Yoshida Fire Festival

The Yoshida Fire Festival is held by Kitaguchi Hongu Fuji Sengen Shrine and Suwa Shrine, its auxiliary shrine, in Kamiyoshida, Fujiyoshida. It marks the end of the Mount Fuji climbing season, and Fuji-ko pilgrim groups from the Kanto region take part. The festival is said to have begun as the annual festival of Suwa Shrine. It has long been counted among the three strange festivals of Japan. The national government selected it for documentation as an intangible folk cultural property on 25 December 2000 and designated it an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property on 8 March 2012.

The festival runs over two days under the name Chinkasai (鎮火祭), and the second day is also called the Susuki Festival (Susuki Matsuri). On the first night about 80 large torches, each about 3 m tall and 90 cm across, are lit along the main street of the old pilgrim lodge district. On the back streets, homes and mountain huts burn smaller torches stacked in a lattice, and mountain huts on Mount Fuji light fires in answer. On the second day two mikoshi, portable shrines, tour the parish. They return to the shrine at night and circle the Takamagahara ritual ground, followed by worshippers carrying susuki grass.