The second meeting of the “Festival Network” for festival and folk performing art lovers was conducted jointly with Omatsuri Japan Co., Ltd. in the basement conference room of Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties on Saturday, April 14th. The theme of this meeting was “Shishimai × Shishimai (Lion Dance × Lion Dance).” Four people were invited as guest speakers: Mr. Osamu KATSUYAMA from Shishieden Shishikatashu in Toyama Prefecture, Ms. Kumiko KATSUYAMA from the Lion Dance Preservation Society in Imizu Town, Toyama Prefecture, Mr. Mitsuru TOGAWA, representative of the Sanuki Lion Dance Preservation Society in Kagawa Prefecture, and Ms. Ayumi NAKAGAWA, spokesperson of the said Society and representative of the Tokyo Sanuki Lion Dance.
An overwhelming number of lion dances have been passed down in these two prefectures. After the speakers talked about the passion for their local lion dances, questions and answers were exchanged actively with the audience. They commented that persistence to preserve local festivals and traditions, as well as rural depopulation and generation gap issues, could be recognized anew through the actual cases indicated by the speakers.
Below is an abstract from "the Report of the Symposium on the Shishimai（Lion Dance) of Toyama and Kagawa."
Introduction
Moderator: In this symposium, we will discuss the Shishimai in great detail, and have invited people who are involved in the Shishimai in two specific locations in Japan—Toyama and Kagawa, which pride themselves as the home of Japan’s number one Shishimai dance.
1. The Shishimai of Toyama prefecture
K: I am a member of the Shishikatashu organization in the district of Shishieden in Shinminato, Imizu city, Toyama prefecture. There are said to be more than 1,100 groups involved in the Shishimai in Toyama prefecture today, and a maximum of 1,200 to 1,300 groups at the most. When I was in the third grade in primary school, my grandfather took me to see a Shishimai practice, and there I was suddenly awakened to the Shishimai performance. Twenty-four years have passed since then, but I have continued to be engrossed in the Shishimai all these years, and I still engage in the dance today as a tengu goblin. I wish to somehow inherit the tradition, as there is a lack of young successors among primary, junior high and high school students, but I am also applying myself to practicing the musical accompaniments little by little. This is because when I can no longer dance and must step back and make way for the next generation, I hope to still be involved in the festival by playing the flute or drums.
M: I am originally from Shizuoka prefecture, but I came to be involved in the Shishimai after I got married. I immediately became fascinated with the Shishimai and wished to play a part in the dance, but the group to which my husband (K) belonged was closed to women. However, in 2014, I encountered the Imizu Town Shishimai Preservation Society, where I was allowed to play the flute as one of the musical accompanists. I also had the good fortune to encounter a sort of tutoring school for adults called Takaoka Necchu Terakoya in 2016, and established a Shishimai club called Shishikatsubu. Since I gained the impression that the Shishimai of Toyama is hardly known among people outside the prefecture, I engage in activities with the goal of having many more people become familiar with it.
2. The Shishimai of Kagawa prefecture
S: The Shishimai of Kagawa prefecture is said to have begun some four hundred years ago. During its peak, there were supposedly as many as 1,200 Shishimai groups, but due to the decline in population and the number of performers, 800 groups or so perform the Shishimai throughout the prefecture today mainly as an offering to the gods at autumn festivals.
We host an event called Shishimai Oukoku Sanuki, and will be putting on our 10th performance this year. Initially, many people believed that the Shishimai should only be performed as an offering to shrines and not as a form of entertainment. Nevertheless, around 18 Shishimai groups expressed an interest and assembled for our event in our first year. We had no money to advertise the event. We hosted it with what resources we had ourselves and by collecting sponsors, and used Facebook to recruit Shishimai groups and make announcements. Eventually, the numbers of participating groups increased with each event, such that by the ninth event, we received the participation of approximately 65 Shishimai groups.
N: I am from a town called Mikicho in Kagawa prefecture, where women were originally strictly barred from many rituals and events. As far as female Shishimai performers go, I am the first. Since becoming the first female performer, I have continued to engage in the Shishimai every year for thirty years without fail. After becoming an adult, I have moved to Tokyo, gotten married, and continued to live in Tokyo all these years, but I still return to my hometown every year to perform the Shishimai at the autumn festival. However, the Shishimai there may soon disappear.
Feeling a sense of crisis, I established a support organization called Shishimai Ouendan last year and launched a website. Ouendan literally means “cheering squad” in Japanese. In the process of organizing the group, I encountered Mr. S of the Sanuki Shishimai Preservation Society and learned about Shishimai Oukoku Sanuki. Our organization mainly focuses on what we can specifically do in Tokyo, and what only we in Tokyo can do. With respect to what the local people can do, we stick to “cheering” them on and have them take action themselves as much as possible. Toward this end, we operate a website, as we can do so even from a distance.
