Karo Nakizumo Festival (Crying Baby Sumo)

Home >> Documentary >> Matsuri >> Karo Nakizumo Festival (Crying Baby Sumo)

On the northern edge of Tottori City, where the Sendai River meets the Sea of Japan, sits the unassuming fishing village of Karo. Like many coastal villages in this part of Japan, fishing accounts for a sizable portion of the local economy, with crab and squid being the best-known and most lucrative catches. And, like many fishing villages both in Japan and around the world, the people of Karo are hardy and resilient as a result of living and working in close proximity to nature.

Though modest in size and humble in appearance, Karo has a long and storied history and boasts of some unique customs and traditions, including several unusual matsuri that are a source of immense pride to the village’s inhabitants. 

One noteworthy and unorthodox local matsuri is the annual Nakizumo festival, during which the usually tranquil surroundings of Karo Shrine are disrupted by the wails of babies accompanied by the gentle laughter of their parents. In Nakizumo, which translates as “crying baby sumo”, sumo wrestlers attempt to make children cry in the belief that it will help them become stronger and bring them greater fortune in life. Held annually in the autumn, approximately 120 babies from Tottori prefecture and beyond participate in the festival.

The History of Karo Shrine & Sumo in Tottori

Sitting atop a hill overlooking the local harbour, with its quays lined with small trawlers and old squidding boats, Karo Shrine is located at both the physical and spiritual centre of the village. Although the exact date of its foundation is unknown, historical documents show that Karo Shrine has served this community for more than 1,100 years (a record in the Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku indicates its existence from 861 to 878 AD).¹Chronicling the mythology and history of Japan from the earliest times until 887 AD, the Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku is an officially commissioned Japanese history text, and the sixth and final text in the Rikkokushi series. Historical remnants from more recent times include the crest of the Ikeda clan – the ruling clan of the Tottori domain during the Edo period – which adorns several buildings on the grounds of the shrine and surrounding area.

The indigenous religion of Japan is Shintoism, and Shinto shrines, such as Karo Shrine, are believed to house one or more kami or gods. The five deities enshrined at Karo Shrine are Oyamazumi, Kibi no Makibi, Sarutahiko, Konohanasakuya Hime and Takemikazuchi.

In the books Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, Takemikazuchi appears as a god of thunder and a sword god. According to legend, Takemikazuchi is believed to have competed in the first ever sumo wrestling match. Together with the Kojiki, the Nihon Shoki (which means “Chronicles of Japan”) comprises the oldest official history of Japan, covering the period from its mythical origins to 697 AD. Nowadays, Takemikazuchi is regarded as a god of heroism, martial arts and sports. Consequently, local athletes and high school students occasionally come to pray for victory at Karo Shrine, although this practice is becoming less and less common in the modern era.

Karo Shrine has long been associated with the most ancient of Japanese martial arts, sumo wrestling, which during the Edo period (1603–1868) was particularly popular in the Inaba province (today the eastern part of Tottori Prefecture). 

Until the mid-Showa period (1926–1989), local youths participated in sumo wrestling matches at Karo, and it is said that spectators gathered from all over the country to watch tournaments at the shrine. This tradition continued at Karo Shrine until the beginning of WW2 but declined thereafter due to a decrease in the number of local youth wrestlers.

Tottori prefecture itself has produced many champion wrestlers, including the sport’s 53rd Yokozuna (the highest rank in sumo wrestling), Kotozakura Masakatsu, who was born in nearby Kurayoshi. In various parts of Tottori prefecture, commemorative memorials are still built in honour of great wrestlers. In Karo, you can visit memorials dedicated to 17 wrestlers, including Yamanoi Washinosuke, Yamatogawa Tokugoro, and Hibiki Nada Sakugoro at nearby Tozenji Temple.

The Karo Nakizumo Festival

Remnants of sumo heritage persist at Karo Shrine in the form of local youth wrestling matches held during the Karo autumn festival and, more unusually, in the form of the Nakizumo (“Baby Crying Sumo”) festival held at Karo Shrine since 1989.

