Dipping into my archives from last October, I realize that I haven't yet posted much about the Kurama Fire Festival (鞍馬の火祭り) that I briefly mentioned at the time, and a bit in my shooting-with-two-bodies post.

One reason that I haven't posted is that the photos are not very good (taken haphazardly handheld while not really knowing what was going on), but it's quite the different kind of festival, so it's worth a quick look.

The village of Kurama is long and narrow, wedged into a valley in the mountains of northern Kyoto. During this festival, fires and people are everywhere, both lining and filling the streets. Village men participating in the main event wear (so to speak) outfits as seen in the shot above.

This next guy walking by appears to be a fairly high-up Shinto priest...

This was my first time at this festival, and I had no idea what would happen other than something about big torches being carried through the streets sometime after dark. It was oppressively crowded and so any attempt at movement was decidedly unpleasant, so I stuck in one spot and hoped for the best. It turns out that I was pretty lucky.

Apparently the big (18'?) torches were being lugged into the courtyard of this shrine and propped up to be lit. They are exceedingly top heavy, so this was not a smooth operation and occasionally they fell.

The crowds were so incredibly oppressive that following along wasn't in the realm of possibility, so I lingered a bit but then went the opposite direction.