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- Wakaba Festival (Unagoji Festival)
Toyokawa-City Wakaba Festival (Unagoji Festival)
Date : 04/06/2024, 04/07/2024
Falling-on-the-floor drunk
The Wakaba Festival is a very unique, if not amusing, festival.
It is believed that this festival has its origins as homage to the lords of Imahashi Castle, which existed in the current location of Yoshida Castle in Toyohashi City, beginning with samurai Makino Kohaku and his successors, who preached that "the country owes its existence to the people who live in it." Once, the lord was so overwhelmed with gratitude for the hard work of his loyal retainers upon completion of a new fortification, that he decided to host a generous banquet with plenty of food and rice wine, inviting all the populace. The guests became so inebriated that many were not even able to properly walk back home, stumbling and hanging onto each other's shoulders, while others would just pass out on the streets. Due to the sheer number of guests, people were spread everywhere around town. The memory of this happy event and the lord’s generosity was so well imprinted into the minds of the townsfolk that they decide to celebrate the event every year since then.
Five parade floats are complemented by festive sasa dancing and a grand musical accompaniment, as they parade from Ushikubo Hachimansha Shrine to Tennosha Shrine and back. Members of the musical accompaniment break at certain times—no matter the place—and drop to the ground with the dancers wriggling around like a bunch of maggots on the street, earning the festival its nickname of the "Unagoji Festival," or the "Maggot Festival"!
This one-of-a-kind festival is designated a prefectural intangible cultural property.