Writing Fukushima #7 Soma: Folk Songs as the Ties That Bind

The utagaki mountain —

where winds are shining,

and the breeze shines too

(utagaki no yama kaze hikaru kaze hikaru)

※kaze hikaru (the wind shines): When spring comes, the sunlight gets so strong that one feels even the blowing wind shines.

In ancient Japan men and women gathered on mountains or in market-places a few times a year and held poem contests while dancing and singing into the wee hours. These gatherings were called "utagaki." They were one of the few opportunities the sexes had to meet in groups and seek lovers or marriage partners. Tsubaichi in the Yamato region and Mt. Tsukuba were the most famous sites, but Soma also had a place where utagaki gatherings were held. This was Mt. Haguro, which lies on the border between Soma City and Miyagi Prefecture's Igu County. Most utagaki customs fell into disuse and eventually disappeared with time, but the one at Mt. Haguro seems to have gone on in lively form until the Meiji Restoration of 1868.

"From wherever you look at it, it seems as round as an adzuki bean mochi so it was a landmark for travelers," said Professor Hironori Kaketa, the scholar of folk performing arts with whom I was driving. Soon the figure of Mt. Haguro appeared out of the spring mists. As Professor Kaketa had said, no matter what direction you observed it from, its shape was the same.

Shall I ever forget?

It was on the left hand side of

the first shrine gateway

of holy Mt. Haguro

Once a month

to Mt. Haguro I'll go

and if the god smiles on me I'll go

next month and the month after too

(wasureraryō ka ohagurosama no ichinotorii no hidari waki

tsuki ni ichido wa ohagurosama e gorishō aru nara raigetsu mo saraigetsu mo)

The utagaki festivals were usually held in spring and fall but at Mt. Haguro they occurred on the sixteenth day of every month except at the peak of winter. People improvised songs to the "Haguro Bushi" tune. When we got out of the car next to the torii gateway of Dewa Shrine, we found that from here a steep slope suddenly begins. The young people must have headed for the peak holdings hands in the moonlight. Among the folk songs to which the Haguro Bushi gave birth is "Soma in Twos" (Sōma nihen gaeshi), whose older version (minamikata) goes:

Soma, Soma — there the trees

and grasses sway and there on

the swaying trees and grasses

cherry blossoms bloom

(sōma sōma to kikaya mo nabiku

nabiku kikaya ni hana ga saku hana ga saku)

The name of this song comes, I was told, from the fact that the last line is sung twice. From 1782 to 1787, during the Tenmei period, there was a terrible famine in Ou (the present Tohoku district), which was called the Great Tenmei Famine. Soma was hit especially badly, and lost two thirds of its population. In order to preserve the domain, the rulers sent priests to Hokuriku to encourage people to move to Soma, for without more people the domain would have gone under. The lyrics to "Soma in Twos" have a pathos that comes from the intense desire to invoke good fortune by the power of words.

Professor Kaketa was my guide on a visit to the stone monument built as a memorial to those who had died in the Tenmei Famine. The survivors built it, seven years after the famine ended. It is a tiny monument, the crystallization of the prayers of those who were left behind. For over 220 years the monument has withstood wind and snow, and quietly handed down the many emotions of those who lived so long ago. The cherry blossom trees planted next to it made one feel the poignant wish of the now living people of Soma to comfort the spirits of their ancestral dead.

Soma is famous for its folk songs all over Japan. "Festivals and the folk arts are what hometowns are all about. They're the space in which life is lived, they're what keeps it all going. The Soma domain was able to recover as well as it did because they were there as a support," said Professor Kaketa. Folk songs are born within a regional climate and culture and handed down from generation to generation. When you hum a tune suddenly your hometown's landscape spreads out before your eyes and no matter when or where, the tune becomes the tie that binds people to each other and to their hometowns.

I visited Haragama, famous for "Soma Celebration Song for A Big Catch" (Sōma tairyō iwai-uta), and its neighbor, Matsukawa. This area was greatly damaged by the tsunami but a large storehouse for storing nets has now been built at the port of Matsukawa-ura. At the restaurant where we ate lunch, the seafood special which had been introduced after the earthquake was very popular. The day when the old song celebrating a big catch will be heard on the beach may be closer than we think. I witnessed the pride of the people of Soma, who had overcome the Great Famine of Tenmei and still kept the strength they had in that distant time.

Haiku and text: Madoka Mayuzumi

Translation: Janine Beichman

Photo credit: Fukushima-Minpo Co., Ltd.

First publication: 11 March 2014, Fukushima-Minpo Newspaper

Photo caption: Dewa Shrine