Nabekanmuri Festival

Held every year on May 3 at Chikuma Shrine, located on the shores of Lake Biwa—Japan’s largest lake—the Nabekanmuri Festival is a centuries-old spring celebration. Together with Kyoto’s Uji Agata Festival and Toyama’s Etchu Usaka Butt-Slapping Festival, it is known as one of Japan’s Three Great Bizarre Festivals. This uniquely local tradition is also designated an Intangible Folk Cultural Property by Maibara City in Shiga Prefecture.

The festival dates back over 1,200 years to the Heian period. It is believed to have originated when offerings of earthenware pots—Chikuma’s local specialty—were made alongside food and other gifts to the gods, as the shrine enshrines a deity of food and agriculture. Historical accounts suggest that this area once served as a supply point for food and fish sent to the Imperial Court.

On the day of the festival, about 200 participants dressed in elegant Heian-era attire parade roughly 1 kilometer along the lakeside, accompanying a mikoshi (portable shrine) that carries the deity. The most striking sight is that of 7- to 8-year-old girls dressed in green kariginu and bright red hakama, each wearing a black pot or cauldron on her head made of hariko (a traditional papier-mâché craft). This distinctive image is what gives the festival its “bizarre” reputation.

A truly one-of-a-kind tradition, the Nabekanmuri Festival is a rare chance to witness a living piece of cultural heritage found nowhere else in Japan.