On 2024/6/30, I joined the Summer Grand Purification Ritual - Nagoshi no Oharae (夏越の大祓) - , for the first time in my life, held at Katsushika Hachiman-gu Shrine (葛飾八幡宮, est. AD 889-898) in Ichikawa city, Chiba prefecture, near my house.

This video visual was took at Katsushika Hachiman-gu Shrine, but back ground sounds and music are derived from Kanda Shrine (神田神社, well known as Kanda-myōjin 神田明神, est. AD 730) and Izumo Grand Shrine (出雲大社, est. mythological age before 5th century).

Many Shinto shrines hold purification rites at the end of June to cleanse impurities accumulated over the first half of the year and pray for good health in the remaining half.

However the style of the rites are varied, especially from the view point of Music. Kanda-myōjin is using typical Kagura (神楽, sacred music dedicated for Gods), but Izumo Grand Shrine is using Grand Purification Drum (大祓太鼓), of which the beats effectively navigate the audience minds to the sacred world.

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Kamigamo Jinja (上賀茂神社) is known for a particular style of purification that involves transferring impurities from a person to a paper doll called hitogata (人形). After sunset on June 30th, during the Nagoshi no Oharae (Great Summer Purification) ritual, shrine priests send the papers floating down the Nara no Ogawa Stream from the torch-lit Hashidono Hall (橋殿), accompanied by the rhythmic chanting of prayers.

Several rituals take place at Kamigamo Jinja on June 30th. During the day, priests pass through a large ring made of reeds (茅の輪), purify their bodies at the Hashidono, and proceed to present offerings and prayers to the deity Kamo Wakeikazuchi no Okami (賀茂別雷大神) at the Honden (Main Sanctuary). When the Nagoshi no Oharae begins at 8 p.m., the priests once again gather at the Hashidono. The scene is lit by braziers that cast firelight over the running water, and the sound of traditional musical instruments reverberates through the shrine grounds. A reciter steps forward to read a waka poem about summer purification at Kamigamo Jinja written by Fujiwara Ietaka (藤原家隆, 1158–1237), a court noble and poet:

"In the evening / When the wind rustles the oaks / At Nara no Ogawa /
It is the ablutions / That are the only sign it is still summer!"

「風そよぐ ならの小川の夕暮れは
　みそぎぞ 夏のしるしなりける」

Nowadays, this Ietaka's best remembered poem is included in Fujiwara-no-Teika’s poetry anthology "Ogura Hyakunin Isshu (小倉百人一首)".

Two priests then sit at the edge of the Hashidono with a box of assembled hitogata paper dolls and rapidly swipe them one after the other into the stream below, while others chant a purification prayer. As the papers float away, they are believed to take each person’s impurities with them. A priest wielding a branch of the sacred sakaki tree (榊) proceeds to purify the people who gathered to watch the ceremony.

After a recitation of another waka poem about summer purification, the priests throw their own hitogata into the stream and depart, leaving the dying flames in the braziers flickering in the night.

In order to submit hitogata for the purification ceremony, people write their name and age on the paper dolls and then pass them over the left side, right side, and center of the chest, completing the process by releasing a breath onto the paper. The hitogata thus become vessels for the supplicants’ impurities, and when the papers are washed away, they symbolically take the impurities with them.

Hitogata can be submitted to Kamigamo Jinja in advance from mid-May to the end of June. On the day of the Nagoshi no Oharae, they are accepted until the scattering ceremony is

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