I also launched Tokyo Sanuki Shishimai in Tokyo. We presently have eight members. They are all residents of Tokyo who know nothing about the Shishimai of Kagawa prefecture and who have never experienced it, but they gather regularly to practice the Shishimai.
3. Shishimai events
Audience: There was mention about how the number of Shishimai groups has decreased considerably in Kagawa prefecture, but it there a significant impact such as of the declining population in Toyama as well?
K: Yes, there is. On the other hand, however, there are also popular towns where members of Shishimai groups are not only local residents but friends and acquaintances from other towns, for example. There are even places that have so many members that they are divided into first and second teams. However, in places other than Shinminato, there are very few performers. I have even heard that in such places, the “Mukade (centipede) Shishimai” performance, which is normally performed by seven to eight people, is performed by two people only.
Audience: I have gone to see Shishimai Oukoku Sanuki a number of times, but I thought it was rather difficult to watch any one performance closely, because all groups begin dancing at once. Are there any plans to feature certain groups so that the audience can watch each of the selected groups in detail?
S: With more than sixty groups now participating in Shishimai Oukoku Sanuki, selecting feature groups poses a problem. Naturally, there are certain groups that we wish the audience could watch in close detail. However, if we choose to feature them, groups that are not selected would ask why they are not selected or grumble that they, too, wish to be featured. We do feature a standalone performance by the aforementioned Toragashira dance group from Higashi-Kagawa city as an exception, however, because it is so extremely popular within the prefecture that no one would complain about its special treatment. If it were not featured independently, people observing the dances being performed at the same time on the other five stages would come to see the Toragashira and leave the other stages practically empty of any audience. Basically, it would amount to a “me first” quarrel, so we have five to six dances performed simultaneously. We have plans to hereafter recommend certain select performances to visitors if they have time to spare, but the steering committee will face difficulty in deciding which groups to select.
N: Mikicho town began identifying itself as “the home of Shishi lions” around thirty years ago, and hosted a Shishimai Festival. In the festival, Shishimai groups in town assembled at their respective shrines and performed their dance all at once, while a spotlight shined on one group after another for several seconds each. In the end, everyone stopped their music, except for a specially selected single group that was allowed to continue their dance long afterward. As mentioned earlier, the “me first” attitude kicked in. Everyone began saying, “Whey them? When is it going to be our turn?” It depends on how many Shishi groups are affiliated with the shrine, but since there were thirteen groups at my shrine, it meant we would have to wait thirteen years for our turn to come up. Such a problem had arisen then.
Audience: Does a large amount of funding come in from sponsors?
S: No, we collect only a small amount of money from sponsors. In reality, we ask or “politely demand,” so to speak, funding from companies where our friends work. There were frankly few companies that approved of our festival and boldly decided to provide funding. Most companies in the prefecture had the image that we were merely happy-go-lucky people doing as we pleased.
However, two years ago, when Kagawa prefecture hosted an international art festival called Art Setouchi, we acquired the opportunity to disseminate our activities to outside the prefecture, which we could not do alone, by putting on a performance as a special attraction in the opening ceremony and holding our Shishimai Oukoku Sanuki event as part of the art festival. We were even given a certain budget. The following year, we received a regional revitalization subsidy from Takamatsu city.
In this way, we finally became able to expand what we had been doing on a small limited scale by using governmental subsidies, and now receive gradually increasing amounts of funding. To be honest, however, our operations have grown and are no longer able to be adequately supported by such subsidies and funds alone. We are happy to receive any ideas you may have regarding this issue.
4. Reasons for barring women
Audience: There was mention earlier that women performing the Shishimai in Tokyo are allowed to do so specifically because they are women. Could you elaborate on this?
N: Shishi lions are owned by neighborhood associations, so Shishimai groups are composed of local residents. If anyone tries to do something that even slightly deviates from tradition, that person would be ostracized and forbidden to participate anymore in the Shishimai. Therefore, people disappear at even a slight quarrel. An uneasiness persists when they come across people in their neighborhood, and fights actually erupt under the influence of alcohol. When I was small, there were always people getting injured during a festival, although we see little of this nowadays.
This was taken into consideration when establishing the regulations for Ikazuchikai, an organization of shrines that was launched last year composed entirely of men except for me. That is, the regulations stipulate that people who make a blunder when they are drunk must promptly apologize, and that everyone should go a bit easy on people who are drunk, since everyone knows that drunk people are apt to do something foolish.
