Okonai in Kurosawa: Prayers of a Mountain Village in the 1950s (1950s)

Okonai in Kurosawa: Prayers of a Mountain Village in the 1950s (1950s)
Okonai" was a festival held at Amidado Hall in Kurosawa, Horai-cho, Aichi Prefecture, where men from seven households gathered to pray for a good harvest and good health by offering a dance to Amida Nyorai. The festival began in the Kamakura period (1185-1333), was interrupted during the war, but resumed in 1953 and continued until the 1950s. The festival was an important event that united the community in the snowy mountain villages in winter, and the villagers continued to discuss who would dance this year and what they would do if it snowed. Eventually, as depopulation progressed, five of the seven households left the village, leaving only one household to continue the dedication of the festival. During the postwar period of rapid economic growth, many young people left for the cities, agriculture and slash-and-burn farming declined, and mountain village society underwent rapid changes. The sound of the taiko drums echoing through the snow-clogged valley is still passed do
wn today as a memory of fading mountain prayers.