The Roving Ronin Report

Festival in Chiba, Japan where participants in loinclothes fling mud about in a cold pond for the sake of good harvests and good fortune.

Japanese Mudslinging Festival Brings Good Luck  Dairokuten-no-Hadaka Matsuri: Mudslinging Fun! Would you believe this is a sacred spiritual ritual? It’s a cold day in late February as men young and old clad only in thin white loincloths stand stoically shivering knee-deep in freezing cold water. At a signal they all rush each other flinging handfuls of mud at one another. They also wrestle and toss each other about in the muddy cold water. What may appear to be school boy rough-housing with a sado-masochistic bent is actually a spiritual ritual done to insure good harvest while simultaneously bringing luck to the mud-flinging participants and spectators. The Shinto gods must love a good free-for-all and the Dairokuten-no-Hadaka Matsuri gives them a good show. Half-naked men gathered in cold muddy water to entertain the Gods. The Dairokuten-no-Hadaka Matsuri is just one of many “naked” festivals held throughout Japan often in winter. Hadaka means “naked” but in actuality the participant...