Audience: How is it in Toyama? It was mentioned earlier that women cannot take part in the Shishimai.
M: Yes, I noted that women are barred, but in adjacent town and cities, it seems the barring is beginning to be lifted. The Shishieden Shishikatashu organization that I wished to join is one of few groups still sticking to tradition. Nevertheless, due to the rapid aging and declining population, there have been movements recently to consider opening the doors to women.
The elderly, however, will not budge. I have heard of groups that say they would rather quit than abandon their erstwhile ways. Therefore, even while wondering why they hate women so much and why they will not let women in, I wish they would consider continuing the Shishimai rather than giving it up.
S: This is about when I used to go to festival practices when I was small and in the lower grades in elementary school. The adults—and there were only male adults—would be drinking while practicing and talking about things that their wives or children shouldn’t hear. This was how it always was.
When I think about this, I tend to think now that people who engage in the Shishimai and who say it is not for women and children probably say so mainly because they wish to keep such fun times to themselves.
5. Participation from outside
Audience: As an issue that is raised almost everywhere, is there really a problem such as the lack of cultural bearers? If so, what do you think about temporarily bringing in people not only from neighboring regions but from other regions?
K: By other regions, do you mean urban areas?
Audience: Yes, I am referring to needs to bring in people from urban areas such as Tokyo, who are not only interested in regional festivals but who wish to participate in them. Such people may even eventually move to the region if they like it there.
K: First of all, passionate people are strongly welcome, but we are rather spartan, so to speak, in this town. In fact, in olden days, we used to be hit with a bamboo sword. Some people join our group saying such spartan training is fine with them, while some choose to go somewhere else that is not so rigid.
There is the issue of how far to lower the hurdle, but to us, dancing is extremely important, so the bottom line is that we naturally more than welcome passionate people. At the same time, however, it is extremely difficult to assess how passionate someone is. We can only understand their thoughts and feelings by receiving them and seeing how things go.
S: In Kagawa prefecture, the Shishi lions themselves are owned by neighborhood associations, as I mentioned earlier, so originally, people who were not a member of any association were not allowed to even touch the Shishi, in most cases.
In many regions, new houses are being built and a larger number of children are becoming part of the local community, but unless they join the neighborhood association, they cannot touch a Shishi or join any Shishimai group even if they live in the same region. There are still many places like this. However, people are beginning to see that the Shishimai cannot be continued under this situation, and an increasing number of Shishimai preservation associations have been established in recent years to preserve the Shishimai independently of neighborhood associations. Such associations welcome people from outside the region with open arms. In line with this trend, there are also places that enthusiastically welcome in-migrants from other prefectures and from urban areas who wish to perform the Shishimai.
In these ways, to prevent the Shishimai from being discontinued for the reason that there are not enough people to carry on the tradition, we are taking action now to spread the awareness that the Shishimai of Kagawa prefecture is not a cultural element that can be given up so easily.
N: In my local town, Shishimai groups other than the one to which I belong have become much like a preservation association or voluntary club. Many groups had begun to receive members from other regions, but some groups stopped doing so, because of the difficulty in sharing the local mentality and communicating thoughts and feelings.
To native groups, receiving people from outside the region is out of the question, and anyone who moves out from the region becomes an outsider, even in the case of men. I am also treated as an outsider, despite participating in the Shishimai every year—though from outside the prefecture—and being the longest-standing member of all remaining members. I do not have a say in any matter. I thus established my own Shishimai group in Tokyo, as part of the cause to keep the culture alive while respecting tradition. I keep an open channel of communication with local Shishimai groups and with the chief priests of local shrines, and have asked whether a Shishimai established outside the prefecture may return to put on a performance. The shrines say it is okay if other Shishimai groups say it is okay, but they cannot afford to allow us to perform in front of the main shrine at the autumn festival.
As the decision was up to the Shishimai groups, I discussed the matter with them, but one group strongly opposed our participation. We are therefore not allowed yet to participate in the autumn festival from Tokyo. I am hoping that we can gradually gain a foothold.
Shishimai groups formed in Tokyo can participate in events such as Shishimai Oukoku Sanuki. As mentioned earlier, there are Shishimai groups that believe participating in events is outrageous, as the Shishimai is a performance to be offered to the gods. Young people, however, want to participate in events. The local Shishimai group to which I belong is on the “outrageous” side. Therefore, when we take our Shishi lion from Tokyo and give a performance in Kagawa, what I wish to do this year is to demonstrate that young members of Shishimai groups in my hometown can join us, as a model case.
