Writing Fukushima #6 Showa Village: The Yearly Scolding of the Fruit Trees

The light of the moon

streams down unending

on the wounded tree

(semerareshi ki ni gekkō no furiyamazu）

"Will you bear fruit, will you not bear fruit? If you don't bear fruit, I'll cut you down!"

Among the observances for January 15, New Year's Day according to the old calendar, there is a custom of praying for a rich harvest in the coming year by scolding and pretending to threaten such fruit trees as persimmons, chestnuts, peaches, and Japanese apricots (prunus mume). People come out with axes, scythes, and hatchets and cry, "Will you bear fruit, or won't you? If you don't, I'll cut you down!" Then they nick the trees as if to show they mean business. Another person cries back for the spirit of the tree, "I will bear fruit, I will bear fruit!" With this promise of an abundant crop, they smear red bean porridge (depending on region, it may differ) on the tree's "wound." Until the 1930s, before the war, this custom, known as "Narikizeme" or the Yearly Scolding of the Fruit Trees, was observed at farm houses all over Japan, but nowadays it is seen only in compendiums of season words for haiku poets (saijiki) and almost never takes place in real life.

Hearing that there were families who still attached importance to this custom in Showa Village of Oku-aizu, I called on Mr. Hyokichi Hazome on January 15. Passing under the icicles and frozen dried daikon (shimi-daikon) hanging from the eaves, I found that Dango-sashi, the Dumpling Threading observance, had already begun. Besides 16 large rice flour dumplings, they had made others, also from rice flour, in the shapes and colors of old oval coins, straw rice-bags, eggplants and mushrooms, and threaded them on the "mizunoki" tree branches, like decorations. They use mizunoki, I was told, because its name, literally "water tree," suggests extinguishing a fire, and there used to be many large fires in this area, so much so that they never observed the tradition of burning the New Year's decorations in a bonfire on the 15th of the first month. The special characteristic of this area's Yearly Scolding of the Fruit Trees is that they use the broth left from boiling the dumplings instead of rice porridge.

Threats and affection

merge into one: the Yearly

Scolding of the Trees

(semuru to mo mutsumiau to mo narikizeme)

Mr. Hazome went outside wearing his deceased father's hand-made straw raincoat on top and traditional snowshoes on his feet. Dragging a mallet tied with rope, he made his way through the snow towards a tree. The mallet is said to be a charm to ward off insects. "Will you bear fruit or won't you? If you don't, I'll chop you down with this hatchet!" He then nicked the tree trunk with a hatchet and after a voice cried "I will bear fruit, I will bear fruit," he used a pine needle to apply some of the leftover broth from the dumplings to the tiny wound. The feeling was less one of scolding and threatening the tree than of affection and fellow-feeling for it. It made a heartwarming scene. Of course there is no scientific proof that all this makes the trees more fertile, but one senses the farmers' belief that a spirit dwells within each fruit tree and how their life together with the trees is one of gratitude.

After the Scolding of the Fruit Trees, Mr. Hazome showed me the baskets that he had made and the "karamushi" fabric that his wife had woven during the winter, when the farmers stay indoors because of the snow and the frigid temperatures. I imagined the two of them wordlessly working away, intently awaiting the spring, as the snow fell silently outdoors.

That night I stayed at an inn in the nearby hot springs town of Tamanashi. The owner offered to take me to the Sai no Kami, the traditional bonfire, the next morning, which began at 7 AM. The villagers had begun to gather around a bonfire set to be kindled in the middle of a snowy field. At 7, they all turned and bowed to the east then lit the fire. The bean husks spread at the base of the fire made a pleasant crackling noise as they burned. The sake that had been offered to the gods and snacks to go with it were offered even to us travelers. In no time flat the fire rushed up the straw, and on the way the entire mass suddenly and hugely collapsed. "What a terrific collapse to start the year with!" the men rejoiced. A pale moon floated in the sky, just visible through the falling snow. That night, I warmed myself, still chilled from the snow, in the naturally carbonated hot spring, and drank to the moon with the owner of the inn.

The Yearly Scolding of the Trees and the Decoration Burning are important and recurrent happenings of life in Oku-aizu. Surely this is significant. As long as people believe in them, the gods will visit and protect the land. That was the thought that came to me, with a new force, from witnessing life here.

※narikizeme: A traditional custom of the "Little New Year," on January 15. Threatening the fruit trees with dire consequences if they don't bear a good crop is a way of praying for a good crop. "Kizeme" (tree scolding ), "kajuzeme" (fruit tree scolding), and "ki wo hayasu" (cheering the trees on) are related terms.

Haiku and text: Madoka Mayuzumi

Translation: Janine Beichman

Photo credit: Fukushima-Minpo Co., Ltd.

First publication: 18 February 2014, Fukushima-Minpo News