For the first time in 1,250 years, women will participate in Japan’s “naked man festival”—a historic inclusion

NEW DELHI: The Independent said that for the first time in its 1,250-year existence, the Konomiya Shrine in Inazawa, Japan, which is well-known for its yearly Naked Man Festival, would accept female participation. This momentous change is a part of a larger initiative to preserve cultural customs in a town that is experiencing demographic decline.

Every February, the Hadaka Matsuri honors fertility, wealth, and an abundance of harvests.
While males customarily compete in a loincloth-clad, almost nude fight, some forty local ladies will add to the celebration by taking part in the naoizasa ceremony. They will take cloth-wrapped bamboo grass inside the temple grounds even when they are fully dressed.
Owing to the pandemic in 2023, the half-naked and clothed versions were included in the bamboo grass offering. The women’s group intends to dedicate the bamboo grass for the 2024 edition apart from the men’s ceremony.
Vice Chair of a women’s club pushing for this inclusion, Ayaka Suzuki, 36, revealed her want to attend the event and was reported in the Yomiuri Shimbun stressing her boyhood fantasies, stating, ‘I could have participated if I were a guy!’ Suzuki intends to offer prayers for the security of her family and for people impacted by the recent earthquake on the Noto Peninsula.
Starting at 3:20 pm local time, the celebration is anticipated to draw 10,000 attendees. According to organizing committee official Mitsugu Katayama, the decision to include women was motivated by the community’s growing enthusiasm, particularly during the previous three years of pandemic limitations.
The Independent reports that gender campaigners and local women have praised this move, seeing it as a step in the right direction toward equality. This action is seen as both a cultural landmark and a solution to the demographic issues that rural communities confront, with the goal of preserving traditional customs. Young people are moving to cities in search of work, which is causing a demographic issue for the village. As a result, the town’s population is now mostly made up of the sick and aged.
Half-naked men compete to grab one of the two 20cm-long shingi, which are wooden sticks that a priest tosses into the crowd, during the celebration. These sticks are thrown among 100 bundles of twigs, and the lucky person who catches one is said to have good fortune for a whole year.”