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Until the Middle Ages, shooting arrows while
riding a horse running at full speed was an important skill for warriors,
and yabusame began as a form of military training combining horsemanship
and archery. Yabusame at Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine
Go to this page to see a movie of the yabusame ritual. |
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Photos (from top): A painting of a contest in the
past; the competition is popular even today; the beautiful Tsurugaoka
Hachiman Shrine. (Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine)
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Yabusame
is a ceremony in which archers clad in the hunting outfit of medieval
warriors shoot at three targets as they race by on horseback. Among
the yabusame events held across Japan, the one that's best known
takes place every year on September 16 at Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine
in 
The
shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo (1147-1199), who set up his shogunate (military
government) in Kamakura, enthusiastically studied and promoted the art.
It was under his order that the ritual at Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine
started in 1187. Yoritomo hoped to heighten warriors' mental strength
and religious devotion by carrying out yabusame as a Shinto ritual.
Three
square targets, made of Japanese cedar and fixed onto bamboo rods, are
placed at intervals of about 70 meters (77 yards) on the left-hand side
of a 255-meter (279-yard) track. Each costumed archer starts the horse
when two people at both ends of the track raise their fans, one red
and one white, and shoots at the three targets one after another as
the horse gallops along the narrow track. All this happens in less than
20 seconds. If an arrow can't be shot in time, the archer has to drop
it and use another arrow for the next target. Three archers perform
the ritual. This ceremony is a way of praying for peace across the land,
and the arrows and targets that were used in successful shots are treasured
as good luck charms. 
