Yatsuo Hikiyama Festival: Floats That Turn to Lanterns at Night

By Day: Floats of Carving and Metalwork Climb the Stone-Paved Slopes

Through the May light, hikiyama festival floats adorned with carving, chased metalwork, and lacquer climb slowly up the stone-paved slopes. The pullers' calls ring along the streets, and each time the wheels are wrestled around at a narrow corner, a ripple of tension runs through the watching crowd. Watching from the roadside, you begin to see that steering these great floats through a town of slopes is itself one of the festival's spectacles.

The Etchu Yatsuo Hikiyama Festival is the spring rite of the Yatsuo Hachiman shrine, held every year on May 3. Each float is passed down within its own neighborhood, and each has its own flourishes in the design of its carvings and metal fittings. Under the midday sun, the fineness of that workmanship stands out. Step close and look up, and the depth of shadow in the carving will surprise you. Only in a town with streets this narrow can you watch from a distance where even the creak of the wheels and the groaning of the timbers reach your ears.

By Night: The Same Floats Become Mountains of Light

When the sun goes down, the floats change into chochin-yama, dressed in countless paper lanterns. The carvings that starred by day sink into darkness, and warm outlines of light rise in their place. The same float, with nothing but a change of light, becomes something else entirely, moving on through the darkened town of slopes. The lantern glow catches on the wooden lattices of the houses, and the whole street takes on a faint color. Try to recall where each carving stood in the daylight, and you can hardly believe it is the same float.

This, in other words, is a festival with two faces in a single day: the craftsmanship of noon and the lights of night. To go home having seen only one is to have seen half the festival. The hours around dusk, as the floats are fitted out with their lantern light, are among the sights as well.

Say Yatsuo, and most people think of Owara Kaze no Bon. But watch just once in May as the carved floats climb the slopes and come back as mountains of light, and you will want to say it too: September is not the only Yatsuo.