The Great Bonfire of Toba

Designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property and said to date back some 1,200 years, the festival divides the village in two – Kanchi, or “Dry Land”, on one side, and Fukuchi, or “Prosperous Land”, on the other. Each side fields its own team. Each side fights for its own suzumi tower. Each side is trying to be first to seize what the fire conceals. At the centre of the rite are two shin-otoko – holy men, one from each half of the village – who carry the honour and burden of the contest on behalf of their communities.

That honour matters. So does the risk. The festival is shaped by the Japanese idea of yakudoshi – the “ages of calamity”, years in a person’s life traditionally associated with misfortune, illness or danger. The exact ages vary by shrine and custom, but men are commonly said to face them at 25, 42 and 61, and women at 19, 33 and 37. At Toba, the role has traditionally centred on men of 25. Two are chosen each year, one from each side of the village, to serve as shin-otoko. They are not forced into the fire. To be chosen is dangerous, but it is also deeply coveted – a distinction accepted publicly, and with pride.

On the eve of the festival, the great frames of the suzumi are built at the shrine. Each tower is enormous – around five metres high and weighing roughly two tonnes – with a bamboo structure packed with bundles of sun-dried pampas grass around a sacred tree hidden at its core. Twelve ropes, representing the months of the year, are set into the structure and must later be torn from the flames along with the tree itself. What stands in the shrine precinct is not simply a bonfire waiting to be lit, but a piece of ritual architecture: towering, highly combustible, built not merely to burn but to be stormed.

Before the contest begins, however, the men must purify themselves. In Shinto, this rite is known as misogi – the washing of body and spirit to cleanse away misfortune, sin and pollution before approaching the sacred. At Toba, misogi is not a decorative prelude. It is one of the day’s central acts. On the shrine grounds, dozens of men strip down to loincloths. From there they march to the beach in a long column, arms locked over one another’s shoulders in a show of comradeship, where they are blessed, a bonfire is lit, and the ritual purification begins at the edge of the winter sea.

The route itself matters. The village lies within walking distance of the beach and harbour, and during the sea purification the working life of the place remains visible in the background – fishing boats, shoreline, the practical world from which the men have come before entering sacred time. They go into the water together. Then they march back to the shrine together, cleansed and readying themselves for what the night will demand.

Only after their return do they dress for the ordeal ahead. They emerge in the festival’s distinctive neko costumes. Neko means cat in Japanese, and the name fits: the pointed hoods rise like a pair of cat’s ears, giving the men a feline outline. The effect is both strange and memorable – half ritual uniform, half improvised armour. The costumes are traditionally made from the banners of previous festival events, according to organisers. Throughout the day, sake circulates freely, poured from bottles made for the event and marked with labels showing the bonfires themselves. At the same time, the local fire brigade hoses down the surrounding trees, soaking them against the risk that sparks from the suzumi might kindle a wider blaze.

In those costumes, the men do not look sleek or theatrical. They look rugged, weathered, work-hardened. This is a working-class community, and many of the men are fishermen; the beach and harbour are close, and the rhythms of labour are written into the place. They are also neighbours and relatives, men who know one another well and spend the day bantering together, their camaraderie plain to see even as they prepare to oppose one another that night. The familiarity matters because it sharpens the contest rather than softening it. When the fire is lit, nobody has to be pushed forward. They want to be there. They want to win.

When the suzumi are finally lit, the scale of the fire is overwhelming. Flames roar upward in sheets, turning the towers into blazing columns that crackle, spit and buckle by degrees. But the true drama lies in the urgency of what follows. This is a race. Each team is trying to be first to break through the burning frame, free the sacred tree and wrench out the twelve ropes. So they attack in waves. Men rush the ladders, bend and snap burning bamboo with their hands, and force themselves forward with flames lapping around their heads. They keep going until the heat becomes unbearable, until pain or injury forces them back, and then another equally determined man takes their place. Again. And again.

What makes the spectacle even more arresting is that these men are not wearing specialist protective clothing. Their garments are festival costume, not firefighting gear. They go at the bonfires in old-banner outfits and hoods, with only the barest protection against heat and flame. At moments the danger becomes stark: a costume catches, a man has to be doused with water, another steps in, and the struggle resumes at once. The contest has the form of ritual, but its physical reality is closer to an ordeal – measured in speed, teamwork, endurance and nerve.

The object of the struggle is to remove the sacred tree and the twelve ropes from the burning suzumi and carry them back to the shrine as an offering. The condition of what is recovered, together with the character of the fire and the outcome of the contest between east and west, is then read as a forecast for the year ahead – for rain, weather and harvest. When the event is over, pieces of the charred bamboo frame are cut away, divided up and taken home as good-luck charms, carrying a fragment of the night’s power back into ordinary life.

By the end of the festival, after the noise, smoke and danger, the emotional weight of the rite is unmistakable. There are two shin-otoko, one for each side of the village, and when television crews speak to them afterwards, the strain of the night is still visible. Some men have pulled away their hoods and masks. Their skin is wet with sweat, smeared with ash and marked by exhaustion. Relief. Pride. Disbelief. Toba Dai Kagaribi is a magnificent spectacle, but for the men inside it, it is not performance. It is danger faced willingly, honour pursued publicly, and communal faith carried bodily through fire.

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