Intangible Folk Cultural Properties Requiring Documentation of Japan

Shimonagaiso no Shikisanban is an exceptionally rare folk performing art preserved at the Inari Shrine in Shimonagaiso-machi, Maebashi City, Gunma Prefecture. This tradition recreates the most sacred Noh ritual dance, the Shikisanban (Okina), through two-person puppet manipulation. Featuring puppets dating to 1780 and ancient ritual practices such as ceremonial processions, it is designated as a nationally selected and prefecturally designated cultural property. The performance is held annually on the third Sunday of April.

Ato Kagura is a sacred torimono dance tradition passed down at Ato Myōjin Shrine in Hiroshima City. Belonging to the Yakami branch of Iwami Kagura within the Izumo school lineage, it preserves twelve ritual pieces. The final piece, Shōgun, features a rare surviving oracle-trance tradition. It was selected as a nationally recognized folk cultural property requiring documentation in 1980.

Witness the Otō at Kui Inari Shrine in Mihara, Hiroshima — a 1,000-year-old autumn rite preserving Japan's medieval miyaza tradition almost unchanged from a 1598 manuscript, with sacred bream and new-rice sweet sake.

Shinjo no Hayashida in Kitahiroshima Town, Hiroshima Prefecture, is a spectacular traditional rice planting ceremony featuring decorated oxen, colorfully dressed planting maidens, and centuries-old folk songs accompanied by drums and bells. Designated as a National Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1997, this living tradition preserves the same communal planting rituals depicted in medieval Japanese scroll paintings. Held every second Sunday of May, the event is free and open to all visitors.

In Shiohara, Hiroshima, a rice planting held every four years honors working oxen and horses. Decorated oxen pass a ritual gateway where a priest and monk pray.

Hayashida is a traditional sacred rice planting ritual passed down in Akitakata City, Hiroshima Prefecture. Accompanied by taiko drums, flutes, and gongs, costumed saotome maidens plant seedlings while singing centuries-old planting songs to honor Sanbai, the deity of the rice fields. Designated as a Hiroshima Prefecture Intangible Folk Cultural Property, this living heritage event features decorated cattle plowing the paddies, colorful processions, and Shinto ceremonies — offering visitors an authentic glimpse into Japan's ancient agricultural traditions every May and June.

Hiba Kojin Kagura is a sacred torimono kagura performed in the Tojo and Saijo areas of Shobara City, Hiroshima Prefecture, designated as an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1979. Rooted in medieval communal land-based worship of the ancestral deity Motoyama Sanpo Kojin, this extraordinary ritual preserves the rare practice of takusen (divine oracles through spirit possession) and distinctive ceremonial elements such as hai-kagura (ash kagura), making it invaluable to Japanese performing arts history.

Discover Honji no Hanagasa Odori, a spectacular folk dance preserved in Kitahiroshima Town, Hiroshima Prefecture, where male performers wearing towering 1.5-meter flower hats and women's clothing perform an elegant drum dance rooted in a Sengoku-era military legend. Learn about this nationally selected intangible folk cultural property and its twenty-four-piece repertoire.

On Hassaku night, Miyajima families set handmade lantern-lit boats adrift from Itsukushima Shrine toward the mainland farms of Ōno — a folk rite selected by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs for documentation in 2009.

The Enko Festival, held each June along the Ushirokawa River in Nankoku City, Kochi Prefecture, is a rare folk ritual where children build riverside shrines of sweet flag leaves and offer cucumbers and sake to appease a kappa-like water spirit called Enko, praying for safety from drowning.

Hongawa Kagura is an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property performed in the remote Hongawa district of Ino Town, Kochi Prefecture. For approximately five centuries since 1523, at the foot of the sacred Mount Ishizuchi, masked gods have descended from the darkness in a night-long ritual dance performed on shrine stages. Eighteen pieces including purification dances, mythological dramas, and acrobatic sword and halberd dances preserve some of Japan's most archaic kagura traditions.

Ōshiraki no Inoko-sama is a traditional rice harvest celebration in the Ōshiraki district of Karatsu City, Saga Prefecture. Children wearing umbrella-shaped straw coverings called Waratobi visit homes chanting 'Tōbi Tobi Toi Toi Toi,' blessing the harvest and praying for children's growth. Designated as an Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 2023.

The Dengaku of Shirohige Shrine, performed annually on October 18-19 in Saga City, is the only surviving dengaku in Saga Prefecture and a nationally designated Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property. This rare chigo dengaku features beautifully costumed boys performing graceful ritual dances passed down since medieval times.

Held every January at Takezaki Kanzeonji Temple in Tara Town, Saga Prefecture, this nationally designated Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property features loincloth-clad young men battling to prevent the reunion of two legendary demon spirits. With its unique children's sacred dance, strict youth guild traditions, and ritual forms preserved since the medieval period, this winter festival offers an extraordinary window into Japan's living folk heritage.

Designated as an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Japan, the Yobuko Great Tug-of-War is held every June in Yobuko, Karatsu City, Saga Prefecture. Originating from Toyotomi Hideyoshi's campaigns, the town divides into two teams to pull a 200-meter rope, with the outcome foretelling bountiful harvests or abundant catches.

A group of coastal festivals in Mie that stage whaling. Northern towns parade carved boat floats on land, while Kumano's Kajika rows a real boat out to sea.

Matsusaka cotton won old Edo with its fine indigo stripe, woven by customs recorded nationally in 1981. A guide to the craft and trying a hand loom yourself.

In Shinjo City, Yamagata, seven solo dancers in long curtains embody the Japanese serow, not the usual deer, a rarity among shishi dances performed each August.

Each February, amateur villagers in Sakata perform kabuki on a roofless stage as snow falls, a winter offering to Hie Shrine and a national folk cultural property.

A masked yamabushi dance on three August nights at Kumano Shrine in Yuza, Yamagata, Sugisawa Hiyama preserves forms older than Noh and is a national treasure.

The complete kokuhō catalogue — browse by prefecture, period, and category.

Nationwide jūyō bunkazai — architecture, sculpture, painting, crafts, and documents.

UNESCO-inscribed cultural and natural sites across the archipelago.