Here’s your “Did you know?” tidbit for the day. Did you know that every March 15th, the small town of Komaki, Japan celebrates
Honen Matsuri. Matsuri means festival and Honen means “good harvest” so it’s a Harvest Festival. People pray for having a baby and good harvest for the year.

This practice dates back to the discovery of the Tagata Shrine (thought to be over 1,500 years old). In the shrine they found an ancient sword and other artifacts. What was interesting was the discovery of several items around the Shrine , some man-made, and some naturally occurring and they were all phallus-shaped.

This is the reason why the main attraction during this ceremony is the giant phallus.

What I was told, is that every year a new phallus is carved from a single cedar tee trunk about 8 feet long. This is done after the tree has gone through a purification ritual. This giant phallus is offered at the Shrine in hopes of having another bountiful and fertile year. An important thing that followers emphasize is that they do not worship the giant “penis” but rather it is their offering to the gods.

During the ceremony, visitors and followers rub the phallus and make their wish or wishes.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 at 3:43 pm and is filed under Contest and Quiz. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.