Okera Mairi Festival

Okera Mairi Festival

Okera-Mairi is the name for visits that are made to the Okera Matsuri Festival in Kyoto. This is an important festival in the Kyoto calendar and is held from the New Year’s Eve to New Year’s Day. Okera-Mairi Festival is held at Yasaka-jinja Shrine, which happens to be an important cultural property in Kyoto.

Okera refers to the medicinal herb Atractylis ovata which, according to popular belief, casts away the evil energy of the past year. It is also believed that this medicinal herb blesses an individual with longevity. During the Okera-Mairi Festival, watch fires are lit at the shrine by setting fire to the roots of the medicinal herb on New Year’s Eve. Toro lanterns are placed in two different places and the entire shrine premises are lit up by this fire.

People come to the shrine on New Year’s Eve to light a length of straw rope at the fire, which is ritually pure and to which okera plants have been mixed. The okera plants are mixed and burnt in the New Year fire of the shrine because it keeps the air dry and pure. The straw ropes, which burn slowly, are sold by vendors on the shrine grounds at prices which are terribly inflated to as much as 700 yen.

As the Okera-Mairi Festival ends, the flame traditionally is taken home by many devotees to light the first hearth fire at the New Year. It is not very practical in this modern age of electric stoves and automatic gas burners. However, people still walk around gaily twirling the ropes to keep the sacred flame alive for a while. The shrine maidens are beautifully dressed up in bright red and white dresses and the priests are dressed up in austere white robes.

The shrine is beautifully prepared for the Okera-Mairi Festival in Kyoto. The number of booths is more during this time of the year and all are loaded to the brim with fresh supplies of amulets and holy arrows. The shrine maidens can be seen sitting in their neat costumes. Okera Matsuri festival is the largest revenue-generating event in the whole year for shrines and temples in Kyoto and no one takes this event lightly.

After you obtain the fire, you could walk back into the park and walk up to the stalls selling everything edible such as huge sausages, toffee apples, octopus balls, yakisoba, sweet sake and even Kitty candyfloss. The beautifully decorated stalls in red and white with lanterns recreates a magical atmosphere at the Okera-Mairi Festival.

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