Nagoya Features Nagoya Festival Peculiar Festivals

Fertility Festival

On March 15th, 2009, the Honen Festival (English: Harvest or Fertility Festival) was held at Tagata Shrine, in Inuyama city.  The shrine is about 40 minutes away from Nagoya Station by train.  As shown in our YouTube video clip below, the main attraction of the festival was the float procession of a long wooden phallus.  The climax of the procession was near the gate of Tagata shrine, to which the wooden phallus was dedicated.  About two hours prior to the wooden phallus reaching the gate, people started taking their places along the street to have a better view of the procession.  The shrine gate area was packed by people standing on both sides of the street.

Here are some interesting pictures taken during the festival.  With these pictures, you can have some sense of why this festival is so popular among foreigners as well as Japanese.

The above picture depicts a street vendor selling wooden art crafts near the closest train station to Tagata shrine.  Can you see why this vendor attracts so many passers-by?

The above picture shows a street gift vendor selling candies.  Upon closer inspection, you might notice that the candies resemble male and female genitals.  Actually, people who bought these candies are licking them while walking on the street. Can you believe this?

The above is a picture of the gate of Tagata shrine about three hours before the procession started (probably around noon).

The above is a picture of street vendors near the shine gate before the street gets very crowded with people who want to watch the float procession of the wooden phallus.  The vendors sell fried chicken, roasted corn, and takoyaki (English: octopus balls).

The above is another picture of a gift shop which sells unique crafts inside the shrine.  Please look at the crafts carefully, then you will see how graphic they are!

The above shows one of the floats.  As for the main float of the wooden phallus, please view our YouTube clip.

These two pictures above are the banners people carry as part of the float procession.  They are very graphic, aren't they?