One of the most interesting and unique festivals in Japan: Namahage! (na-ma-ha-gey). I traveled to the far north of Japan’s main island to Akita prefecture to see this festival which is held every year in February. The festival is far from the main city and a little tricky to get to, but worth it! Make sure to dress warm, it was very cold! The namahage are supposedly demons who live in the mountains and come down each year and take the bad kids from the town back up into the mountains. In the town of Oga, single men dress up in the traditional Namahage outfits and are asked by parents to come by and scare the children into being good this year. If you can go to the museum in Oga, you can watch a video from around the 70’s where you see actual footage of the kids being pretend ‘taken’. Quite hard core parenting, the kids defiantly seemed to fall for the ‘prank’ hah. It’s a very unique festival, so if you have any further questions, let me know in the comments below and i’ll tell you more!
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✿Namahage Website (Japanese)
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