I Like Pigeons Because Nobody Else Does

The Soma Nomaoi festival started over 1000 years ago in the year 973 when the founder of the Soma family, Taira no Masakado, used wild horses in a military exercise in which he released them on the plains for his cavalry to pursue and capture. In the following years the custom was passed on to successive clan leaders as an homage to the clan and also Shinto deities.

We left Yokosuka at 3am. I looked around at the other passengers on the bus and was shocked to find myself the only one not sleeping. How on earth anyone can sleep when going to a new place is beyond me. It gets light here at 4:30am and by that time we were heading out the north end of Tokyo, leaving the concrete behind and entering into the countryside. It was so nice to get out of the city - even if only for a day – and breathe fresh air.

We arrived at 9am and I paired up with a really cool chick named Nathalie. Not wanting to be seen with a group of loud Americans, we quickly bailed out and made our way to the parade or ogyouretsu お行列. We found seats on the curb, but that didn’t suit the trio of ojiisans (grandpas) behind us who insisted we sit we sit in the shade with them as soon as they rearranged themselves and made room.  I’m always a hit with the old men here as soon as I start unleashing the Canon camera equipment.

I’m a fan of Akira Kurosawa movies and what I saw coming down the street made me feel as if I were in Ran or Seven Samurai - legions of samurai on the backs of horses of the highest athletic caliber, complete with swords at their sides were making their way down the street. Nathalie and I stood there agape for the entirety of the parade. The reason they looked real was because this was about as real as it gets without access to a time machine. I read in my festival guide that the armor, helmets, swords and horse tack are all original and not reproductions. Most of them have been passed down through the years from father to son.

The festival spans 3 days, but we were there on the second day which has the most action.  After the parade, all 600 riders filed into a racetrack area and prepared for kacchu-keiba 甲冑競馬, or race of 10 riders and horses at a time. Ten horses and riders gathered at a starting point and raced once around the track or 1000 meters.

The shinki-sodatsusen 神旗争奪戦、or flag scramble, started at 1pm with an explosion of fireworks directly above the grass field inside the racetrack. Out of the explosion fell two flags which the boiling throng of horses and men were waiting to catch. The triumphant knight who catches the flag breaks from the scrum and charges up the hill on a path winding through the spectators to claim his prize.

This was definitely one of the coolest things I’ve done here and I am so glad I didn’t let the early departure dissuade me from going.  The festival has been designated as Important Cultural Property and seems to have some notoriety outside Japan. I saw a crew of western filmmakers there, but I couldn’t tell what kind of white they were. I’d love to know what they were all about but they were busy filming the action and I didn’t want to bug them. Besides, I had my own photography to take care of and wasn’t in the mood to waste time socializing. Their t-shirts said “Soma 2007 Documentary Film Crew” or something like that. So if someone sees anything about this on TV in the coming years, please let me know.

I guess the really appealing aspect of this was the history. Being American means you probably don’t have too deep of a cultural history. Half the people there don’t even know what their real family names were before they were butchered and abbreviated when coming through Ellis Island. I just can’t imagine having such a deep and old history like this. It must be so cool to be such an integral part of a country and its land.

The samurai festival was simply unbelievable. It may have been the coolest cultural event I’ve seen here, but I am really interested in samurai history. To see people you’ve only read about in history books, as if they just stepped out of a time machine, was something I’ll never forget. I am busy today and most of the day tomorrow with lessons so I don’t have a whole lot of time to do a write-up right now. I took over 500 photos and I need to sort through them and do some editing. So check back for a decent narrative and photos later this week. Here are a few in the meantime: