Life as a Villager
For more than a century and a half, the Dosojin Festival -- one of hundreds of local celebrations of the Shinto religion held each year across Japan -- has served as a literal trial by fire for the men of this ancient hot springs resort. Every Jan. 15, the village's 25-year-old men consume impossible amounts of alcohol to buoy their courage ahead of a violent rite of passage. Using only pine branches, they defend a 65-foot-tall wooden shrine from the older men of the village, who attack it fiercely with torches lit from a sacred bonfire. A generation ago, one man died during the festival; occasionally, an eye is lost or a face is severely burned.
Washington Post
Washington Post