(7 May 2025)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ise, Japan – 2 May 2025
1. Man hitting drum signalling the start of Yamaguchi festival
2. Various of procession of participants of the festival, including chief priest and other shrine priests, officials in charge of construction
3. SOUNDBITE (Japanese) Yuto Nakase, local resident and spectator of Yamaguchi festival:
“I didn’t know that Ise Jingu is the place that brings together all the shrines across Japan, like the central hub of Shinto. In that sense, it really does feel like a symbol of the nation—a source of pride as the cultural heart of Japan.”
4. Procession of priests
5. SOUNDBITE (Japanese) Yuto Nakase, local resident and spectator of Yamaguchi festival:
“The next time this procession happens will be 20 years from now, so I’ll be quite a bit older by then. You can count the number of times you’ll witness something like this in your lifetime with one hand, so I really felt it was a rare and precious sight.”
6. Various of priests praying
7. Visitors watching procession in the rain
8. Various of procession, participants displaying five-colored ‘mitegura’ (ritual streamers)
9. SOUNDBITE (Japanese) Noboru Okada, Professor Emeritus at Kogakkan University:
“ ‘Shikinen Sengu’ refers to the ritual transfer that takes place every 20 years, where the sacred object of worship enshrined in the shrine is relocated. In the case of the Inner Shrine, this object is the Yata no Kagami, a sacred mirror. The Outer Shrine also enshrines a similar, but different, mirror as its sacred object. These sacred objects are revered and enshrined for 20 years, and then, in a process called Shikinen Sengu, they are ceremonially transferred from the old shrine building to a newly constructed one."
10. Various of the Yamaguchi festival taking place in the outer shrine, during which prayers are offered for the safety of the workers involved in the logging of sacred timber
11. SOUNDBITE (Japanese), Noboru Okada, Professor Emeritus at Kogakkan University:
“The Yamaguchi-sai is a ritual held at the entrance to the mountain, where a Shinto ceremony is performed.”
12. Priests laying out offerings during Yamaguchi festival at outer shrine
13. SOUNDBITE (Japanese) Noboru Okada, Professor Emeritus at Kogakkan University:
“During the ceremony we say to the mountain deity, ‘We humbly ask for permission to enter.’ Then, through a ritual prayer called norito, the Shinto priest conveys the purpose of entering the mountain in the words of the gods, and prays for workers’ safety, such as when they cut the trees used for the Shikinen Sengu."
14. Child holds a sickle during ceremony in the outer shrine
15. Participants of the festival sitting on the floor during ceremony
16. Child raises a hoe
++NIGHT SHOTS++
17. Torii gate at Ise Jingu Inner shrine at night
18. Priests holding lanterns in procession to take part in Konomoto festival at night inside the inner shrine – a segment of the ceremony open to the media
++DAY SHOT++
19. SOUNDBITE (Japanese) Noboru Okada, Professor Emeritus at Kogakkan University:
“The Konomoto-sai ceremony is not open to the general public, and even among Shinto priests, only certain individuals are allowed to enter. Those who go there and take part in the ritual must not speak of anything that happened. It is a secret among secrets.”
++NIGHT SHOTS++
20. Various of start of Konomoto festival taking place – the segment open to media – before starting the secret ceremony
++DAY SHOT++
21. SOUNDBITE (Japanese) Shusaku Kondo, tourist:
++NIGHT SHOT++
22. Konomoto festival taking place in the dark
++DAY SHOT++
++NIGHT SHOT++
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