If this plan goes well, my far-reaching goal is to cooperate with other Shishimai groups in Kagawa who are also for the idea, increase the number of members in Tokyo, and arrange a performance tour among these groups and members.
6. The meaning of the Shishimai as a religious ritual
Audience: The word “offering” was mentioned earlier. What are your thoughts about the Shishimai as a religious ritual?
K: It differs by town, but in my town, all Shishi lions firstly go through a purification ritual at the shrine before all else. After being purified, they offer a performance at the shrine before they return to town and begin their round of performances. In this respect, I believe the Shishimai has the power to ward off evil precisely because it is performed by dancers who have been purified. In fact, I myself become a tengu goblin the moment I put on my tengu mask. I completely forget that I am a human being, and immerse myself in the dance as such.
In this sense, the Shishimai is an extremely important religious ritual to me. I never forget this. Our generation cannot afford to take what our elders have long treasured and turn it into something clownish, so we need to be strict where it matters. I sometimes tell this to our young people, but it is a matter of where our conscience lies, and we thus act with a conscious awareness.
M: Shishimai groups perform the Shishimai as a religious ritual at festivals that are held on a certain day each year, and otherwise participate in joint performance events. Thus, there are naturally people who say that events and religious rituals are two completely separate undertakings, and people who question such events in the first place. There are various views.
I myself am from outside the prefecture, so when I first observed the Shishimai, I was simply impressed and thought it was stunning, rather than thinking about it as a form of religious ritual. That is why I think festivals should continue to be held with care. I also have a wish, or dream, that Shishimai contests and other such nationwide events will promote “Shishimai for show” based on a whole new concept.
N: There are two types of thinking. Some groups cannot help but oppose our Shishimai group from Tokyo offering a performance in front of the main shrine precisely because they perform the Shishimai as a religious ritual. They take pride in maintaining this discipline. There are in fact Shishimai groups that do not perform the Shishimai on occasions other than religious rituals and festivals. However, though they may have pride, they may not have necessarily inherited the deeper spirit of the tradition. This is true. They reject outsiders without having a substantial reason. It is like they have only inherited the part that rejects outsiders.
As another recent trend, there is a growing number of Shishimai groups that completely separate their performance at events and their performance in front of a main shrine (as a Shishi offering). They put on a serious performance when offering it to the gods, but strive to arouse the audience with a lively and attractive performance at events. This is also because they have pride. I think an increasing number of groups separate the two, precisely because they take pride in performing the Shishimai as an offering.
S: At my place as well, the Shishimai was originally performed as an offering at the very beginning of a religious ritual or a regularly held festival to purify the venue before the festival can get underway. In this respect, there are strong feelings toward the Shishimai as a religious ritual.
On the day of a festival, we used to perform the Shishimai in full religious mode, but the numbers of children and visitors to such festivals have been declining. To somehow get more people to turn out for the festival itself, we turned our eyes to the town outside the shrine and began performing the Shishimai here and there to catch the attention of many people and pique their interest so they would consider going to a festival for a peek. So, the primary purpose of performing the Shishimai in town was to bring more people to the shrines.
N: I just remembered that in 2014 at the shrine at my place, a mass performance was begun after all performances were finished and the festival had come to a close. Initially, a sort of Shishimai contest was held as a closing of the festival after the mikoshi palanquins arrived back at the shrine. As many as thirteen groups performed en masse, and the festival was supposed to end with a performance by the Shishimai group whose turn it was that year to perform last. However, when that last group was performing its dance, all the other groups “intruded” in the performance and also began dancing as they pleased. This was supposedly so fun that it became an annual custom.
I initially thought it was a good sign toward a new way of enjoying festivals, but unexpectedly, the “intrusion” occurred even during a daytime performance offering and took root as a bad trend that represented the simple, easygoing mood that is normally characteristic of events. Therefore, we held a discussion last year, and decided to put an end to the mass performance. Since making an offering means putting on a serious performance, we established a rule that it should not be taken so lightly and should not be intruded upon in any way. We naturally drew a clear line there.
Audience: Thank you very much. I realized from listening to your views that all of you believe tradition is extremely important after all. The Shishimai is originally performed as an offering, but it is presented as an event to gain the attention of people who are not all that interested in the profound, serious aspect of Shishimai as an offering. Am I correct to interpret the Shishimai as being separated into two such levels?
N: That is correct.
