Mifune Festival

The Mifune Matsuri is the grand annual festival of Kumano Hayatama Taisha in Shingu - the head shrine of the thousands of Kumano shrines across Japan, and one of the three grand shrines of the Kumano Sanzan. The festival is designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Japan.

The festival unfolds over two days. On the 15th, the Shinme Togyo takes place, in which the spirit of the deity is carried on a sacred horse in procession to the otabisho, a temporary resting place for the god.

The second day, the 16th, brings the festival's centrepiece and namesake. A sacred palanquin and a divine boat cross the Kumano River toward Mifune Island, and it is here that the event's most thrilling spectacle takes place: the Hayabune Kyoso, a dramatic boat race in which nine fast boats, each crewed by rowers from a local district, surge up the river and race around the island. For the people of Shingu, this is the emotional high point of the whole festival - and the reason it is popularly known as the Mifune Matsuri, the "boat festival".

As evening falls, the celebrated otabisho rite is performed by torchlight, closing the great festival amid the glow of flame along the riverbank. Rooted in more than a thousand years of tradition, the Mifune Matsuri remains a source of deep local pride, its boat crews training for weeks to carry a living heritage down the sacred waters of the Kumano River.