Dates: December 31st
Place: Yasaka-jinja Shrine
City: 625, Gionmachi-Kitagawa, Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture
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Okera-Mairi is the name for the visits made to the Okera Matsuri festival from late at night on New Year’s Eve to New Year’s Day, at Yasaka-jinja Shrine. Okera (a medicinal herb) is believed to cast away the evil forces and energies of the previous year and to bless us with longevity. There is the custom of people taking back some of the embers of this fire to their home to prepare the first meal of the year. In order to take this fire home, bamboo ropes are kindled with Okera and these ropes must be swung around constantly so that the fire will not go out. The numerous red flames burning at the very end of the bamboo ropes form a symbolic spectacle of New Year’s Eve in Kyoto.
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