Disappearance of the folk festival and the traditional community

Abstract

This is an ethnological study of a traditional annual event held at Kuriyama in Hokkaido called the Banrnochi contest. This contest is a competition over the lifting rice bales by young villagers. In Kuriyama, these contests have been held for more than 100 years ever since the local peasants migrated from mainland Japan. There used to be many similar styles of competition all over Hokkaido, but there has not been any event except that of Kuriyama for at least the last three decades. However the contest at Kuriyama also disappeared in 2003. The reason for its longer existence was a strong bond between people in the traditional agricultural community in the town. Most of the villagers migrated from the same areas of Honshu, Toyoma and Ishikawa, during the decade of 1890-1900. Since then they have lived together and helped each other not only on farming, but also in many aspects of life in their traditional agricultural community, such as religious faith, tax payment, village festivals, welfare for the aged, entertainments and risk preparedness. These social events and community organizations established a stable relationship for the villagers and became parts of their self identity. But on the other hand, the stable relationship made the Banrnochi contest resistant to necessary change following the changes of village lifestyle and so it was abandoned. In this ethnological study the Banrnochi festival, a farming competition in Kuriyama Hokkaido, was observed and the causes of its disappearance were explored through informant interviews