Karatsu Kunchi


Karatsu Kunchi is a Japanese matsuri that takes place annually in November in the city of Karatsu, Saga Prefecture, on Japan's island of Kyūshū.
WWW karatsu-jinja.org/kunti

About

The event takes place on 2-4 November, when the 3rd is a national holiday in Japan called Culture Day. It is the major event of the Karatsu calendar, regularly drawing crowds of anywhere between 150,000 and 500,000 people from the surrounding area over the course of the event.
The festival features daily parades of fourteen hikiyama, massive floats in the form of samurai helmets, sea bream, dragons, and other fantastical creatures, all constructed from wood, lacquer, and other materials. Each float — which stand between five and six meters, and which weigh anywhere from two to five tons — 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!" and the music of taiko drummers and flutists perched on the floats' base.
The event, which is coordinated by the local Shinto shrine, 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''

Includes the name of the float, the district it represents, and its construction date:
  1. The Red lion built by the Katana-machi district
  2. The Green lion built by the Naka-machi district
  3. The Turtle and Urashima Taro by the Zaimoku-machi district
  4. *It was not Taro originally but a gem on the turtle when it was first built.
  5. Samurai Minamoto Yoshitsune's Kabuto by Gofuku-machi
  6. The Sea bream by Uoya-machi
  7. The Phoenix-shaped ship by Oishi-machi
  8. The Flying dragon by Shin-machi
  9. The Golden lion by Hom-machi
  10. Takeda Shingen's Kabuto ' by Kiwata-machi
  11. Uesugi Kenshin's Kabuto ' by Hirano-machi
  12. The Drunken ogre on Minamoto Yorimitsu's Kabuto
  13. The Lion on an orb by Kyo-machi
  14. The Tiger-headed orca by Kako-machi
  15. The Boat of seven treasures by Egawa-machi
  16. Disappeared: The black lion by Konya-machi