7. Utilization for tourism
Audience: Listening to everyone’s stories, I have felt profound meaning in the Shishimai, but when it comes to “showing” the Shishimai, I think tourism necessarily comes into play. Companies like mine that support festival organizers tend to think about tourism resources. I have the impression that you regard the utilization of culture for tourism in a positive light. I wonder, then, what would be the ideal way to use festivals as tourism resources, for example. It is surely not sufficient to simply attract crowds of people, and I believe the understanding that culture is not something to be consumed can be shared by everyone. The point is that, as a result of holding an event, people will gather to see the religious ritual, but I think it needs to be considered what constitutes the ideal gathering of such people. It is difficult to explain in words, but when thinking about tourism, what should be the goal? I’d like to hear your views on this.
K: It is difficult to say in terms of goals, but I suppose one is to hold an event and have people come to the town and spend money so the community could thrive. If anything, the present state of Shinminato is such that there are increasingly few stores and shopping streets that could help revitalize the town, so it would be wonderful to have a thriving community.
First of all, however, I would like people to know about the Shishimai. Using social media as a common tool in today’s society, I wish to spread the fact that there is such a traditional performing art in our town. I would be more than happy if everyone spreads that information even more widely.
M: This may be similar to what has already been said, but what I most want is to see my community thrive. The reason why I began my activities is largely linked to the opening of the Hokuriku Shinkansen. We are at a time when everyone is looking for tourism resources, but even with the opening of the shinkansen, there has been no mention of the word “Shishimai” among the activities being planned by the local people, and I wondered why.
I am from outside the prefecture, so I strongly wished I had learned about the Shishimai much earlier. I thought in very simple terms that it would be nice to have people know about the Shishimai and come to Toyama, and as it would help the region thrive. I imagined there are mostly only benefits. However, I now worry that an unknown wind might come blowing in and that something ominous might occur. Therefore, I engage in my activities while daily wondering how to address this issue.
N: I also act from the perspective of tourism, and offer open Shishimai practice sessions and workshops around twice a month in Tokyo. There, we lend out cardboard Shishi costumes that are made by a Shishimai preservation association and invite people to join us in our performance. We cannot afford to offer the use of our real costumes and tools, after all. In any case, we are thinking it would be nice if we could perform together again when we return to Kagawa.
In fact, we are going to give it a try this year, and if the local people watch our performance and think of it as one possibility, I think we could at least bring up the idea of creating a joint performance booth at the autumn festival, though of course it would be extremely difficult to actually have it realized.
S: The way I see it, the goal of tourism is money above all else, since money is essentially necessary not only to maintain Shishimai costumes and tools but in other aspects as well. Say a Shishi that belongs to our neighborhood association is damaged. Even if we ask the association to bear part of the cost of repairing the Shishi, association members tend to put on a sour face nowadays. The awareness that the Shishi belongs to the neighborhood association is diminishing. Yet tools break and wear with use. Even the yutan, the body of the Shishi, naturally needs to be cleaned and repaired. That kind of money is absolutely necessary.
When it comes to deciding who should pay, I believe it is our mission as Shishimai Oukoku Sanuki is to continue the event until the local administration comes around to thinking that “Kagawa should naturally also play a role in steadily maintaining the Shishimai.” All we can do is to spread information about the Shishimai, so we intend to promote the Shishimai to a level where we could “corner” the prefecture and city so they cannot escape their role, so to speak. I think that is a goal that would lead us to the next stage.
Our Shishimai preservation association is a voluntary organization of people who simply love the Shishimai. Ultimately, no matter how much such a voluntary organization keeps campaigning the Shishimai, in many people’s eyes we are merely a group of like-minded members doing as we please. That is why we think it is our job to put on an event that is worthy of obtaining the support of the prefecture by infallibly running it by them in advance that we will be putting on such an event, and creating a situation where the prefecture can no longer find a way out.
Audience: Thank you. I still tend to think, however, that tourism could be a means for firmly maintaining the Shishimai as a religious ritual. I asked for your views, because in my line of work these days, we receive many requests related to in-bound tourists, and we wonder where the “OK” line is drawn, such as whether or not to allow outsiders to touch Shishimai costumes and tools, as mentioned earlier. Thank you very much.
Summary
Moderator: Thank you very much. Our four speakers today shared with us many views in concrete terms. I myself learned a great deal from them and furthered my understanding. There is mention about focusing on the utilization of cultural properties today, but folk performing arts and festivals do not seem to be considered within the scope of cultural property utilization. Therefore, we must think among ourselves and disseminate information on how folk performing arts and festivals could perhaps be utilized. I do not think the utilization of folk performing arts means increasing the holding of events at the expense of the successors of the art. Rather, I think utilization in the real sense of the term means increasing the audience on the precise day of the festival, creating places where they can learn about the art, widely publicizing the exciting undertakings that are going on, as raised in our discussions today, and investing in these efforts. Let us continue to examine and discuss these issues together.