Hanzoubou

Today we had the little summer festival in our village, which bears the name in the title. It basically amounts to a quick trip to the local shrine followed by drinking and eating. Like many local priests ours passed his early career in the self defense force and took up priesthood on leaving the ranks. Apparently he has something of a reputation as a lover of the nightlife, but I have no firsthand evidence of that. He seemed very priestly today as about ten of us crammed into a little shrine up the mountain to sit while he made some kind of offering on our behalf.
Someone spotted a big snake lurking under the money collection box, but that kind of natural presence is more of a lucky omen than anything. Some people even keep snake skins in their wallet in the hope it will bring prosperity. Others just don't like snakes and make do with what they've got. It was a good day for the event with a fine mist that could only just be called rain keeping things cool and creating a properly reverent atmosphere.
There is a kind of community organization in most of Japanese rural life, in our village we have about four units, each unit has a representative in the organization and the representatives change every two years. It is our turn this year and next, so we play a part in organizing these kind of events. Tidying up, buying stuff making little speeches and all the rest. The units themselves are just geographical, but if there is an event like a death the people in that unit will help out at the funeral and so on, while those in other units aren't expected to help out as much unless they are related to the departed of course. The group is called the Jichikai so the leader is called the Jichikaicho and what I am refering to as units would be called Han or Kumi... On the priests little table there are an assortment of items divided into two groups, the mountian stuff and the sea stuff. Veg from the fields and fish from the sea. They are blessed here along with a bottle of sake, then put on display back at the hall...just in case you are taking notes on oriental civilization.