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Damine Kabuki,The legend of origin, and today

The other day I reported how they make a temporary kabuki theater in Damine village. Yesterday was the day of the Kabuki festival. As the frame made of logs and bamboos was covered by tarpaulin, people were able to enjoy the stage play without feeling the coldness. Not only in big cities such as Edo(Tokyo), Kyoto but in farming areas people loved/love Kabuki. Especially in farming areas they hold Kabuki festivals on specific day and village people play the actor's roles and music instruments by themselves. For example, please take a look at the sitting man in the photo below. He is a principal in this area's elementary school.

The Danime legend tells us the origin of their festival.

In 1677 AD the important temple in Damine was destroyed by fire. People cut down many logs from the forests to rebuild it . But one of those forests was a shogunate-owned one. It was a huge crime to cut down logs from this forest. The magistrate who took charge of this area was informed this news and tried to investigate the scene. 　

The village people in panic prayed and asked a favor of Kannon sama. 'Please help us, Kannon sama. If you deliver us from this distress we'll dedicate Kabuki to you evermore, even if our village get smaller, until our village get only three families '

It was June ( by lunar calendar. It is July by today's calendar) when magistrate and his followers tried to get to the scene in the forest called Dando段戸.　Suddenly it snowed severely. Deep snow on the narrow path prevented them from going any further.

In this way the village people were able to avoid being punished.　