The simple symbol atop the Hōka Boko’s shingi “mast” represents the sun, moon and stars, indicating more of the festival’s cosmic connections. Of all the floats’ statues, only the Hōka and Tōrō Yama floats’ are articulated. During the July 17 procession, Hōka Boko’s is skillfully manipulated, closely mimicking the dance that Naginata Boko’s living chigo-san performs.
Hōka Boko records show that until 1927, it had a live chigo-san just as Naginata Boko does. It’s also known that it began using the current doll in 1929, though the reasons for the changeover are unknown. Every year the Hōka float’s position in the July 17 procession is fixed, towards the end: all the floats on Shinmachi-dori (the procession’s final thoroughfare) need to be well coordinated so that they can arrive back to where they started, without blocking one another’s way. You can watch the carefully orchestrated maneuvering at Oike-dori and Shinmachi-dori, between 11am and noon.
Buy my book, “Gion Festival: Exploring Its Mysteries,” to learn more about the spectacular Gion Festival than you can anywhere else. Some former directors of Gion Matsuri float associations have told me they believe it’s better than any books available on the Gion Matsuri in Japanese. I’m pleased to gift you a free excerpt here.
Interested in sharing this content? Check out the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License for guidelines on how. This is a cool way to grow a culture of generosity. In Buddhism, generosity is one of the foundational practices of spiritual enlightenment. So it’s worth a try.
