Hakata Gion Yamakasa

Hakata's summer festival, climaxing with the oi-yama at 4:59 AM on July 15. Rooted in a 1241 rite to drive out a plague; floats once 16m tall, split by power lines into running and display floats. National Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property; UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage (2016).

July 15th, 4:59 in the morning. In the dark streets of Hakata, the oi-yama begins. Not five o'clock — 4:59. That one minute is the time it takes for the lead float, and only the lead float, to sing a short song of celebration after entering Kushida Shrine. When the song ends, the float rushes out into the streets before dawn.

Its origin reaches back to 1241, in the Kamakura period. When a plague swept through Hakata, the monk Ben'en of Jotenji Temple was carried through the town on a platform, sprinkling holy water to purify the streets and drive the sickness out. The platform men carried to banish a plague became a festival that has lasted 780 years.

The floats were once tall - up to sixteen metres by the Meiji era. But when power lines were strung across the city, the floats began to catch them, and the tradition split in two: the low 'kaki-yama' the men actually run with, and the tall 'kazari-yama' built to be looked up at. It is a rite of offering a float to Kushida Shrine; designated a National Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1979, and inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2016. The men still run - barefoot, before the light.