Ancient festival succumbs to ageing population

Devoted to the end: Men carrying lanterns as they walk to a river to cleanse their bodies during the Sominsai Festival at Kokuseki-ji Temple in Oshu, Iwate Prefecture. — AFP

A steam of sweat rose as hundreds of naked men tussled over a bag of wooden talismans, performing a dramatic end to a thousand-year-old ritual in Japan that took place for the last time.

Their passionate chants of “jasso, joyasa” (meaning “evil, be gone”) echoed through a cedar forest of the northern Japan’s Iwate region, where the secluded Kokuseki Temple has decided to end the popular annual rite.