Nachi Fire Festival

Held every 14 July, the Nachi Fire Festival is the grand annual rite of Kumano Nachi Taisha – one of Japan's most revered shrines and part of the UNESCO-listed Kumano Kodo pilgrimage landscape. Its formal name is the Nachi no Ogi Matsuri, or "Fan Festival", and the fire is only half the story. At its heart are twelve tall "fan mikoshi" – portable shrines around six metres high, decorated with mirrors and golden fans and shaped to echo the waterfall behind them. Each represents one of the shrine's twelve deities, and the festival enacts their return, once a year, to the waterfall where the site's worship began. Nachi Waterfall itself, at 133 metres Japan's tallest, is revered as a living deity.

The name "fire festival" comes from the ritual's most dramatic moment. As the fan mikoshi are carried down toward the waterfall, twelve enormous pine torches – each weighing some 50 kilograms – are borne up the narrow stone steps to meet and purify them, robed torch-bearers swinging the flames amid smoke, chanting, and the roar of the crowd. Fire cleansing the path of water: the festival is, at its core, an expression of gratitude for both, and for the blessings of the natural world.

The day builds slowly to that climax. Morning brings quieter rites at the shrine – sacred Yamato-mai dances performed by local children, a symbolic rice-planting rite, and Nachi Dengaku, a ritual dance of flute, drums, and binzasara handed down since the Muromachi period and inscribed on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list. The fire ritual unfolds in the early afternoon, so the morning rites are worth catching too.

Set beside Japan's tallest waterfall and woven into the ancient Kumano pilgrimage trails, it's a festival that stays with you – and worth building a day around, combining it with a walk on the old Kumano Kodo. Viewing space along the steps and at the foot of the waterfall is very limited, so arriving well before the early-afternoon rites is essential.