Utagaki - Utagaki

During the Kojiki and Manyo periods, this was an event where men and women gathered in the mountains, on the shore, or in a market to pray for fertility and engage in sexual intercourse as a form of sympathetic magic (a belief in production = reproduction, based on the idea that plants reproduce in the same way as humans do). It is the same as kagai. It sometimes involved eating, drinking, singing, and dancing, and was also a place for marriage proposals. It was turned into entertainment among folk events as a ritual to celebrate the advancement of agricultural cultivation, and has been passed down to the present day. The Kojiki's section on Emperor Seinei tells of the Utagaki Festival at Sea Pomegranate Market, in which Shibinomi and Oke no Mikoto compete over a beautiful large fish (known as Kagehime in the Nihon Shoki), but this is likely a legend in which priests fought over a shrine maiden who was the guardian deity of the area of ​​faith. It was a power struggle in an era when religion and politics were one, when priests were also responsible for agricultural affairs. In the stories of encounters between men and women that are common in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, we should look at the power that governed the area of ​​faith and the character of the shrine maiden, male or female. The event in which men and women join hands and climb a mountain to have fun, as seen in a passage about the Mount Tsukuba poetry gathering in the entry on Tsukuba County in the Hitachi no Kuni Fudoki and in a long poem in Volume 9, 1759 of the Manyoshu, is a sexual feast held in hopes of a good harvest, and is a pre-celebration ritual connected to today's folk events. In today's folk customs, many of these events are held in the spring and are called mountain play, field play, beach play, hanami, yamami, mamagoto, etc., but explicit sexual activities are not as obvious as in ancient legends. In some regions, it is considered an opportunity for unmarried men and women to get married. Today's cherry blossom viewing and clam digging are also variations on the spring singing festival occasions that were used for mountain and beach play. The extinct folk custom of the Tohoku and northern Kanto regions in which couples would gather naked around a fireplace to welcome the New Year's god on Koshogatsu (Little New Year's Day) and praise each other's sexuality was also a folk ritual praying for a good harvest through sympathetic magic.

[Shogo Watanabe]

"A Study of Utagaki by Shogo Watanabe (1981, Miyai Shoten)"

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

記紀万葉の時代に、山、磯(いそ)、市(いち)などに男女が集まって、豊穣(ほうじょう)を祈り、共感呪術(じゅじゅつ)である性の交わり（植物も繁殖に人間と同行為をするという観念から、生産＝生殖の信仰）を行った行事。嬥歌(かがい)に同じ。飲食歌舞を伴うこともあり、求婚の場でもあった。農耕予祝儀礼として民俗行事のなかに遊楽化され、今日に伝承されている。『古事記』清寧(せいねい)天皇条に伝える海柘榴市(つばきいち)の歌垣は、美人(おとめ)の大魚（『日本書紀』では影媛(かげひめ)）を争う志毘臣(しびのおみ)と袁祁命(おけのみこと)の歌の掛け合いだが、これは信仰圏の産土神(うぶすながみ)を担う巫女(みこ)を祭祀(さいし)者が争った伝承であろう。祭祀者が農耕管轄者でもある祭政一致時代の権力争いである。記紀の伝承に多い男女の邂逅(かいこう)の説話には、信仰圏を統治する権力と巫女の男女の性格をみるべきであろう。『常陸国風土記(ひたちのくにふどき)』筑波(つくば)郡の条に記す筑波山嬥歌会の一節や、『万葉集』巻9・1759の長歌にみる、男女が手を携え山に登り遊楽する行事は、豊作を念じて行われた性の宴(うたげ)であり、今日の民俗行事に連なる予祝儀礼である。今日の民俗では、山遊び、野遊び、磯遊び、ハナミ、ヤマミ、ママゴトなどの呼称をもって春に行われているものが多いが、露骨な性のそれは上代の伝承ほど表には出ていない。未婚男女の婚姻の契機とする地方もある。今日の花見、潮干狩も山磯遊びである春の歌垣的機会の変質してきたものである。小正月(こしょうがつ)に歳神(としがみ)を迎えて夫婦が全裸でいろりを巡り、相互の性を賞賛する東北地方や北関東の消滅した民俗も、共感呪術をもって豊作を祈る民間儀礼であった。

［渡邊昭五］

『渡邊昭五著『歌垣の研究』（1981・三弥井書店）』

出典　小学館　日本大百科全書(ニッポニカ)日本大百科全書(ニッポニカ)について　情報 | 凡例