murmurOtaue Rice-Planting Rite (Mikuriya Shrine)
Ashikaga City · Mikuriya Shrine (Fukutomi-cho, Ashikaga)
Dates and details can change. Always check the official website before you go.
Tochigi Prefectural Tourism and Local Products Association (Tochigi Tabi-Net) · Last checked: Oct 10, 2026
Dates
Dates confirmed with official sources
- 2026
- Dates have not been announced yet. Please check the official website.
- 2027
- Sun, Mar 7, 2027 From 10:00
- Usual timing
- Usually early March
- How the date is set
- The 1st Sunday of March
- Venue
- Mikuriya Shrine (Fukutomi-cho, Ashikaga)
- City
- Ashikaga City, Tochigi
About
Mikuriya Shrine in the Fukutomi district of Ashikaga keeps an old rice-planting rite, the Otaue, held to pray for a good harvest in autumn. Several centuries old, it is designated a folk cultural property of Ashikaga City. With parishioners gathered before the shrine, the priest takes up traditional farm tools and, using straw to stand in for seedlings and cut rice, mimes a full year of rice growing with them, step by step from the seedbed through planting to harvest. Afterwards the straw is handed out to farming households in the parish, because tying seedlings with it at planting time is said to keep locusts and other pests away and bring a bumper crop. You can walk to the shrine from Izumi Station on the Tobu Isesaki Line.
Sources
- OfficialTochigi Prefectural Tourism and Local Products Association (Tochigi Tabi-Net) www.tochigiji.or.jp
Last checked: Oct 10, 2026. Event information is based on official announcements, but changes may not always be reflected here. Please check each official website for accurate details.
Other events this month
On the day, see what locals are murmuring on the murmur map
murmur is an app that shows short, anonymous posts on a map, right where they were written. On festival day, open the map around the venue and see what people nearby are saying.