Location Nonoichi Furusato History Museum / Nonoichi Digital Archives

Tomioku Mushi-okuri

The Tomioku Mushi-okuri Festival takes place in mid-July in the Tomioku area, organized by the Tomioku Mushi-okuri Preservation Society. “Mushi-okuri” means to drive away crop-eating insects with torches. The event features participants playing various drums, such as the dochu-drum, okuri-drum, and tomari-drum, while carrying torches around the rice fields. The festival culminates in passing under a fire rope arch marked with "虫送り" (mushi-okuri) and gathering in a square, where they encircle a large bonfire with a moso bamboo wick and beat the drums vigorously.
The Tomioku area consists of 14 villages: Taheiji, Shimobayashi, Kuraikawa, Sanno, Yahagi, Awada, Toheida, Fujihira, Kiyokane, Suematsu, Nakabayashi, Kanbayashi, Kamishinjo, and Shimoshinjo. Each village starts from its local shrine and gathers in the square.
There is a legend in Kaga about the defeat of the Heike clan during the Genpei War, where the warrior Saito Sanemori fell from his horse after stumbling on rice stubble and was killed, with his vengeful spirit becoming a planthopper insect that damages rice. In the Tomioku area, it is said that the vengeful spirit of TOGASHI Masachika, the Kaga provincial guardian who committed suicide after being defeated by the Ikko-Ikki army, transformed into a planthopper insect, causing damage to the rice crops. The Tomioku Mushi-okuri Festival is designated as an important traditional event in rice-growing regions and is valuable for preserving the entertainment elements of drum performances.
You can watch videos of the festival at the Nonoichi Digital Museum: http://digitalmuseum.city.nonoichi.lg.jp/modules/fn2/index.php?content_id=1.

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