Nikko: Yabusame Festival

The Yabusame is the archery on horseback festival which takes place a day before the large festival. We decided not to stay for the festival the next day, since there were so many other things we wanted to see.

Yabusame starts with a ceremony and parade involving the participants for the contest. This was held at the entrance to Tokugawa's shrine complex, and was a great backdrop for the brightly colored competitors.


Parade for Yabusame
Posted by Hello

The archers use very long bows, and specially tipped arrows to fire at targets while on horseback. The tips of the arrows are rounded so they don't kill someone (good idea).


Archers' Tools
Posted by Hello

The archers were very serious about what they were doing, and the costumes and setting was perfect for this event. The only thing a little off, was the wire rimmed glasses some of the samurai wore. I guess back in the day, if you needed those you wouldn't be a samurai archer.


Archers at Ceremony (note deer skin chaps, very cool but not at gift shop).
Posted by Hello


Samurai at Ceremony
Posted by Hello


Group photo
Posted by Hello

After the ceremony, the crowd started to gather along the main street from the shrine where the competition will take place. It's a great backdrop for the competition. The spot we were standing was a little uphill from where the archers started. The place is in the middle of these great hills with bright green trees covering them. The air was cool, it was a perfect day for the festival.


Yabusame competition
Posted by Hello

The archers start at one end and they ride their horses at full speed towards the target. If they're timing is right, they'll get a bulls-eye, if not they commit ritual suicide. We didn't stay for the ending ceremony, we thought it would be depressing.


Successful Archer
Posted by Hello

We decided to continue on to Kyoto in the late afternoon when the competition was complete. We stopped at a little coffee shop on the way down, and did some window shopping as well as admire the beautiful scenery on our way back down to the train station.

Next, we head for Kyoto...