Kawagoe Hikawa Festival Float Event

Kawagoe Hikawa Festival Float Event

For two days each October, the streets of Kawagoe in Saitama Prefecture fill with wooden floats that rise to the height of the black-plastered storehouses lining the route. These are the dashi of the Kawagoe Hikawa Festival, towering two-tiered structures built around a single central pillar, each crowned with a large figure of a deity or legendary hero. The Kawagoe Hikawa Festival Float Event (Kawagoe Hikawa-sai no Dashi Gyoji) is the float procession that accompanies the autumn grand festival of Hikawa Shrine, the guardian shrine of the old castle town.

The national government designated the event an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property on February 21, 2005. In December 2016 it was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as one component of the grouped listing "Yama, Hoko and Yatai float festivals in Japan."

The festival is held on the third Saturday and Sunday of October. It is governed by Hikawa Shrine's annual grand rite, traditionally observed on October 14, from which two further events flow: the shinkosai, a procession of the shrine's portable shrine through the parish, and the float event itself.

A festival shaped by Edo

Kawagoe grew as a castle town northwest of Edo, close enough that the two places were in constant contact. Goods and fashions travelled between them along the Shingashi River boat route, and the merchant houses of Kawagoe accumulated real wealth from that trade.

The festival's recorded origin is 1648 (Keian 1), when Matsudaira Nobutsuna, then lord of Kawagoe Domain, donated a portable shrine, lion heads, and drums to Hikawa Shrine and encouraged the townspeople to hold a festival. From 1651 a formal procession began moving through the parish districts, with residents walking in attendance. That rite is regarded as the beginning of the Kawagoe Festival.

The float tradition came later. In 1698 (Genroku 11), Takazawacho, one of the ten core districts, presented a dancing stage in imitation of the festivals of Edo. Dancing stages were then the fashionable centrepiece of Edo's celebrations, and Kawagoe absorbed each new trend as it arrived upriver. By 1844 (Tenpo 15) the ten districts had standardized their floats into the single-pillar form, with a figure displayed above the railing. That form is recorded in a votive painting of the festival from the same year.

The grand festivals of Edo, the Sanno Festival of Hie Shrine and the Kanda Festival of Kanda Myojin, were known as tenka matsuri, festivals patronized at the highest level. Kawagoe's celebration developed under their influence while taking on features of its own. The procession of Edo-type floats and the presence of dance-accompanied music on the floats are the local characteristics that set it apart.

Why it was designated

The official designation places the event under the category of customs and practices, specifically festivals and religious observances. The cited standard recognizes practices that represent, in origin and content, a typical and fundamental feature of the everyday culture of the Japanese people.

Float-centred festivals of the yama, hoko and yatai type are found across Japan and have developed in many directions. Kawagoe's value lies in what it preserves of the urban festivals of Edo. The capital's own grand festivals changed greatly over time and lost much of their old form, so a provincial town that grew under Edo's influence, and kept the style alive, became important for understanding how Japanese city festivals evolved. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the event as significant both for tracing that history and for comparison with float festivals nationwide.

The floats, the music, and the encounter

The Kawagoe float is known as the Edo-Kawagoe type. It is built on a wheeled base, either four-wheeled or three-wheeled, set on a platform called the seigodai. Above this rises a two-tiered lantern-box frame. The upper section and the figure at the top are mounted on a lifting mechanism, so they can be raised and lowered like an elevator. This allows a tall float to pass beneath low obstacles and then extend to full height in open space.

At the front of each float is a music platform. A hayashi ensemble performs here, with one dancer, one flute, two small drums, one large drum, and one hand gong. Three schools of festival music are common in the city: the Ozo, the Shibakanasugi, and the Tsutsumizaki. All descend from the festival music of Edo. The dances that accompany the music include the auspicious sanbaso, the white-fox figure, and the comic modoki.

On the first day, each district pulls its float through its own streets, and at some point makes a visit to the shrine. The float is halted facing the shrine gate and its figure is raised. District officers receive a purification rite before the hall of worship, the float is purified in turn, and a shrine talisman is carried back and displayed on the float.

The moment most visitors come to see is the hikkawase. When two floats meet at a crossing, they are turned to face each other at close range, and their ensembles play in competition. Lanterns are lifted high, voices rise, and the encounter can hold a junction for many minutes. After dark, when the floats are lit from within and the crowds are at their thickest, the hikkawase reaches its peak.

Planning a visit

The festival takes place across the third Saturday and Sunday of October, with float pulling and hikkawase occurring throughout both days and a concentrated float gathering held in front of the city hall on the second afternoon. Dates and detailed timings are published each year on the official festival website, so it is worth checking before travelling.

Roads through the central districts are closed to traffic during the festival, and the crowds are very large; in recent years attendance has run into the hundreds of thousands over the two days. Train travel is strongly recommended. Kawagoe is reached from Ikebukuro in about 30 minutes by Tobu Tojo Line express, and Honkawagoe Station is about 44 minutes from Seibu-Shinjuku by limited express on the Seibu Shinjuku Line.

If your trip does not fall in October, the Kawagoe Festival Museum keeps the tradition accessible year-round. Two genuine festival floats are on display and rotated periodically, a short film of the festival is screened, and music ensembles perform on Sundays and holidays. The museum stands within the warehouse district at 2-1-10 Motomachi. Opening hours are 9:30 to 18:30 from April to September and 9:30 to 17:30 from October to March, with last admission half an hour before closing. It is closed on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month and over the New Year period. Admission is 300 yen for adults and 100 yen for elementary and junior high school students.

Around the festival route

The procession runs through the part of Kawagoe known as Koedo, or "Little Edo," and the setting is as much a draw as the floats. The main street is lined with kurazukuri merchant houses, thick-walled clay storehouses that survived a major fire in 1893 and now form a protected townscape. Rising above them is the Toki no Kane, a wooden bell tower that has marked the hours for the town across several rebuildings.

A short walk away is Kashiya Yokocho, a lane of traditional confectioners selling sweets and snacks. Hikawa Shrine itself, the source of the festival, sits a little north of the warehouse district and is known for its summer wind-chime displays. The reconstructed Honmaru Goten of Kawagoe Castle, one of the few surviving castle palace buildings in the Kanto region, lies nearby and can be combined with the festival museum on a single combination ticket.