Today is called "Setsubun", and it means the day which divides two seasons, or namely winter and spring. In the Edo period(1603-1868), February 4th was the day when spring started. Today, we can see people throwing roasted soy beans in the premises of shrines, and we are supposed to have the same number of beans as our age. So if you're 20, you should eat 20 beans. And if you have one additional bean, it is said your body will get stronger and you won't catch cold. And at "Setsubun", we throw beans at a hypothetical devil, and we do this so that we can repel bad vibes and hope for well-being in the year.
This shrine was asking people to join this bean-throwing event. Especially this year people whose age is going to be, men: 25, 42, 61, women: 19, 33, 37 are likely to have a bad year according to our old tradition. So they should really repel the bad vibes.
When I arrived at this shrine, people were starting to prepare for the event.
This Shinto priest started to throw beans all of a sudden, and my camera came close to being hit by the beans. He didn't seem to care about where the beans were headed.
In addition to the bean-throwing, the Shinto priest shot two arrows in order to repel evil. The head of the arrow seemed to have something good inside, so people were scrambling to get it.
Besides the beans, those shrine maidens were throwing packaged beans and so on. You know, you can have those packaged beans even after they fall on the ground.
These are some of the things they were throwing. The red word on the package of the beans say, "Fortune beans". The red round object is a rice cake.
