O-BON
In Kyoto, Caitlin takes part in celebrations to honor the departed
"Tonight, though she couldn’t follow most of the words, and she didn’t have much idea as to the meanings of the dances save for references to Mt. Fuji, the moon, and rice fields, the sounds of the voices and the reverberations of the drums seemed to reach through to tingle her very marrow and draw her along. She felt as if she could go around and around the dais at that slow, entrancing pace forever." (PAGE 207)
| O-Bon is a Japanese summer festival that honors the spirits of the dead. It combines early Buddhist rituals to rescue the souls of the dead from hell with native Japanese Shinto agricultural rites and the tradition of welcoming back the souls of ancestors in late summer. Currently O-Bon is celebrated throughout Japan from the 13th to the 16th of either July or August, with preparations beginning days before. The festival serves as a time for family reunions and ancestor veneration at family altars and cemetery plot--the spirits are guided home, feted for several days, and then guided back to the spirit world. Public celebrations such as local bon-odori (dancing), lantern ceremonies, and welcoming and sending-off fires to guide the spirits also mark the O-Bon festival period. Kyoto's O-Bon celebrations take place in August and are capped by the most famous sending-off fire in Japan--the lighting of Daimonji that Caitlin watches from the banks of the Kamogawa with Nobuko, Yusuke, Naomi, and Jun. In all, five of the mountains surrounding Kyoto are lit with these huge bonfires, but Daimonji remains the most popular for viewing. |
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The butsudan
