That Which Burns

That Which Burns ETHAN INGRAM

In the dead of winter, heat becomes a most valuable resource. And as resident Akitans, we have all become more or less accustomed to the fine art of keeping cozy. We come to cherish those things that make winter living a little more bearable: a second layer of socks, a hot water bottle, the little kerosene heater whose fumes we’ve long stopped worrying about. When we lose these little creature comforts, and when the cold creeps back in, it can be a sobering experience. When you return from vacation to a toilet frozen solid, or when you’re driving through a frigid night with a dead heater, these can be shocking lessons of what we’d prefer not to repeat next year. But as we go about our lives this season, we cut time sharply into periods of warmth and cold. When we leave the (usually sweltering) office we flee through chilly hallways and snowbound streets in a desperate return to the inescapable allure of the kotatsu. In that brief, fleeting moment when heated air hits our face and we can feel our toes again, the little tribulations of the day are melted. Once again we are home: we are warm, we are comfortable, we are content. We are safe. Imagine how it must have been

then, for the people of Akita in centuries past. The dramatic snowfall of Western Tohoku must have been truly horrifying in those first winters; first falling gently and without a sound, and then unceasingly. For days on end the snow falls, suffocating the fields and rising up to swallow your feet, and then your thighs, and then your house. A perfect blanket of frigid whiteness, crushing the world and ending life where it spreads. In such a place, winter had to be planned for carefully throughout the year. A meager storehouse or poor harvest in the fall could have meant a slow, starving death for one’s family. Indeed, it was the harsh and unforgiving winters that lent this territory its reputation as a dark and wild hinterland—full of bears and barbarians and worse—to the more “civilized” southern residents of Sendai and Edo. To survive in such a harsh environment, producing and retaining heat is absolutely necessary. And fire is central to this need. It is fire that cooks, that illuminates, and that provides warmth. In winter, the long, foreboding slumber of the world, it offers life to those who control it. And in the frozen reaches of northern Japan, it was a necessary THE AKITAN 68 aspect of practical, social, and religious life. Today, fire features prominently in many of the winter festivals and events that are held across the prefecture, a ceremonial testament to the importance that it played in the rural communities of yesteryear. In my visits to these festivals this year, I was drawn to the presentation and significance of open flame in their proceedings; in some it plays a central role, in others it is more subdued. But in each, fire tells an important story of the community that comes around it. First, as festivals are nominally religious events, we should remember that fire is an important aspect of religious practice all around the world. The burning of offerings and incense, the lighting of votive candles or a menorah…these are rituals that we may be intimately familiar with in our own acts of worship. The same is certainly true in Shinto traditions, where fire is integral to communion with the kami, and this is prominently featured in the Namahage Sedo Festival at Oga’s Shinzan Shrine. The event is opened with a ceremony in which the audience is blessed and offerings of food and water are offered to the guardian spirits of the Oga Peninsula. Fire—or rather the smoke

69 it produces—is the means by which the spirits receive the pleasant aromas of these material sacrifices. The event following this consecration is everywhere colored by flame, and its presence is undeniable. The procession of the Namahage from the high places of the mountain to the crowds below is heralded by the lonely, foreboding light of their torches; for young children who have been nervously awaiting the Namahage’s arrival, the sight of this slow, dreadful approach must be fearsome, the first physical evidence of what had been only a nightmare before. Beyond this, the entire festival space is filled with the harsh, uneven light of a roaring bonfire and the enchanting smell

of cedar wood smoke. Here is fire in its ferocious form, its intensity both alluring and all-consuming. In Yokote’s Winter Festival, the fires that burn are more gentle, subdued, and inviting. Indeed, in many cases, they aren’t really fire at all, but rather the safer simulacra of electric tea candles. This festival is of course most famous for its kamakura, igloo-like domes of ice and snow that are constructed throughout the city. Some are large enough to host a small party, while others are tiny things, but all act in some way as devotional shrines to the gods of water that sustain this land. And all are lit from within, and it is this constellation of light which makes the

71 festival impressive in its beauty. Visitors to the Winter Festival must be sure to visit the Janosaki Bridge, where they can see a river of light borne from thousands of miniature kamakura, a striking image in the dark. Historically, kamakura were practical dwelling structures, and in the festival logic this memory of communal purposes is transformed into a sacred act. Visitors who enter the kamakura are offered food or drink, and invited to sit and share with each other. The orange glow from within the kamakura is both invitation and promise: in this little godshouse, you are sustained, you are protected, You are Safe. The simple act of sharing and consuming between friends is here rendered as an act of praise to the spirits whose names are written between the glowing candles. Here, fire and light are here to offer us protection, to enshrine

