Hadaka Matsuri

[Anonymous]

Hadaka Matsuri? I wonder how the "spirit man" is chosen? I could only imagine being in nothing but underwear in freezing temperatures. This sounds really painful to me but interesting. I wonder if the spirt man gets clean of all his wrong doings or is he a pure man? This reminds me of a temple in Mexico where people go the altar which is miles aways on their knees in seek of forgiveness or to ask for a miracle. Pain and suffering is offered as a trade of purifying the soul.

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

I watched a National Geographic show on the hadaka matsuri celebration in Japan. In this festival/celebration, a person is chosen to be the “spirit man”, who takes all of the bad luck from whoever is lucky enough to touch him. Touching him gives that person good luck for the upcoming year. All of the festival goers are basically naked with the exception of a diaper-like wrap and the festival takes place in freezing temperatures. Most of the participants are drunk in order to keep warm and there are near riots as the 10,000 or so men try to touch the spirit man. It takes him about 2 hours to walk about 300 yards as the spirit man has to reach the safety of the temple. In that time, he is beaten, slapped and gouged and suffers much pain. That evening, he has a cake strapped to his back which supposedly takes all the bad luck from him and it is buried. Very interesting (and painful) tradition!

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