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Festival floats with puppets. The name literally means 'elegant things'. Those shown at the Hitachi furyu-mono festival in Ibaraki prefecture from May 3rd-5th, though unconnected with a shrine exemplify the ingenuity which goes into the construction of such floats, lesser versions of which are found in many shrine processions. The furyu-mono here are fifteen metres tall, with five tiers of puppet stages on the omote-yama front side and a further stage at the back ushiro-yama, a 7-8 man orchestra and 25-26 puppeteers who lie on their backs while working the puppets to be concealed from the audience A Popular Dictionary of Shinto (Brian Bocking) |
