Long-time friends of Japundit are familiar with our reporting on the kaleidoscopic breadth of festivals held throughout the year in Japan, many of which feature presentations or performances that are often stunning. Not every festival in the country is a big production, however, though the smaller, lesser-known festivals can be just as interesting and quirky as the more famous events.

One example is the Nagashibina Shinji, held last week at the Saga Shrine in Saga City, a mere 15-minute stroll from my house. Just my luck that I still missed it. March 3rd is Girls’ Day in Japan, and it’s celebrated with displays of hina dolls, often in the home. In this small but elegant festival, 300 hina dolls made from traditional Japanese paper are placed on three miniature boats and set afloat in the Matsubara River (which is really just a creek). Each of the dolls carries a piece of paper on which someone has written their wish.

Before the boats are launched, however, the female shrine attendants (dressed in white and red in the photo) perform a kagura dance, and the priests purify the water. The festival is offered for those hoping to find a good mate or praying for safety in the home. And don’t let the photo fool you—it appears to be a picturesque scene of bucolic charm, but the shrine is located on a busy city boulevard two blocks away from the central post office and the prefectural government headquarters.

What could those priests be puzzling over in the second photograph? Why, they’re scrutinizing the mold that’s formed on rice gruel in Asakura-cho, Yamaguchi Prefecture! On the same day the dolls were set afloat in tiny boats in Saga, the priests were studying the mold patterns to glean a forecast for this year’s rice and barley harvests.

The practice is about 200 years old. Locally grown rice is harvested every year on February 15th, cooked into gruel, and placed in three separate copper containers. These are placed in a box and offered to the divinity. Each container has a special significance–one is for the period of harvest, another is for the geographical area, and the third is for the type of crop. The priests remove the containers from the box in early March and study the mold for its color and the way in which it stuck to the rice.

According the mold, Asakura-cho is likely to have average harvests this year, but the farmers will have to take precautions against harmful insects.

While we’re on the subject of festival oddities, I have to apologize for failing to report on the Butt Shaking Festival held in January in Kokuraminami Ward in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture. And I’m not joking about the festival’s name—there’s no other way to translate Shirifuri Matsuri.

I also have to apologize if I’ve appealed to your prurient interest, because the festival itself is not as sexy as it sounds. Yeah, I was disappointed too. Here’s the story: Legend has it that a large serpent was causing trouble in the vicinity years ago, so the divinity stepped in and killed it. But the serpent’s tail kept shaking even after it died–and the area experienced its first bumper crop in 10 years.

Since then, when local farmers start work to prepare for the year’s crop every January, they create a straw model of a serpent that measures four meters long and three meters high. After they place it on a platform, the stage is set for the festival to begin.

A Shinto priest and two other men emerge from the shrine, bend over, and shake their butts in imitation of the serpent. Because tradition states that the bigger the buttswings, the greater the harvest, the spectators cheer the men on to greater gluteal abandon by shouting, “Shake it harder, shake it harder!” That sort of encouragement has been known to occur in Western countries, too, but usually not directed to men, or to priests in a religious ceremony.

When they’ve finished flailing their fannies, another priest fires three arrows into the straw snake and cuts it in three places with a sword.

And so ends the Butt Shaking Festival for another year!