By YUKIKO KITAMURA/ Staff Writer
July 25, 2022 at 17:18 JST
KYOTO--Festival-goers were treated to the bicentennial return of a “yamahoko” float in the Gion Festival on July 24 as the Takayama float participated for the first time in nearly two centuries.
A storm damaged the float in 1826 and it had been absent from the parade for the next 196 years.
The association to conserve the traditional float rebuilt it by using thick straw rope to tie lumber together without using nails. Some of the materials were donated from other floats.
The chairman of the association said he felt as if the float had been brought back to life.
Eleven floats paraded through the streets on July 24 during the Atomatsuri (the latter climatic part of the festival) as “Gion-bayashi” festival music played close by.
About 35,000 people filled the streets to see the parade at 11:30 a.m., according to the Kyoto prefectural police.
The succession of floats departed from the Karasuma Oike intersection at 9:30 a.m., with the Hashi-benkei-yama float at the front and the Ofune-hoko float at the back. The order for the procession is determined in a lottery, but the Hashi-benkei-yama float is traditionally first.
The 11 floats proceeded in a clockwise direction, the opposite direction of the parade during the Sakimatsuri (the first climactic part) on July 17.
Crowds applauded as the floats performed “tsuji mawashi” turns, where participants change the direction of the floats 90 degrees by sliding the floats' wheels over strips of bamboo at Kawaramachi Oike and other intersections.
All 34 yamahoko floats appeared in this year’s festival. Twenty-three paraded on July 17 and 11 floats participated on July 24.
The massive parade of floats, called “Yamahoko Junko,” returned here for the Gion Festival for the first time in three years due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The annual festival had been scaled down due to the pandemic over the past two summers, with the yamahoko processions, the highlight of the festival, canceled in 2020 and 2021.
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Participants operating the Takayama float, which returned for the first time in 196 years, perform a “tsuji mawashi” turn in Kyoto’s Nakagyo Ward on July 24. (Kenta Sujino)
