Hamaori Festival (浜降祭)

Today, the Hamaori Festival (浜降祭) was held on the west side of Southern Beach Chigasaki in Chigasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture. This annual event takes place on Marine Day and is sometimes counted among the Three Major Festivals of the Kanto region.

The festival is said to have originated in 1838, when the mikoshi (a divine palanquin or portable Shinto shrine) of Samukawa-jinja Shrine was returning from the Konomachi Festival in Oiso. During the return journey, a dispute broke out between the parishioners of Samukawa-jinja Shrine and local parishioners at a ferry crossing on the Sagami River, resulting in the mikoshi falling into the river and going missing.

A few days later, a fisherman named Magoshichi, who lived in the Nango district where Yagumo Jinja is located, discovered its goshintai — the sacred object believed to house the kami (deity), which had been carried inside the mikoshi — and returned it to Samukawa-jinja Shrine. In gratitude, the shrine began sending its mikoshi to the shores of Nango each year to perform a misogi (ritual purification).

However, according to the Shinpen Sagami-no-kuni Fudokiko — a topographical record of Sagami Province (which covers much of present-day Kanagawa Prefecture) completed in 1841 — Tsurumine Hachimangu had been conducting seaside misogi rituals at the nearby shore every year long before Samukawa-jinja Shrine began its gratitude visits.

Today, parishioners from Samukawa-jinja Shrine and various Shinto shrines in Chigasaki carry their mikoshi in street processions to the beach. After a ritual conducted by the chief priest of Samukawa-jinja Shrine, the mikoshi are carried into the sea. After this, they are paraded back through their respective neighborhoods.