I used to think this was the most sexually suggestive Shinto festival in Japan, but I was wrong. The Mainichi Shimbun reports on December's Oshiroi Festival:
Thanks to my Googling skills, I was able to find pics (1, 2, 3) and a video. It looks like I missed the festival this year, but, as the Mainichi reports, it's not the only game in town:
FOLLOW-UP (March 29, 2006):
I put the video up on YouTube. Here it is:
It's ritualicious!
Inside the containers is rice flour mixed with water to form a sticky, glutinous substance called oshiroi, which is where the festival gets its name.
Starting with the shrine's chief priest, the men draw out handfuls of the gooey mess from the containers they're carrying and smear it all over the face of all those taking part in the banquet, whether they like it or not, with results closely resembling what the adult video world refers to as a gansha, or facial shot.
Thanks to my Googling skills, I was able to find pics (1, 2, 3) and a video. It looks like I missed the festival this year, but, as the Mainichi reports, it's not the only game in town:In Nara Prefecture's Onda Festival, a god-like creature with a long nose called a Tengu simulates making love to a traditional Japanese peasant woman called Otafuku, which means "lots of fortune." During the ritual, the Tengu pours sake into a bamboo flute, which it waves around and splatters its contents over onlookers in an act that clearly mimics ejaculation.The Onda festival takes place in July.
FOLLOW-UP (March 29, 2006):
I put the video up on YouTube. Here it is:
It's ritualicious!
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