Festivals Facing Crisis: How Should Traditions Be Passed on to Next Generation?

Editorial

16:35 JST, July 6, 2025

Festivals and traditional events that have been passed down through the generations for many years in various areas are now in danger of disappearing due to a shortage of participants caused by population decline. How should these traditions be passed on to the next generation? It is hoped that people in each regional area will figure out how to resolve the situation.

The organizer for Soma Nomaoi, an annual traditional event in Fukushima Prefecture that was held in May, has abolished the requirement for female participants to be under 20 years old and unmarried, starting this year.

Because the number of participants had been declining in recent years, the organizer reviewed the conditions for taking part in the event in an effort to secure participants. As a result, eight women aged 20 or older took part. In order to preserve the tradition, the organizer appears to have deemed it inevitable to change the way the festival is held in response to changing times.

It is difficult to determine how far to relax restrictions on gender and age for events such as shrine rituals that have been traditionally carried out by men.

Discussions have been held over the participation of women in the Gion Festival in Kyoto and the Mikurumayama Festival in Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture, both of which are included in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

Preservation organizations left the decision to local communities responsible for maintaining yama, hoko and other types of floats. As a result, the floats are divided into those on which women are allowed to ride and those that they are not.

There are also festivals nationwide that have been suspended due to a shortage of participants or since the COVID-19 pandemic. It is hoped that local communities and preservation groups will respond flexibly according to regional circumstances, pondering what degree of importance to place on tradition.

It may also be effective to allow people, such as those from other areas and tourists, to be involved in holding traditional events. Starting in fiscal 2023, the Fukuoka prefectural government has introduced a system to register in advance people both inside and outside the prefecture who wish to help with festivals and dispatch them to organizers struggling with staff shortages.

If people learn about the areas through their participation in festivals and traditional events, that experience could help spread the areas’ appeal and promote relocation to the areas, among other merits.

The environment surrounding festivals and traditional events has been changing. These days, events that involve animals fighting each other or forcing them to suffer have been criticized as animal abuse. Such viewpoints also need to be considered when discussions are held on ways to preserve traditional events.

Even though some events have been suspended, there are cases in which the momentum for their revival grows as circumstances and other factors change.

In Sakaide, Kagawa Prefecture, Hojo Nenbutsu Odori, a traditional dance that has been designated as an intangible folk cultural property by the prefectural government, had been suspended after it was performed in 1994. However, it was revived in April after a hiatus of about 30 years. This was made possible because a preservation group restarted its activities on the occasion of the 1,200th anniversary of the establishment of a local shrine.

Video footage and tools from that time, as well as records from when the traditional dance was given the cultural property designation, reportedly helped revive the dance. Even small festivals that are not designated as a cultural property are a legacy that has been inherited from predecessors. It is essential to work together with local governments and make efforts to keep records of such traditions.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, July 6, 2025)