Ohara Festival of Spring (春の大原女まつり)

Spring in Ohara - wildflowers color the hills yellow and only incidentally purple, the trees are dressed smartly in shinryoku green, the sky is stretched bright and wide, the narrow Kusao River that cuts through the little farms is a lazy soundtrack.

Painted into the foreground of this pastoral tableau are some 50 or 60 women and girls wearing traditional aizome (indigo-dyed) kimono and white tenugui (kerchief), the same as their peasant ancestors wore in centuries past.  The colors are ultra-vivid - blue, red, orange, white - the layered patterns and textures striking.  These were work clothes of the Kamakura Era (1192 -1333), humble garments, purely functional.  They are a stark contrast to the splendid and rarefied kimonos of the imperial court, or even the geisha of Gion.  Dressed so, the women of Ohara would carry kindling, coal, flowers and various produce into the city on their heads.  

The annual Ohara Festival of Spring (春の大原女まつり) celebrates the season and the women of this rural town in the mountains north of Kyoto.  Women and girls parade along a narrow road from Jakkoin Temple across the Takano River to Sanzenin Temple.  Generations of Ohara residents, grandparents down to toddlers, step out of their houses to watch it go by.  It is a lovely spectacle.

I have seen other gyoretsu (processions) in Kyoto, impressive, but rather sober events, participants and spectators stone-faced, serious.  Oharame Matsuri is light, cheerful, everyone smiling, greeting each other.  Everybody seems to know everybody.  I find myself smiling too.  It is a contagious joy.

Not even halfway to their destination storm clouds gather and a cold rain begins to fall.  The entire group scurries into a cafe along the route.  Light cotton tenugui and  waraji (straw rope sandals) are no match for a spring thundershower.

I take shelter under the eaves of a nearby building and wait with a few others for the storm to pass.  The matsuri paparazzi, moments earlier climbing over each other to get photos of the beautiful Oharame (Ohara women), abandon the project completely and race for their cars with their big, expensive cameras.  I wait and I wait, listening to the rhythm of the rain, watching the sky, looking for some blue through the gray.  45-minutes later the rain stops and the sun returns, but the parade does not resume.  I suppose the momentum is lost, the continuity broken.  A cruel joke by Mother Nature, the proverbial rain on the parade.

I am disappointed, but at the same time grateful to have witnessed the marvelous start of this Oharame Matsuri.  Next year...there's always next year.