New year is one important day for every country. They will have a different way to celebrate the New Year. In Japan, various rituals and traditional festivals are held, hoping to bring in a prosperous and peaceful year. In the Fukuoka, Kyusu, there is an event called Tamaseseri Festival or in english means Ball - Catching Festival that held on 3rd of January in Hakozaki Shrine. |
The main event of this festival is we will see a lot of half naked men fighting in the middle of cold day by only wearing loincloths and its not only that, they will also get splashed by the cold water during the fights. We can feel the cold by only just imagining that scenario.
The men who are divided into two different teams – the Land team made up from the farmers and the Sea team consists of fishermen will fight to catch the lucky ball and lift it high on the head. The lucky ball itself has the name that they called Takara-no-tama that has weights about 8 kg and diameter around 30 cm.
It also determines whether the New Year will bring a good harvest or catch, depending on which team lifted the ball and hand it over to the Shinto priest. If the winner comes from the Land team, then the year will be filled with good harvest. And if the winner is from the Sea team, then it will be a year with a lot of fishes.