Last night was Daimonji (lit. Five Mountains Send-off Fires), a festival in which huge bonfires in the form of Chinese characters and pictograms are burned on the mountainsides. It is a festival like non other in Japan!
It is popular to collect some charcoal remnants from the fires. The charcoal is wrapped in Japanese washi paper and hung above the entryway of a home or business. This charcoal from the sacred mountains wards off evil and its accompanying misfortune and sickness.
Two years ago I went to the ‘dai’ mountain where the largest of the characters is burned. This is the mountain where most people go I was unable to find much more than little bits of charcoal. Last year I went to myo-ho and found some large pieces. These two mountains are in my general neighborhood and I have hiked up them many times throughout the year.
I have never been near funagata, or the boat shaped pictogram, yet it is perhaps the one that interests me most. It is quite large but not really close to anywhere else so I have never been up there.
This year I watched Daimonji from the Izumo Bridge and had a great view of ‘dai’ and an unexpectedly good view of funagata (the boat), which I had never had a good view of before and it really impressed me.
So, this year I decided to collect my charcoal on Mount Funayama (lit. boat mountain).