us against the cold and darkness. In my home of Kakunodate, we practice kamakura of a completely different kind. During Hiburi Kamakura, neighbors gather together to light bales of rice straw on fire. Attached to long ropes, these lit bales are then hoisted and swung around the participant’s heads, their bodies encircled by a twirling blaze of flame and smoke. For newcomers—and I speak from experience—the thought of swinging fire yourself can be a little daunting. As you approach the fire and hold the rope in your hands, its smoke stings your eyes and the heat becomes alarming. But as you begin to move your arms, hoping you haven’t made some grievous mistake, the fire that orbits you owns the moment, and offers it its glow. The fire roars in a cyclical rhythm, and casts light strangely as it passes your eyes, revealing the world and then hiding it in shadow. The heat and smoke are still present, but now they do not serve to repel. For most people the act of hiburi lasts only for a few seconds until the burning end is cast off onto the ground, blackened and broken into ash. But it is difficult to name these seconds as it is still alive around you.

Sea of miniature kamakura in Yokote, Akita, Jessica Legham Scott

73 Hiburi Kamakura is also an act of ritual purification, the fire and smoke thought to keep away evil spirits and bad luck. Parents will stand toddlers between their legs, or hold babies and small pets in one arm as they swing the flames around them. Held near the start of the Lunar Year, the act of hiburi burns away the troubles of the past and offers protection for the trials ahead, the smoke that clings to your clothes an enduring reminder of this blessing. These are but a few examples of a tradition of celebrating fire that can be found across Akita, across Japan, and across the world. But what is it that draws us to the flame? Is it the need to huddle up beside it, to take its warmth into our bodies and bask in its glow? Or is it fearful curiosity of its capacity to consume and destroy, its never-ending hunger rendering all to ash and smoke, and the drive to control such awesome power? Perhaps it is in its miracles of turning raw into cooked and softening metal, the means by which we build our societies. Or maybe it’s the art of burning itself, the longing to cast fire against the world or against ourselves, the opportunity to begin anew from the ashes. In its many faces

and names, fire continues to enrapture us as it has through all of history. But in the cold of winter, let us remember that fire brings us closer together. We gather around the open flame to share stories, sing songs, prepare food, and engage in those practices that truly make us human. Fire connects us to one another, to the world around us, and to the myriad forms of the divine. Thousands of years before the first words were spoken, our hominin ancestors brought fire into the caves, the first home carved from a chaotic and unformed world. Since the spark of that first flame, it has burned alongside us in perpetuity. In its burning, we are sustained not only by its warmth but by myth and legend itself, a thousand songs and stories casting shadows on the walls. What is fire? Myth and memory, it is intangible and fleeting, yet we cannot deny the impressive reality of its heat and light. And yet again, it is not substance at all. It is process, a catalyzation of material and energy exuding itself, revealing the inborn principles of the universe. A mundane miracle, a daily transubstantiation. A sacred gift and divine wrath. It is the gift of Prometheus, stolen from the gods

and granted to shivering man; it is the incomprehensible form of God revealed to Moses in the cave. Older than music, it is both the memory of the world told in a thousand tongues and the intimate spark in our own mind, enduring long after we’ve closed our eyes. Fire is that first fearsome burn from a frying pan, and the panic of oil gone too hot. It is one lit candle amongst many, a bowed head and the whispered names of saints on our lips. It is autumn drives through quiet villages, the hazy air thick with of the smell of burning leaves, the fragrance somehow different from what I remember from home. It’s roasted marshmallows, perfectly golden.

The shimmering light reflecting off the shellac on your uncle’s guitar as he starts to play again and you doze off in your father’s arms. A quiet, gentle moment of friends around a campfire, shoulders touching and hands stretched out towards the warming glow, the promise of comfort tempting us closer together. Each memory burns in our mind, some painful and some promising. Imagine, if you will, the congregation of gods atop Old Chokai. From their formless thrones they keep watch upon the Northern Kingdoms, as they have for millennia. Turning their eyes northward, they gaze upon a still and slumbering wilderness. In the dark forests the bears

are sleeping, as are the frogs in the mud and the dragons beneath the water. But amidst this shadow is a light, and then another, and then a thousand more. Flickering lights between the trees and hills, their patterns as beautiful and laden with meaning as the cold stars above. What are their thoughts? Do they pity us, forced to steal our survival from the world around us? Are they grateful for our devotion, if not in faith then in our will to endure and to make the night our own? Perhaps upon seeing these fires, the gods themselves pray, hoping that they will be lit again the next night, and onwards into eternity. That as long as the snow falls, so too will we burn against the darkness.

**Photos used within article courtesy of Ethan Ingram and Irene Cao

That which burns, blesses, and thus we should long to be burned.

That which burns, blesses, and thus we should long to be burned.