Writing Fukushima #10 Minami Soma City: The Wild Horse Round-up

The young warrior's

first battle — fresh green of

the mountains behind him

(uijin no musha ni aone no sumiwataru)

※aone: A summer season word. The mountains covered in fresh greenery.

In shadeless, scorched Hibarigahara Plain, 450 mounted men dressed as soldiers in their traditional ancestral armor arrived in lines, accompanying the "mikoshi" portable shrines brought from Odaka Shrine, Nakamura Shrine and Ota Shrine. After the mikoshi were placed at Hon'jinyama and instructions given by the "Supreme General," resplendent in his scarlet cape, the folk song "Soma Nagareyama" and the dance "Soma Nagareyama odori" were performed for the gods. This year Namie Town was in charge of the dancing. There was great applause for the people of Namie, who had gathered from their various evacuation places in order to rehearse for this day. Before the "Horse Race in Full Armor" (kacchu keiba) and the "Capture of the Shrine Flags" (shinki sōdatsusen), Hibarigahara Plain is buzzing with excitement. Suddenly one of the horses throws its rider off and gallops madly away. "Get that runaway horse!" the voice of an old soldier rings out in the noisy grounds. All the different colors of the shrine flags, the whinnies of the horses, the sound of their hooves, the dust flying everywhere... this event unfolding against the background of the Abukuma Mountains is like watching a picture scroll of the medieval Warring States period.

The Wild Horse Round-up is a Shinto rite that was begun by Taira no Masakado, the putative founder of the Soma clan, over one thousand years ago; in the past it was also a military exercise in which the soldiers rounded up wild horses. They released horses onto the large swath of land called Wild Horse Plain (Noma-oihara, now part of Haramachi), which they had fenced in with a high dike called Wild Horse Dike (Noma-dote), and then chased them on horseback to Obama Beach. When the horses had been sprinkled with sea water to sanctify them, they were chased further on, to the precincts of Odaka Myoken Shrine (now Odaka Shrine) and there one horse was chosen as sacred, to be dedicated to the shrine.

During the Edo period (1603-1868), the Wild Horse Round-up became known all over Japan, and the inns of Haranomachi (as it was known then) became a magnet for tourists and travelers. Business was so good in those days that "Payable at Wild Horse Round-up," meaning that the account would be settled after the festival, became an ordinary way to date a contract. Someone in Haramachi told me, "Emotionally, too, the Wild Horse Round-up is the turning point in our year."

Due to the nuclear accident at the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake, Odaka Shrine, being less than the designated 20 kilometers from the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant, became a Restricted Area zone. Hibarigahara and Ota Shrine became Emergency Evacuation Preparation zones. Some of the horses and men who had acted as warriors in the round-up died in the tsunami too. What to do with this Shinto rite that had gone on for a millennium? After painful deliberation, the people of Soma decided to hold the rite, but on a reduced scale. It must be unimaginably difficult to continue any ritual festivals in this area now when many people are still living in evacuation shelters. But continuing the Wild Horse Round-up also strengthens local ties and provides an opportunity to reaffirm love for and pride in one's birthplace. As I looked around at the people who planned and supported the Wild Horse Round-up, I thought again of how important these ritual festivals are, especially now.

The next morning, the Shinto rite of the Wild Horse Capture (Noma-gake), with its echoes of past ages, was reenacted at Odaka Shrine. As the conch shell sounded, three horses chased by mounted soldiers galloped along the shrine approach, where rose of Sharon flowers were in bloom. Men dressed in white swooped down bare-handed upon the one which was the sacred horse and which had been sanctified by being sprinkled with holy water by the "horse catching pole" (komatorisao). Great risk is involved in this rite: one mistake could mean a terrible injury. The sacred horse, once captured, is brought before the god and presented with salt and rice and with a sacred "shime" rope tied to its mane is dedicated to the god with prayers for peace and prosperity.

At the time of the anti-Buddhist movement and the government plan to separate Shinto and Buddhism in the early Meiji period, Odaka Shrine coped by combining worship of the North Star, of which Myoken Bosatsu was a Buddhist deification, with the Shinto worship of Ame-no-minaka-nushi-no-mikoto, the first god to appear in the universe. To exist for a thousand years, one must have the ingenuity and the wisdom to adjust to changing times and circumstances. And yet the human prayers that shape the core are always the same and never change.

Haiku and text: Madoka Mayuzumi

Translation: Janine Beichman

Photo credit: Fukushima-Minpo Co., Ltd.

First publication: 12 August 2014, Fukushima-Minpo Newspaper

Photo caption: "Noma-gake," Odaka Shrine