I asked some boys for directions to the Kamakura, this thirteen year old ended up inviting me into the kamakura he'd built with some boys from his class. We sat warming our hands while we waited for his friends to bring the grub.
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In the mist of a deep cold winter in north Japan, the snow in Yokote lights up with candle light. For the Kamakura festival in mid-February, the children make snow houses and the town is dotted by small shrines and snow-lamps. At night, each of these is a marvelously temporary melting beacon for visitors and the Water god.
Amidst winter homes shut tight, the people inside conserving heat, these temporary structures are a welcome sight. Light shines from within. Around a small charcoal brazier, children sitting on straw mats and thin cushions toast mochi, rice cakes, and heat amazake, sweet fermented rice brew. In the back, an altar is set up to honor the water gods, to ask for ample rainfall in the spring. Visitors are encouraged to leave a donation with the children; the money is shared between them. The God are probably meant to be sated by the community spirit.
Whatever its origins, the Kamakura festival effectively attracts visitors to an otherwise deeply quiet winter town. What was a sleeping, freezing winter city is for this mid-February weekend full, the hotels and restaurants overflowing, the stores open late, the streets noisy and crowded, and still there is everywhere snow.
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His buddies joined us and on the heated charcoal brazier they began toasting some rice cakes. "Te-yaki" one said - hand roasting. Someone had forgotten the chopsticks.
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I enjoyed some of the warm sweet rice-chunk laden thick drink. Slight surprise and some disappointment to discover it wasn't alcoholic; that might have taken the edge off of not being able to feel my fingers from photographing in the outdoors.
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In the cold winter landscape of nighttime Yokote, the warmpth and light from these small snow domes advertised kneeling humans eating and drinking - an attractive proposition. Eminently visible.
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This one street was closed to cars and dotted with some of the finest structures, boasting loads of cute children hard at work serving sweet treats inside.
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Heating up amazake, sweet fermented rice.
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Roasting mochi, rice cakes, and serving bits of sushi snacks.
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These two boys were sitting peacefully in the kamakura that seemed most religious; at least they had the slatted wooden Shinto donation box sitting front and center.
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These young lads were hard to photograph sitting still because they couldn't.
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The woman on the right side of this picture is signing the logbook for the Kamakura, where guests can write their wishes for their hosts and thoughts at the festival.
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Back when Japanese houses were roofed with straw, the excess straw was used to make an earlier form of Kamakura, pictured here. Straw roof with straw heaped on top, and squared-off corners.
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A woman tries on some Akita straw boots near a wooden sled cart. These boots and sled cart appear in much of the winter nostalgia posters put out by the Akita tourism officials.
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Tiny children were thrust into old fashioned Akita straw snow boots by their family members, in spite of the fact that none of their legs were long enough.
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Hundreds of small snow lights by the Yokote riverside.
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Along the river in Yokote, hundreds of small snow lights made the land glow something strange and marvellous. The side of the town's river became a sort of firefly hive or star field or just a series of little candle houses dug by little hands of children who were born in this town and are so fated to carry out these acts for beauty's sake, to attract visitors who will mark this town on the map for one more winter.
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People wandered amidst the lights.
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The path down to the riverside was lined with lights.
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Down amidst the small snowlights was another landscape.
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Close up, small candles were nearing their end as wind blew large flakes atop the slowly melting snowlights. |
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There is an exquisite quality of to fire light shining dim warmpth through snow, as the snow is shaped into all sorts of adjunct lightsources. Snow domes lit from the inside; some large enough for people and some small enough just for a candle dot the town. Warm yellow through white light.
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I loved the snowball pile light.
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This snow throne seemed doomed to melt quick; the arms had candles steadily burning holes in the chair.
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Snow festival temporary housing, year round at the Yokote museum.
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Yokote has made the Kamakura its claim to fame and so in the center of town you'll find a building with a chamber cooled to -10 Celsius year round, wherein a perfectly preserved snow house is available for your visit. Inside sit two doll children, next to a nonfunctional burner. One doll was quite aged, the hands looked frostbitten. I chortled to see an electric light stuck in the top of the snow house, the only snow house with incandescent lighting I figured. I was proven wrong as nearly all the kamakura I entered around town were light by electrics.
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Shivering next to a small doll in the abnormally cold indoor museum kamakura.
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Like any festival in Japan, there were businesses set up nearby, most selling edibles. These ladies graciously offered up all varieties of tsukemono pickled vegetables for tasting.
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Corporate participation from the local J-Phone store. Picture phone enshrined.
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Even outside the convenience store, a line of snow lights. Many of the town homes and businesses had some sort of small snow and candle craft for the event.
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you knew you could click on the pictures to see blowups, yeah? |
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After the kamakura had served as a place for children to serve sweet sake, the Bonden men used them to liquor up and keep warm before charging the local shrine with their decorated phalluses.
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