Why Owara Kaze no Bon Begins on September 1

The rooflines of Yatsuo's old town, where Owara has been sung and handed down through the generations.

The answer is in the calendar

A hemp hanging scroll bearing the name Kaze no Bon. The name is said to come from prayers to calm the wind.

Why does Owara Kaze no Bon begin, every year without fail, on September 1? The answer lies in the calendar. The 210th day counted from risshun, the traditional first day of spring — a date known as nihyaku-toka — falls right around September 1.

Nihyaku-toka was long dreaded as an unlucky day of wind, when typhoons were most likely to strike. The rice stands heavy in the ear, waiting only to be harvested — and one night of gales can flatten a year's crop. For farming families, no day weighed more heavily. And so, in many places, customs arose to calm the wind and pray for a good harvest. Rites to appease the wind existed all over Japan, but the one that survives today — an entire town singing and dancing for three days at the start of September — is Yatsuo's Owara. The kaze (wind) in the name Kaze no Bon refers to this wind.

It began as a prayer — that is why it sounds sorrowful

Owara is said to have been handed down since the Edo period. What began as the townspeople's simple song and dance was refined over the generations: the singing was polished, the kokyu (bowed lute) joined in, and the festival settled into the polished form it has today. But at its root, unchanged, lies a single wish: let the wind not blow.

Seen this way, the reason Owara's songs and kokyu carry such a plaintive tone comes into focus. This is not music for merrymaking; it is music that bows its head before nature. The deep tilt of the amigasa (woven straw hat), the voices never raised, the quiet drift of the procession along the street — every gesture is continuous with an attitude of prayer.

The date of September 1 was set by no one's convenience. In the three most anxious days before the harvest, the whole town turns out to read the temper of the wind. Pause at the top of a slope in the middle of the festival and you feel the night wind crossing the valley town against your cheek. This wind is what the songs have been offered to all along. That plaintive tone is what remains of a prayer.