The traditional performance of “Minaichi-odori,” which means “one dance for all,” has been held since the days of old. Everyone dances in a ring around men beating taiko drums in this event, which takes place on the harvest moon between mid-September and early October. To learn more, I spoke with Mr. Ijiri, the head of Minaichi-odori.

──First, can you tell us a little about what “Minaichi-odori” is?

From what I hear, “Minaichi-odori” was a way for people long ago to appeal to the gods and pray to them for a bountiful harvest. Going back 600 or 700 years ago, it’s an old dance left in Chiburijima, but there’s nothing written about it. Heck, there’s not any sort of materials about the Minaichi-odori at all.

Going by what I’ve seen with my own eyes, Minaichi-odori was “restored” in 1972. In other words, before this, the event had ceased for about 35 years. You know, back during the Shōwa Period (1926-1989), all the young people in Chiburijima were leaving their homes for work, so of course there was no one to direct Minaichi-odori and the event disappeared for a long while.

And then, in 1972, some other young folk and I came back to Chiburijima. Our teacher said, “If you’re all going to come back to Chiburijima, we might as well bring back Minaichi-odori too.” That goes back 50 years or so, and we restored Minaichi-odori in 1972. We learned the drums under our teacher, but since we had aged too, we realized if we kept playing for another few decades we wouldn’t be able to pass on the event. So, we started teaching junior high school students.

After all, junior high school students are young, quick to learn things, and might come back even if they left the island for work someday. This was back in 1986, and our teacher went on teaching junior school students until 1997. And then, in 1998, my teacher said to me, “From now on, I’m counting on you.” From that day until now in 2018—some 20 years—I’ve been leading the event.

──So that means that, after restoring Minaichi-odori, you’ve been at the forefront of the event for as long as 50 years?

You could say I’ve been doing this for a while. But, Minaichi-odori was originally intended to ask the gods for rain. Back in the day, Chiburijima had peasant farmers and when it didn’t rain and the rice paddies dried up, they’d perform Minaichi-odori and plea to the gods. Even after I came back to Chiburijima, on three or four occasions, we performed the dance to ask for rain too. We asked everyone to dance for the rain with us.

At Mt. Akahage we burn a huge fire, and then the men gather around it, beat their drums, and everyone dances. We make this fire to warm the heavens, you know, and it’s said that rain should fall the next day. And so, this sort of prayer to the gods in Minaichi-odori has become a tradition here. Nowadays we have hold “sensu” or folding fans while dancing, but in the past they used to hold the leaves of “yatsude” or paperplants (Fatsia japonica)…

──Paperplants?

Oh, I’m sure you know what paperplants are. “Tengu” or goblins would often hold these leaves in old Japanese myths. There were no folding fans back in the day, so people would dance holding paperplant leaves.

──Is the dance still made in prayer for rain nowadays?

We haven’t made rain prayers in a long time. After all, there aren’t any more rice fields, so what’s the use? Part of the reason is the heavy rains of 1977. The mountains fell apart and the area around here was virtually an ocean. Houses and cows came flowing down here, and the rice paddies were gone too.

The inside of the mountain was lined with rice paddies, but every single one of them was destroyed. But this wasn’t the end. We spent 3 years restoring the land, and it eventually came to resemble what it looked like before. When we wanted to start making rice again though, the rice field was filled with rocks that had been carried down by the rain. And so, we gave up on the rice fields.

But, you know, we made a small sort of rice paddy around the house of the local pharmacist, as the area there had escaped damage from the rain. Still, the sparrows would come by and eat all the rice, leaving nothing to harvest. I mean, we tried for some 2 years but gave up. With that, not a grain of rice has been grown in Chiburijima Island since around 1979.

──So, even though rice paddies have disappeared, the Minaichi-odori goes on?

Yup, it goes on. There’s an autumn festival on the day of the harvest moon between mid-September and early October at “Ikkū-san.” We make sure Minaichi-odori falls on the same date as this festival.

──A dance in prayer for the good harvest of a crop that no longer exists… What do you make of this sort of contradiction?

Actually, I haven’t thought about it that deeply. Minaichi-odori is a part of Chiburijima culture, and more than praying for the rice harvest, I feel strongly about wanting to continue a tradition that’s been going on for 600 or 700 years. Appealing to the gods has been one motive. No one has ever thought the festival to be pointless after we stopped growing rice. All there is left is the drive to keep the festival going as it has until now.

──How were you taught by your teacher?

We’d just strike the taiko drum while listening to our teacher sing. We weren’t taught about how to sing the songs. I figured that we had no choice but to learn it on our own, so while striking the taiko, I’d sing the song in my head. Somehow I was able to remember it and keep singing it nowadays too. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to lead the event.

──The song is also important, I suppose?
In other places the taiko drum alone might suffice, but in Minaichi-taiko, you first need the song, then the taiko, and finally the dance. That is, the taiko drumbeat follows the song, and the dance follows the drumbeat. You lose the rhythm without the song. This is what makes Mina Hito-odori and Mina Hito-taiko difficult and unique from normal taiko playing.

