#daminde

Damine Dengaku consists of three parts. Hirudengaku, YoruDengaku and AsaDengaku.  Among them the most important part is YoruDengaku which is held in the temple building, in front of Kannon-sama. The content of YoruDengaku is Ta-asobi which is a series of simulation play of annual farm work. In YoruDengaku we can see a thought-provoking  scene. People are beating a drum with twigs.  This acting expresses Ta-ue (transplanting of rice seedling). While people do it  a procession of four persons comes in. A guide, a man carrying a baby named 'Nen-ne-Sama ' on his back, and two followers.  People stop beating. A man lift the baby up respectfully.  Simultaneously with it all the people open their fans and fan the baby. What is this baby ? Why do they use fans ?  Someone says that in old days it was ordinary to bring their baby to paddy field side because parents had to work in paddy field and take care of their baby in parallel. And they fanned the flies away from a baby.  This explanation sounds very reasonable. But I think this play has deeper meaning. Japanese people had believed that the god of crops came to our paddy field at the annual beginning of farm work. Its name is Sa. Sa stayed in some beautiful blooming trees in spring. We call the tree Sakura. And Sa stayed also paddy field in order to bring us good hervest in autumn. I think 'Nen-ne-Sama' is actually the god 'Sa'. Of course we can not see the god's figure in real life. But our ancestors tried to express it in simulation play. From this point of view we can understand the people's reverent attitude to  'Nen-ne-Sama'.