If you are going to strip off and wrestle with more than a
hundred men over a bale of straw, I advise you to have a few drinks beforehand.
If you take nothing else away from reading this, then please remember that.
On January 18th I took a trip to Tamana in
Kumamoto prefecture to take part in The Matobakai Festival. Better known as the
Naked Man! For this festival you go to the local shrine wearing naught but a
fundoshi (traditional Japanese loincloth) and try and grab some straw from the
centre of a…… well…… man-pile basically. This straw will bring you luck for the
coming year. A couple of laps of the shrine and the pile will head to the beach
where the festival ends. It takes about two hours to do this.
There are a number of Naked Man festivals, or Hadaka
Matsuri, in Japan. The biggest being in Okayama where 10,000 men regularly
participate. That’s a lot of bare flesh to take in, but conversely, probably a
lot of luck to go around too.
Once you sign in at the local community centre, you are
given a bag for your clothes and a goodie pack to commemorate the event. This
includes your choice of t-shirt. Unfortunately I was a little on the late side,
so the only t-shirts left were in XL or XXXL. Can you guess which one I rolled
up and tucked under my arm?
Next you head into a room where the town has laid on an
impressive spread of food and drink. Most of the food was left, but the supply
of drink was nearly exhausted. There was still time to be poured a number of
cups of liquor before everyone had to head off to get fitted with their
fundoshi. As I mentioned, it’s a good idea to drink what you can here because
as some of the participants explained to me, it’s the only way to ensure the
day goes ‘safely’. The more you drink, the safer you are. You are going to get
pushed, squashed, trod on and generally blackened and bruised. It will all go a
lot smoother for you if you’re numb with drink. Judging by the red eyes and
faces from of few of the guys wandering around, it looked like some of them
could have been trampled on by a herd of elephants and they would have been
fairly ‘safe’.
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| Spot the straw |
After this you strip off, put your clothes in a bag, and a man
who seems to have enjoyed a few toasts himself wraps the cotton loincloth
around you. It’s so tight you can barely breath, bending over is a struggle,
and you can forget about using the bathroom form this juncture on. But it helps
you keep your modesty (mostly). It’s a good idea to put tape on your feet at
this point. Sadly having not brought any, having been under the impression that
it was supplied to us for some reason, I was left using what few scraps I was
given by people who were finished with their own rolls. This resulted in one
foot being wrapped and only a few toes on the other covered. This schoolboy
error would come back to haunt me later! Then everyone heads down the street to
the shrine where the fun is about to begin.
A huge crowd had gathered and seeing as myself and my
American friend were the only two foreigners taking part, we had to pose for
countless photos. We had a few more shots of alcohol, and then the straw
carrier came out of the shrine and was immediately set upon by all these
semi-naked drunken men. The object of the game is pretty much to climb over
everyone, get to the middle and pull some of this lucky straw up. Often you
have no choice in whether you are heading up or not, as you are hoisted up from
behind and throw atop the other men. I managed to get on top of the pile twice,
but that was more by luck than skill. I
may have wrenched a testicle at one stage too, but it was worth it to get your
hands on some of that sweet, sweet straw.
When a group of three or four men are on top of the pile,
and they seem relatively steady, they will be passed a young boy, or even a
baby, to hold up. A huge cheer goes up and everyone claps. Those kids will
surely have a good year this year! That lull quickly disappears though as the
massive pile-on continues to do laps around the shrine. Bucket after bucket of
cold water are thrown over the group as it goes around too. Mainly to cool
everything down as it can get rather steamy, but all it served to do was temporarily
blind me most of the time.
Remember how one of my feet was not properly tapped up? Well
coming around the second lap, I looked down to see that it was crimson red
after a nasty cut. Limping through the mud and dirt I made my way to the
outskirts of the pile. Here one of the stewards saw me and directed me to where
I could get fixed up. I was sat on a chair and asked where I was from? When I replied
‘Ireland’ one of the men made a gesture as if to indicate a moustache and said ‘Whiskey!!’
I didn’t think it was the time to inform the crowd of my countries rich
cultural heritage, so I simply said ‘Yes!’
After washing off my foot I saw I had two red gashes on the
top. If only I had brought tape! One man went off to get some bandages while
another inspected my foot. Someone came over with a big bottle of drink.
Finally some alcohol to help with the pain I thought. But instead the man inspecting
my foot took a big swig from the bottle and spat it out over my freshly cut
foot! I was starting to think this man wasn’t a doctor, and that this was less
a medical area and more like a group of people getting drunk around a fire! I
warmed up for a few minutes, had a few drinks, explained that Ireland isn’t
Iceland, and then had a few more drinks. A bottle of whiskey was even produced.
The label just said ‘Black’ and it wasn’t too bad.
I made my way back to the pile, which at this stage was
winding its way through the town’s streets on the path to the beach. Not as
much climbing all over each other this time as the pile was moving at a bit of
pace toward the sand. One last big push and what was left of the straw bale
made it to the water and a massive applause can be heard from the on looking
crowd. Everyone congratulates each other and we all head back to the local onsen
to get washed off. What straw I had was safely tucked away inside my fundoshi.
I seemed to be lucky to make it through the day in one piece, so perhaps I will
be lucky for the rest of the year also.
A flurry of cameras take pictures of me and my friend. We
were even interviewed for two local television stations. I was asked do we do
anything like this back in Ireland? I had to inform them that sadly we don’t. Maybe
I should have blamed the recession. Anyway, somewhere out in the aether, there
is a clip of me half cut and half naked on Japanese TV.
Once at the onsen you get hosed off and a man with a giant
scissors cuts you out of your loincloth. Then a quick shower and a hot soak.
Now I’m not sure if the onsen bath was small or if it only looked small because
there was a hundred guys in it at the same time? After you are sufficiently
soaked you can go look for your bag of clothes. Handily mine had my name
written in English so was found quickly enough. Now fully clothed, I was
informed that more drinking and eating will be done at a party upstairs. But if
I went to another party you could safely assume that I would not be able to
write this as I would have forgotten the events of the day in some drunken
haze. So with a wrenched testicle, a bruised foot, and an oversized t-shirt I headed
for home.
Would I do it again? Definitely!
To next years Naked Man!
