Setsubun- Japanese EventEvent"Bean-Throwing Festival"

Demons Out, Fortune In

The roots of Setsubun (節分, “seasonal division”) lie in the Tsuina, a court ceremony imported from China during the Nara period for expelling demons and pestilence from the imperial palace. Heian courtiers performed elaborate rites on the last night of the old year to drive malevolent spirits from the capital. Over the centuries, this aristocratic exorcism entered popular practice. It merged with folk beliefs about oni and fixed itself to the eve of Risshun, the first day of spring, around February 3rd.

The central ritual is mamemaki: the throwing of roasted soybeans. The toshi-otoko, a person born in that year’s zodiac sign, scatters handfuls of beans while chanting “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!” The beans must be roasted; raw soybeans might take root where they land, an inauspicious return of the evil they were meant to banish. At temples across Japan, the ceremony becomes public spectacle. Priests and celebrities stand on elevated platforms hurling packets of beans to cheering crowds, while costumed oni charge through the grounds.

After the throwing, each person eats the number of beans corresponding to their age, or one more, as a charm for health in the coming year.

The Sardine and the Holly

A second line of defense stands at the door. The hiiragi-iwashi is a grilled sardine head fixed to a branch of holly and hung at the entrance of the home. Oni cannot abide the pricking of the sharp holly leaves or the stench of the sardine. The threshold becomes a barrier. Any demon bold enough to approach a household that has already driven evil out with beans meets holly thorns and fish rot.