Story Onda Festival, a lively event featuring horses and cattle running on a paddy field By JNTO on 01 June 2017

“Onda Festival” is a rice-planting festival held by Tashiro-jinja Shrine in Saigo, Misato Town (former Saigo Village), and has a history of more than 1,000 years. The festival climaxes with a shrine ritual in which young men of the town riding on the back of horses or cattle run about in the muddy rice-field owned by the shrine splashing mud. Other young men carrying a portable shrine on their shoulders step into the field and till it. Visitors watching the festival on the footpath are splashed with mud from the field, which is said to bring them sound health.
The festival is held to pray for a good harvest and participants’ health together with the safety of horses and cattle, as the shrine is regarded as a guardian of horses and cattle, and farming. Many photographers from all over the world gather to this event.

Onda Festival

Address

1 Saigo Tashiro, Misato-cho, Higashiusuki District

Website

http://www.town.miyazaki-misato.lg.jp/2535.htm

Phone

not available

Date

July 1 and 2, 2017