the streets of the city by teams of bearers selected from families living in the fourteen traditional neighborhoods of Karatsu, to the chant of "En-ya! En-ya! En-ya!"(or"Yoi-sa! Yoi-sa! Yoi-sa!") and the music of taiko

Taiko

means "drum" in Japanese . Outside Japan, the word is often used to refer to any of the various Japanese drums and to the relatively recent art-form of ensemble taiko drumming...

 drummers and flutists perched on the floats' base. The event, which is coordinated by the local Shinto shrine

Jinja (Shinto)

A Shinto shrine is a structure whose main purpose is to house one or more Shinto kami....

 (near which the floats are stored during the rest of the year), has been held for several centuries now; the current incarnations of the floats were constructed between 1819 and 1876. In 1980, the festival was designated an "Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property".

List of hikiyama

• • 1 red lion (赤[獅子) Katana-machi（　1819）　
  • 2 blue(green) lion (中町の青獅子) Naka-machi（1824）
  • 3 Turtle and fisherman Urashima Taro
    Urashima Taro
    is a Japanese legend about a fisherman who rescues a turtle and is rewarded for this with a visit to Ryūgū-jō, the palace of Ryūjin, the Dragon God, under the sea...
    
     (カメと浦島太郎) Zaimoku-machi（1841）

  ※It was not Urashima Taro

  Urashima Taro

  is a Japanese legend about a fisherman who rescues a turtle and is rewarded for this with a visit to Ryūgū-jō, the palace of Ryūjin, the Dragon God, under the sea...

  
   but a Gemstone on the Turtle when it was first build.

  • 4 Helmet of Samurai Miyamoto Yoshitsune  (源義経の兜) Gofuku-mach（1844）
  • 5 sea bream (鯛) Uoya-machi（1845）
  • 6 phoenix-shaped ship (鳳凰丸) Oishi-machi（1846）
  • 7 flying dragon (飛龍) Shin-machi（1846）
  • 8 golden lion (金獅子)Hom-machi（1847）
  • 9 Helmet of Samurai Takeda Shingen (武田信玄の兜) Kiwata-machi（1864）
  • 10 Helmet of Samurai Uesugi Kenshin (上杉謙信の兜) Hirano-machi（1869）
  • 11 drunken monster ogre and the helmet of Samurai Minamoto Yorimitsu (酒呑童子と源頼光の兜)（1869）
  • 12 lion grabbing a ball (珠取獅子) Kyo-machi（1875）
  • 13 tiger-headed orca (鯱) Kako-machi（1876）
  • 14 dragon-headed ship (七宝丸) Egawa-machi（1876）
  • disappear :black lion(黒獅子) Konya-machi

Food and culture

During the Karatsu Kunchi many families, and mostly the women of these families, will spend tireless hours preparing food for the visitors that will come day and night and into the early morning hours. This is a regular practice.