Japan’s Unique “Naked Festivals”
– Exploring Their Meaning and Origins
One of the elements that cannot be overlooked when talking about Japanese culture is the matsuri—the traditional festival.
Across the country, throughout the four seasons, a wide variety of festivals are held. Among them, the events known as hadaka matsuri, or “naked festivals,” stand out as particularly distinctive.
As the name suggests, participants take part in sacred rituals almost naked.
What is more, many of these festivals are held in the harsh cold of midwinter.
While icy winds sting their skin and white breath rises in the air, men clad only in a single fundoshi loincloth jostle shoulder to shoulder, offering earnest prayers to the gods.
Their appearance has a strange intensity, where physical roughness and a sense of the sacred seem to coexist.
Why, in Japan, are there festivals in which people strip down?
Behind this custom lies a very old way of thinking: that by purifying the body, one can ward off misfortune.
By tracing the meaning and origins of hadaka matsuri, which have been handed down across regions and eras, and by looking at how they are still carried out today, we can draw closer to the forms of faith that Japanese people have cherished over the centuries.
The Meaning and Origins of Naked Festivals – Why “Naked”?
In simple terms, hadaka matsuri are festivals held with the aim of “casting off impurity by becoming naked and facing the gods in a pure state.”
The Idea of “Naked = Pure”
In Japan, nudity has long been associated with the idea of “washing away defilement and returning to one’s original, pure state.”
In Shinto, there is the practice of misogi, in which people cleanse body and mind by immersing themselves in rivers or the sea.
Standing under a waterfall for spiritual discipline (takigyō) is likewise a form of practice that uses water to remove impurity, and is closely related to misogi.
Hadaka matsuri are deeply connected to this idea.
Clothing is seen as something that becomes tainted through everyday life. When standing before the gods, shedding those garments and returning to a bare, unadorned state has been valued as important.
In this sense, stripping naked is not a sensational or eccentric custom.
It is an act rooted in a Japanese religious sensibility: discarding all external trappings and stepping before the gods in the purest possible form.
Temizu, the ritual of purifying hands and mouth before shrine worship, is a simplified form of misogi.
Naked Festivals as a Form of “Substitute” Belief
There is another important aspect of hadaka matsuri: the idea that participants take on misfortune as “substitutes” for others.
From ancient times, Japan has had the notion of transferring calamity or impurity onto something else in order to drive it away.
Customs such as cutting paper or straw into human shapes (hitogata), transferring defilement onto them, and then sending them down a river have been passed down in various regions.
In a similar way, at naked festivals the nearly bare human body itself can be seen as a kind of vessel that receives misfortune.
Participants step forward before the gods with nothing but their own bodies, imagining themselves as taking on the impurities and ill fortune of the community and entrusting them to the deities through prayer.
To strip down in the freezing cold, to be doused with cold water, to push forward shoulder to shoulder—
these actions express a shared resolve: “Through my own body, may I drive away this year’s misfortunes and pray for everyone’s safety.”
Being naked is not about competing in bravado.
Hadaka matsuri are rites that preserve a distinctly Japanese form of prayer, in which people offer themselves as bearers of misfortune and place that burden in the hands of the divine.
The custom of transferring impurities to human-shaped paper and letting them float away on water continues today.
Major Naked Festivals Across Japan
Naked festivals held around Japan each have their own distinct history and meaning.
Here, we will look at three of the best-known examples, often referred to as Japan’s “three great naked festivals.”
1. Saidaiji Eyo in Okayama – A Nighttime Struggle to Grasp Good Fortune
Saidaiji Eyo, held at Saidaiji Kannon-in in Higashi Ward, Okayama City, is counted as one of Japan’s three great unusual festivals and is among the country’s most famous hadaka matsuri.
Said to have begun in the Muromachi period, it has a history of at least 500 years.
On the night of the third Saturday in February, thousands of men wearing white fundoshi gather in the temple precincts.
After purifying themselves by being doused with cold water, they surge into the main hall.
At around 10 p.m., the festival reaches its climax when priests throw two wooden sticks called shingi (“sacred talismans”) down into the crowd from above.
In the darkness, those who manage to seize one of these sticks are hailed as “lucky men,” believed to be granted good fortune for the year.
