Rituals of the Naked Festival

As soon as darkness falls on a nude festival, the area around Kannon-in comes alive, with snack stalls in the style of Japanese temple fairs lining the streets, and people dressed in festive costumes, banging gongs and beating drums in a festive atmosphere.

Before the ceremony officially began, a juvenile nudity festival was held. Local boys from primary and secondary schools mimic adults who also wear only a crotch cloth, shouting as they walk into the temple to be baptized in cold water. At 9 p.m., the men taking part in the battle for the treasure wood were ready to go.

Japanese people tie crotch cloth process is very interesting, a small crotch cloth open actually 10 meters long, in accordance with the traditional method of the waist first horizontal around a few times, and then in the two strands of the vertical around one. Tying the crotch cloth must have the help of others, vertical this one to be particularly hard, tied when the companion of the cloth on the back as hard as pulling a car as hard as a few times to make the crotch cloth tight. Most of the people who were tied were screaming in pain. It is said that the crotch cloth will tighten when it gets wet, making the wearer feel like he is being tortured.

After dressing, the men set off in groups shouting slogans. In the ceremony, want to be alone to grab the treasure wood is impossible, usually have to form a team **** with the action. So, the same unit or neighboring men each formed a team, playing a small flag and set off.

The activities of the scramble for treasure wood in the West Temple Guanyin courtyard. Those who enter the temple are first washed off their bodies in a cold purification pool. But what is strange is that the men appear to be comfortable in the bone-chilling cold water of early spring. It turned out that the marchers, who had always clung to each other and kept shouting and waving their arms, had been sweating profusely and didn't feel the cold at all.

Near midnight, the temple's hall inside and outside has been crowded, nearly 10,000 naked men in order to compete for favorable terrain crowded around. At this point, it was almost impossible to get into the temple. The crowding was so bad that within moments a whole bunch of people were falling down the temple stairs, while the next person immediately swooped in to fill the empty space.

Police officers nervously patrolled the perimeter, squeezing in to carry people away as soon as they saw them faint. The people around them actually clapped and cheered together, whether because there was one less competitor or to boost the morale of the participants.

At midnight, all the lights went out, and the two pieces of precious wood were thrown down from the second floor of the temple, and the crowd immediately boiled up like a pot of boiling water, you squeezed me, I pushed you, and some even rode on the bodies of others. The audience's emotions were also infected, shouting furiously under the intensive flashbulbs, itching to rush in themselves. When the treasure wood was snatched, the crowd gradually formed several circles and moved slowly out of the temple. The ceremony for the treasure wood ends there.

At the end of the ceremony, the team that snatches the wood selects three people and crowns them as "Blessed Men".

It is said that the crotch cloths that have gone through the ceremony have the power of God, and when wrapped around a pregnant woman's body, they can bless the birth of a healthy and brave child.