Photo/Illutration Junior high school boy Shintaro Yamauchi lights candles around a fireside during a community ritual in Higashi-Matsushima, Miyagi Prefecture, on Jan. 14. (Masahiro Takahashi)

When tens of thousands of people fled after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami and ensuing Fukushima nuclear accident, their cultural traditions left with them.

But more than 10 years later, with so many communities that have not returned, local officials are warning that many traditional cultural events and practices, some centuries old, are on the verge of vanishing forever.

Seventeen intangible folk cultural assets have been suspended and dozens of festivals or events canceled in communities affected by the disaster, an Asahi Shimbun survey revealed.

The survey was done late last year of 42 cities, towns and villages in the hardest-hit prefectures: Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima.

The 42 local governments host 276 events recognized as intangible folk cultural assets by the state, prefecture or municipality.

In Minami-Sanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, three have been suspended, including “kagura” sacred Shinto music and dancing, and a ritual dance by a performer wearing a lion mask.

“We cannot stage those events because our community was left in shambles in the aftermath of the tsunami and many of the people who fled elsewhere have not returned to their community even after reconstruction,” an official said.

The coronavirus pandemic has only added to the difficulty of keeping those events alive since it struck Japan in 2020, depriving locals of opportunities to practice and show the cultural activities to the public.

“We are in a difficult situation” over the fate of those events, the official said.
Some intangible folk cultural assets have managed to go on despite the disaster, yet still face a bleak future, local officials said.

The survival of six of the 276 assets--three in Miyagi Prefecture and another three in Fukushima Prefecture--are threatened, according to officials.

One is a ritual, designated by Japan as important cultural heritage, which has been passed down to residents of Miyatojima island in Hagishi-Matsuyama, Miyagi Prefecture, for more than 200 years.

In the event, boys from a local community must spend six days by themselves in a cave near the beach.

The participants are limited to boys between the second grade of elementary school to those in their third year of junior high school.

In this year’s event in January, only two--15-year-old and 14-year-old boys--were eligible to take part.

The local community has decided to suspend the event next year, as only one boy is left who can participate in 2023.

Apart from intangible folk cultural assets, 44 festivals and traditional events were suspended or terminated after the disaster, the survey showed.

They were all in Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures.

Iitate village in Fukushima Prefecture is home to 14 varieties of rice-planting dances, all recognized as important folk cultural properties by the prefecture.

But all of them, including the dance in the Hiso district that dates back more than 300 years, have been canceled since the nuclear disaster struck.

All village residents were ordered to flee from the area after the disaster. The evacuation order was lifted six years later in March 2017.

The Hiso district had 339 residents before the disaster. Only 45 have returned.

“The rice-planting dance survived the catastrophic famine of 1833-1837 and World War II, but the nuclear accident threatens its survival,” said Shuichi Kanno, an Iitate resident who fled to the prefectural capital of Fukushima.

Kanno, 59, is working to revive the dance as a member of a group aimed at preserving traditional folk culture.

“If we do not take action to rescue the rice-planting dance now, our local community’s cultural history could be lost forever,” he said.

(This article was written by Masahiro Takahashi, Yukiko Sakamoto and Keishi Iijima.)

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