Uyagan - Uyagan

...Large festivals are held intensively from the rice and foxtail millet harvest season to the sowing season of the following year, where groups of shrine maidens in charge of the rites sing old-fashioned sacred songs and perform incantatory dances called asobi. The Shinugu festival in the north of Okinawa, the Uyagan festival on Miyako Island and Ogami Island, and the Izaiho festival on Kudaka Island, which is held every 12 years, are particularly well-known for their ancient shrine maiden songs and dances. There are also villages all over the country that pass on rituals in which disguised gods visit from the land of Nirai across the sea at village festivals, and the Akamata and Kuromata that appear at the harvest festivals of the Yaeyama Islands and the Mayunganashi that appear at the annual festivals are particularly famous.

*Some of the terminology explanations that mention "Uyagan" are listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…大きな祭りは稲，アワの収穫期から次の年への播種期にかけて集中的に行われ，そこでは祭事をつかさどる巫女集団が古風な神歌をうたい，また遊（あそび）などと称する呪禱的な舞踊を演じたりする。沖縄島北部のシヌグや宮古島や大神島のウヤガン，あるいは12年目ごとに行う久高島のイザイホーの祭りなどは，特に古い巫女の歌舞を残している。また，村々の祭りに海のかなたのニライの国から仮装神が来訪する儀礼を伝える村が各地にあり，八重山列島の収穫祭に出現するアカマタ･クロマタや，年替りの節祭に出現するマユンガナシなどは特に名高い。…

※「ウヤガン」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

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