Abare Festival

Visitors can watch kiriko (キリコ, Noto's unique illuminated lantern floats) and mikoshi (みこし, portable shrines) being carried through the streets, eat festival foods, hear taiko drums and see many people dressed in their summer festival wear (ゆかた).

It is said that the more violently people behave, the more god will delight as this rampage represents enshrined Susanoo no Mikoto, who is known as a destructive deity.

Groups of men (and rarely women) work together to carry the large wooden Kiriko while children sit atop it playing drums and flutes.

The men often carry the Kiriko so close to the suspended bonfires that they suffer minor or major burns from the falling sparks.

The men carrying the Mikoshi continually thrash it against the ground and grind it into the asphalt of the street, doing their best to break it as much as possible.

At the second river, a bonfire, which has been lit above them, showers sparks and flaming debris down upon their heads as they attempt to destroy the Mikoshi.

Local people invited Gozu Tenno from Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto and held a big religious ceremony to pray for calming down of the epidemic.