Though Karo’s Nakizumo festival is a relatively recent addition to Karo’s annual community events, Nakizumo has been practiced in other parts of Japan for centuries. Perhaps the best-known Nakizumo festival in Japan is held at Sensoji Temple in the Asakusa district of Tokyo. For more than 400 years, the Sensoji Nakizumo festival has attracted thousands of spectators, including both Japanese residents and tourists alike.

Across Japan, as young people increasingly move from their rural hometowns to bigger cities in search of better pay and other amenities, many traditional festivals have struggled to survive. However, Nakizumo has not been similarly impacted. In fact, the Karo Nakizumo is so popular that parents must register their children’s participation in advance.

Nakizumo festivals are held in the belief that crying babies will grow to be healthy and strong and have prosperous futures – especially so if the crying is long and loud. This originates from the Japanese proverb “naku ko wa sodatsu”, meaning “crying babies grow fast”. In ancient Japan, the sound of babies crying was also believed to ward off evil spirits. As a result, it is believed that there are multiple benefits to participating in Nakizumo.

The Rules of the Contest

The matches take place on the consecrated ground of Karo Shrine’s outdoor dohyo – the traditional sumo tournament ring. The two kanji characters for dohyo (土俵) translate as clay and rice straw bales, the two materials the dohyo is traditionally constructed from. In order to take part in the contest, babies must have been born in the previous year – although this rule does seem somewhat flexible.

On the day of the festival, each infant is paired with a novice sumo wrestler, whose job is to raise the babies high into the air to induce crying. Put simply, whichever baby cries first is declared victorious. In the instance that both babies start crying simultaneously, the baby who cries the loudest and the longest is crowned the winner.

Unfortunately (and perhaps a little comically), due to a noticeable lack of sumo wrestlers currently based in Karo, the men playing the role of the sumo are not real sumo wrestlers but instead are affable, middle-aged conscripts from the local community wearing traditional sumo loincloths known as mawashi. The contest is officiated by a sumo referee called a gyoji, who wears bright blue traditional robes that denote his rank. He signals the start of each match with a wooden fan.

In each match, two babies face off. First, parents hand over their babies to the sumo wrestlers, who carry the children into the dohyo. The wrestlers then hold the pair of dueling children while facing each other in the center of the dohyo. When the gyoji gives the command with a swish of his fan, the children are quickly hoisted into the air. This unexpected action is meant to make their baby cry before its opponent. If the babies are unmoved by this effort after four seconds – or worse yet, find the whole thing amusing or fall asleep – the gyoji will intervene and attempt to coax them into a state of distress without being completely cruel. 

One method to induce crying is for the referee to goad the babies by chanting repeatedly “Naki naki”, which translates as “Cry! Cry!”, into their faces. Meanwhile, the sumo wrestlers may gently raise and lower the participating babies to elicit some kind of emotional reaction. Once the babies begin crying, they are held up high so that their cries will be closer to heaven, which further strengthens the blessing. The gyoji then shouts “Hakkeyoi”, a phrase shouted by a sumo referee when both rikishi (wrestlers) have finished competing.

Though this may seem like a cruel, unusual and unnecessary thing to force babies to endure, the atmosphere of the event is wholesome and lighthearted and seems to cause only a minimal amount of distress to the children involved. Of course, if the old proverbs are true, then the babies that experience this kind of peculiar early childhood trauma will ultimately face a long, healthy life ahead. So it can be argued that the positives effects of participation outweigh the negatives!

To view other photo-essays from the “Matsuri” photography project, click here.

All images copyright © Thaddeus Pope. All rights reserved.

Thaddeus Pope

Documentary Photographer

Based in Japan, Thaddeus Pope is a photographer, videographer and web/print designer with a passion for human-centred visual storytelling. He is available for assignments in Japan and around the world.

If you would like to get in touch, please use the contact form or email info@thadpope.com. Thaddeus can also be found on social media via the following links.