Tanegashima Homan Shrine's Rice Planting Festival

Planting Red Rice in the Sacred Field

The Tanegashima Homan Shrine's Rice Planting Festival (種子島宝満神社の御田植祭) is a rice-planting rite at Homan Shrine in Kukinaga, Minamitane Town, Kumage District, Kagoshima Prefecture, where seedlings of red rice are planted in the sacred field to pray for a good harvest, which in 2016 was designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs classifies it as a custom.

The Agency explains that seedlings of a reddish rice, called akagome or oini, are planted in the shrine's sacred field.

The Rite

According to the Agency, the rite begins on a small hill beside the field, the Ota no Mori, where red rice seedlings and other offerings are presented in prayer and the seedlings are handed out.

Planting in the sacred field, the osemachi, follows, carried out solemnly by men alone to planting songs and drums. Then, in a triangular field beside it called the funada, a married couple from the parish performs a planting dance holding seedlings in both hands, and plants them.

A closing feast offers rice balls of the previous year's red rice; eating them is said to keep one well for a year.

What to Look For

The Kagoshima Shrine Association says Homan Shrine enshrines Tamayorihime. Red rice is grown without fertiliser by the shrine's caretakers, eaten as rice balls only at the planting and harvest thanksgiving rites, and the rest kept as seed.

The association adds that because red rice grows taller with firmer stems than other rice, the place was named Kukinaga, long stem, and that the shrine's traditions call Tanegashima the birthplace of rice farming in Japan.

Visiting the Tanegashima Homan Shrine's Rice Planting Festival

The Kagoshima Shrine Association gives the date as 5 April. Dates may vary, so check in advance with Minamitane Town or the shrine.

Planting in the sacred field is a rite performed by men alone; be careful not to disturb it.