‘Blessed rain’: Japanese men in loincloths wrestle in harvest rite

YOTSUKAIDO: More than 30 Japanese men clad in loincloths braved cold and heavy rain in a harvest festival more than two centuries old, held in a small, muddy field in a residential pocket outside Tokyo, the capital.

Divided into groups as they shivered and gritted their teeth against the cold, the men formed human pyramids, charged, and threw one another into the mud, in tussles to offer prayers for a bountiful harvest.

“This festival has a long history,” said Takeshi Seino, a teacher participating for the third time in Wednesday’s festival of Warabi Hadaka Matsuri in the city of Yotsukaido.

The ritual dates from the time when residents of Warabi, a village nestled in farmland and rice fields, wrestled in the paddies with horses, said Kenji Tsuruoka, one of the festival’s organisers.

Participants also pray for children’s healthy growth, he added, with several bringing their newborns to the muddy field before wrestling in this year’s event.

Although few farms remain in an area that has altered beyond recognition since the days the festival began 200 years ago, the tradition remains central for those who live there.

“There hasn’t been that much rain this year, but it poured today,” said one participant, Kenji Nagata, 60. “Let’s say it’s blessed rain.”