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After a late night out yesterday and lolling about the house all day, I went out for a run just before sunset this evening. I started by walking northwest from my home through the rice fields, pausing to look at the progress on the new house theyrsquo;re building there.� Nearby, therersquo;s a great big temple thatrsquo;s part of the Tenri sect, a relatively new syncretic faith.� The temple was brightly lit and I could smell incense and hear a rhythmic clacking of wooden blocks and occasionally drums and chimes, but I couldnrsquo;t see inside to tell exactly what was going on in there.� A teenage boy, one of my students I think, played with some small children on the playground equipment outside.

Itrsquo;s the night before the annual Autumn Festival, and small traditions are happening all around town.�� Here and there are tall white banners, waving in the wind on poles thirty feet high.� They mark the neighborhood shrines that are the rallying points for the battles to come.� By wandering towards the banners I found two tiny shrines that I had never noticed before even though theyrsquo;re just a five minute walk from my house.� I guess thatrsquo;s not too surprising, since there are dozens, possibly hundreds, of temples and shrines in Izushi.� Old men tending bonfires in front of the shrines smiled and bade me good evening as I went past.

I crossed the highway and the river, then started running up the path that runs along the far side of the river.� The air smelled smoky ndash; both the ordinary smoke from farmers burning rubbish and the spicier scent of incense.�� It was mostly dark now, although I could see the dirt path in front of me well enough, and the moonlight on the rippling river was quite nice.� I saw a dark shape running away from me on the grassy slope next to the path ndash; it moved like a rabbit, though I guess it could also have been a cat or a fox or a tanuki.

I ran along the river until I was south of town, then crossed back over into civilization.� Usually the whole place closes down at five in the evening, but tonight there were still many people out and about and most of the stores were still lit up.� Most places had yellow-white paper lanterns hanging from the eaves, with the characters for ldquo;honoredrdquo; ldquo;godrdquo; and ldquo;lanternrdquo; written on them.�� From several directions I could hear the rat-a-tat-tat of drums.� I weaved through the central part of town, following the sounds to their sources.� Each neighborhood had a pool of light and activity, where parents and children were assembling for their shrine processions.� Tomorrow is the danjiri matsuri, where the men will carry enormous wooden shrines on their shoulders and smash them into the shrines of rival neighborhoods.� Tonight is the childrenrsquo;s version, where they pull their shrines on wheeled carts rather than carrying them and just parade around town rather than fighting each other.�� Adults were drinking tea and beer and trying to herd the children, who were running around laughing and shrieking and sometimes crying and sometimes valiantly beating out erratic rhythms on the drums.� Everyone wore happi, broad-sleeved cotton jackets, in their neighborhoodrsquo;s color.

I wandered around downtown, then up along the stream to the school and then back down through town and home again, passing many groups along the way.� In the distribution of the danjiri, I could see reflections of the greater demographic trends in Izushi.� In the center of town, where the streets are lined with traditional merchant houses that have narrow fronts and long, deep exteriors that extend away from street, groups were assembled within shouting distance of each other.� There were many groups, but they were all quite small.� In the old days the houses would have been home to a set of grandparents or two, sons and their wives, and children, but these days fewer people live in multi-generational homes and many of the homes behind the storefronts are unoccupied. The backlit figures who waited in doorways to watch the danjiri go by were mostly grey-haired.� The valley near the school was the quietest of all; most of the people Irsquo;ve met in that neighborhood are elders who have lived there for decades, and quite a few of the old farmhouses are empty.� That neighborhood didnrsquo;t field a danjiri at all.� It contrasted sharply with the last group I encountered that night, the representatives of my own neighborhood, Kawara.� Kawara seems to be the catch-all division that encompasses everything north of the main part of town. This is where all the new development has been happening for the last few decades. While the overall population of the region is gradually decreasing, the number of households is increasing as young couples choose to move into their own homes rather than live with their parents and grandparents, and the town keeps slowly sprawling outwards along the river plain as the rice fields are filled in for the construction of new houses.� For the childrenrsquo;s processions, Kawara has enough kids for not one, but two danjiri.

Even as I sit in my living room writing this, I can still here the drums out in the night.� Irsquo;m looking forward to the main event tomorrow ndash; quite a few of my students, friends, and neighbors will be participating in the danjiri battles. This is my third year in Izushi, the third time Irsquo;ve seen the danjiri matsuri,� and I still love it.
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