From the outside, the intense struggle among nearly naked bodies easily draws attention, but at its core this is a deeply religious rite based on the belief that one must purify oneself in order to receive blessings.
【Ten thousand men join the “Hadaka Matsuri” at Saidaiji Eyo.】
2. Konomiya Hadaka Matsuri (Naoe Shinto Rite) in Aichi – Entrusting Misfortune to the “God Man”
The Konomiya Hadaka Matsuri, also known as the Naoe Shinto rite, is held at Owari Okunitama Shrine (Konomiya Shrine) in Inazawa City, Aichi Prefecture, and is likewise counted among Japan’s three great naked festivals.
Its origins are traced back to around 757, in the Nara period, when it is said to have begun as a ritual to drive away epidemics and poor harvests.
At the center of this festival is a man known as the shin-otoko, or “god man.”
Each year, one man is chosen from among the parishioners and, for a period leading up to the festival, lives a restrained life—abstaining from alcohol, meat, and other indulgences.
On the day of the festival, this shin-otoko, wearing only a white fundoshi, proceeds through the shrine grounds surrounded by a large number of similarly clad men.
The men in fundoshi believe that by touching the shin-otoko, they can transfer their own misfortune to him and pray for health and safety throughout the year.
Having taken on these burdens through the hands of the people, the shin-otoko then offers the accumulated impurity to the deity.
The sight of him pushing his way forward, buffeted by a sea of near-naked bodies, may appear to be a purely vigorous spectacle.
In essence, however, it is a purification rite rooted in a belief in substitution: one person taking on the community’s misfortune in order to dispel it.
3. Tamaseseri at Hakozaki Shrine in Fukuoka – Contesting a Sacred Ball that Brings Good Fortune
Tamaseseri, held each year on January 3 at Hakozaki Shrine in Higashi Ward, Fukuoka City, is another event often listed among Japan’s three great naked festivals.
Men wearing fundoshi form a group known as the tama-torishu (“ball takers”) and fiercely compete for a wooden ball about 28 centimeters in diameter and weighing roughly 8 kilograms.
This ball is likened to a sacred jewel (hōju), and it is believed that whichever side gains possession of it will be blessed with good harvests, business prosperity, and other forms of good fortune.
The participants are divided into two sides—one representing the sea and the other the land.
After purifying themselves by being doused with cold water, they clash as they try to carry the ball over to their own side.
From this vigorous contest over the ball comes the name Tamaseseri, literally “ball-jostling.”
Although held in midwinter with participants wearing little more than loincloths, this event is far from a simple test of strength.
Behind the actions of purification with water and the naked pursuit of the ball lies a strong character as a rite of petition: staking one’s own body to draw in good fortune and pray for the community’s safety over the coming year.
【The “Tamaseseri” ritual at Hakozaki Shrine.】
Naked Festivals as a Reflection of Japanese Prayer
Hadaka matsuri are neither mere curiosities nor simple tourist attractions.
Within the sequence of events—facing the gods with nothing but one’s body in the cold, sharing the burden of misfortune with fellow community members, and praying together for safety and abundance—there is a concentrated expression of the forms of prayer that Japanese people have valued since ancient times.
At the same time, it is true that naked festivals across the country now face a range of challenges: low birthrates and aging populations, a lack of successors, heightened safety concerns, and growing discomfort with near-nudity.
Some festivals have brought their long histories to a close, while others are experimenting with new approaches—revising costumes, reconsidering participation rules, and making other adjustments in an effort to carry the tradition forward.
Even if the outward form changes, the essence remains the same.
Purifying impurity, praying for a safe year ahead, and joining hearts with those who gather in the same place—this core intention is the spirit that sustains hadaka matsuri.
Naked festivals are cultural practices handed down from the past, but they are also rituals that quietly remind us—living in the present—of something fundamental: the human resolve to “offer oneself for the sake of what one believes in.”
Read about Japanese Festivals
・Bon Odori: A Timeless Celebration That Colors the Japanese Summer
・Nebuta(Aomori): A Feast of Light and Sound That Stirs the Soul
・Namahage(Akita): When the Oni Comes Knocking
・Awa Odori(Tokusima): 400 Years of Memory in Awa Odori
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