KUAS Bio Students Participate in Onda Festival at Izumo Grand Shrine

On May 26, 2024, the Onda Festival was held at Izumo Grand Shrine in Chitose Town, Kameoka City. Seven students from KUAS Faculty of Bioenvironmental Sciences participated as Saotome (young woman rice planters). The students dressed in traditional Saotome attire and were able to perform their festival duties despite being nervous with the chief priest and other officials in attendance.

The area around Izumo Grand Shrine is known as a landmass for growing and cultivating rice. The Onda Festival is held at the Imperial Court of the shrine, where the participants pray for a bountiful rice harvest. The Onda Festival had been suspended since the early Showa era, but in 2014, it was recommenced for the first time in 84 years.

After completing the purification ritual and a series of ceremonies, the students made their way to the shrine’s rice paddies, where they planted rice. Rice grown in the paddies is harvested at the Nuibo Festival in September and used at the Niiname Festival in November.

Hiroyuki Fujita, Faculty of Bioenvironmental Sciences