videos and photos from phallic worship festivals
The Tagata Jinja shrine
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In the village of Komaki, 45 minutes from the central city of Nagoya, there is a shrine devoted to the phallus. Each spring, the old and young alike come here to see an enormous wooden penis carried through the streets, to eat penis shaped sweets, and to make a penis-spirited wish to god.
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The tradition is thought to have begun around 1,500 years ago. A springtime celebration, the “penis festival”, or Honen-sai Matsuri, is carried out to bring fertility and a good harvest to the people.
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The Tagata Jinjashrine was used in the past as a source of spiritual protection for the people in the area. Although Jinja is apparently very calm throughout the year, every 15 March it’s the scene of the Honen-sai festival.
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A wide mix of people attend the festival, and although Sake is drunk freely there is no rowdiness or misbehaviour.
Every year a new giant penis is made from hinoki (cypress) tree. It’s 2.5 metres (13 feet) long and weighs 280 kilograms (620 pounds). It is made by special craftsman, using ancient tools and techniques. It represents the essence of unity of man and woman and of earth. The white cloaks worn by the men are used to symbolise cleanliness and holiness; only those wearing them are allowed to carry the wooden statue of the giant penis. They must be 42-years-old, which is considered by the Japanese as an age of bad luck.
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Women carry small penises to protect them from harm or to help them with fertility. They must be 36-years-old, which is also considered an age of bad luck.
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These wooden penises were, in the past, given to people seeking help. Once things were fixed or addressed, it would be returned and often as a sign of gratitude, a new one was also returned. The penis in Japan is a symbol of strength and power and to some degree, protection too. There’s also a vagina festival, which was held on Sunday (March 14). It’s a small festival.
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The statues are marked with engravings that show a donation to the Jinja by a company or person.
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These are called ‘ema‘. They are wishes that people put around the Jinja for their wishes to come true. At some point during the year, they are burned and the messages are sent to ‘god’.
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The Japanese are more at ease with genitalia than most and they are very open about sex and fertility. To have a strong sex drive is seen as a sign of good helath! There is no shame involved in these rituals
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Participants dressed in women’s clothes carry a portable shrine with a large pink phallus during the contemporary Kanamara Festival, or the Utamaro Festival, near Wakamiya Hachimangu Shrine in Kawasaki, Japan.
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In Greece, there were festivities consisting of hauling a gigantic phallus through the city as part of the rites of Dionysian celebrations. Kallixeinos of Rhodes went to a celebration in Alexandria around 275 B.C. He claims to have seen a golden phallus 180 feet long carried through the streets.
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Winged Phallus from the Temple of Dionysos on Delos Island in Greece, ca. 0300 BC. Eros, daemon of sexual attraction, has wings; in his little-bad-boy aspect he is a winged cupid, the fat baby who flies over the population firing arrows of passion. The arrows are either gold (for the lovers he approves) or lead (for those he disapproves).
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the woman rubs two stone testicles
possibly as a prayer for the fertility of her children
or to ask for a bountiful harvest
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In conclusion it may be noted that there are a multitude of both remnants and actual practices of the ancient phallic worhsip cult – or to be more accurate, the phallic worship religion
At a superficial level one is tempted to write it off as some quaint old superstition that has little relevance to the modern day world of science
to do so would, however, miss the point
such rituals and practices are NEVER meant to be taken at a literal level
they operate on symbolic and mythological levels
which can be, and usually are, a highly sophisticated and in-depth comment on the human condition
on the following pages we will examine phallic worship in more detail
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cont’d – the phallus
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Tagata video posted on YouTube by “sillysealedstories”
Second video posted on YouTube by AsiaWFT
some of the photos and text were adapted from – observers.france24.com
and ovalscreams.wordpress.com
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