ナショナルジオグラフィックのインスタグラム(natgeo) - 6月4日 18時12分

Photo by @dguttenfelder | words by @neilshea13 — The little god is heavy. Divinely dense. Forty men at least sweat and burn beneath the weight as they haul the god in its miniature shrine through the narrow streets of Minowa, a blue collar neighborhood in northeastern Tokyo. Slow progress, thick happy crowds. Halfway down each block the men pause and then begin to rock the shrine back and forth, back and forth, shaking away evil spirits. It isn’t gentle work. Not the slow roll of a baby’s crib but the desperate pitch of a boat in a storm, riding a sea of sunburnt arms and shoulders. With each wave there’s fear of a wreck. This Shinto festival celebrating good fortune and close-knit community comes once in three years, and by evening the men show off bruises, broken skin, strange lumps that swell behind the neck. There’s a word for them: mikoshi-tako. It means something like “shrine callus,” though these are fluid-filled and jiggle like Jell-O, like water balloons. Here is the price of exorcism. But the crowd is grateful and thrilled—chanting along to a rhythm of grunts and shrill whistles. A man with a megaphone shouts Work harder! and the crowd answers with a cheer. All around is the scent of grilled meat and incense, and from ice-packed coolers at the sidewalk plastic cups of booze flow quickly toward the weary shrine-carriers. Go home bruised, not thirsty—it’s a faith St. Patrick would know. Outside his flower shop a man named Kurihara watches the god rock. No other neighborhood shakes their shrine so violently, he says. His face is red with drink, voice coarse with smoke. He tugs back the collar of his cotton robe, pats the lump and says Our god likes it rough.

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