From start to finish, 28 minutes is just the right duration. A minute more and the taiko’s rhythm slows down, making the song hard to sing. On the other hand, a minute less will make the song too fast to sing. A mere minute won’t change a thing, we think, but actually it makes a big difference. Though we don’t actually count out 28 minutes exactly, everyone agrees that this duration makes for the best performances by making the song easier to sing and the drumbeats sound more beautiful.

──Wow, it makes that much of a difference?

See for yourself. Here’s the sheet music.

Yeah, but there still aren’t that many youngsters around. While Minaichi-odori took place in other villages in the past, Nibu is the only village where it remains. And so we decided to teach just the junior high school students in Nibu village. But because the number of junior high school students started to go down, we now teach all junior high school boys throughout the island.

──Are there any children reluctant to practice?
In Nibu, there wasn’t a kid who didn’t do it. Even now that’s still true and, come to think of it, in our decades of teaching we never came across a student who quit because he didn’t like it.

──There aren’t any that would rather go home early and play videogames?

Well, I’ve never asked them that question, but I assume that the younger students see the older students dance and want to try too.

──Ah, so it’s admiration that keeps them going.

Right, exactly. They all want to try it once they become junior high school students. Even the parents tell me about how their children intend to play the taiko drums in junior high school.

As for the dance practice, we convince the teachers to allow us to move classes. And so, the boys see the event throughout elementary school and aim to take part once they’ve entered junior high.

──The special dance training goes on for about a month, right?
Not quite. Just a day.

──Just one day?
The dance is the easy part. After all, we’re practicing every year, so students have already remembered it.

──I see. So the students already have the foundations.

Yes. There are three kinds of dances, and unlike the Bon-odori, there is no spinning around and such. You just keep dancing in the same spot, which makes it easy. This is another unique feature of Minaichi-odori, whereas in other dances you tend to go here and there, though I do like those styles too.

──Nevertheless, I’m still shocked they can learn the dance in a day.
Children can learn things with a single try, unlike us easily confused adults. We tell the children to copy whoever they find skillful.

──But, learning how to play the taiko drums isn’t as easy, right?

Yup, and as the dance can’t go on without proper drumming, we hold a special training for the taiko. The training goes on every day, even tonight.

──How do you teach the taiko to the children?
First we gather them and explain using a blackboard to explain why we do Minaichi-odori in the first place.

If you don’t tell explain that the event was originally started as a prayer to the gods for good harvests of crops like rice, barley, and soybeans, the children will start wondering about it themselves.

After all, there are no more rice paddies in Chiburijima, and there’s not one person who grows soybeans. They might have learned about soybeans and such in books, but having never grown anything themselves, you have to explain the purpose behind Minaichi-odori.

You know, having taught this all these years, I really wish Minaichi-odori could go on forever without ever ending and that one—just one—of these students will someday come back to Chiburijima to keep the tradition going. It’s great to see the children having so much fun, and regardless of grade, the students all come together to enjoy it. These Chiburijima children are quite interesting, you know.

──With few students to begin with, it seems there isn’t much of a hierarchy among them.

Right, not at all. The children of today are clever. The cooperation they learn will definitely help them someday. This is why we tell them to show the world what they’ve learned, even if they come across something that challenges them once they’ve left the island.

All that remains of Chiburijima culture is Minaichi-odori. It’s something we feel we must leave for the children who grow up here. I’m sure you remember the things you learned as a child. You might forget a bit of it once you’ve aged, but once you give it a try, it all comes suddenly back.

──What kind of tools are used in the training?

Having been a carpenter before, I craft the drumsticks the students use myself. Every year we need about 20 or 30 drumsticks, each one about 36 cm in length. As for the diameter, I aim for about 3 cm and bring the thickness down to 3.3 mm.

──Even the sheet music feels handmade.

This was made by my teacher, and I retyped it on the computer. So, yes, he wrote this by hand. But, we aren’t sure whether the Minaichi-odori we have today is 100% authentic. You see, last year we had researchers come here for interviews. When they saw the second verse of “Everyone line up together,” they asked me whether it’s supposed to be the first verse.

──So, not the second, but it should be the first verse?
They said they found something similar in some other countryside town. I told them this song has gone on as I learnt it from my teacher. But still insisted that the verse sounds like it starts the event and should be first.

──There’s no way to confirm, is there?

Not really. Long, long ago, when the village chief we have today was a young man, I went and asked a professor somewhere, but even they had no idea.

──Well, if Minaichi-odori remains, perhaps we’ll learn the truth someday.

If we didn’t teach the children, I’m sure we wouldn’t have Minaichi-odori nowadays. They would’ve given up on it. Heck, even when we learned with our teacher, it was just the four of us in the beginning. Two later dropped saying that they just couldn’t remember how it goes. And that was it—I was the only remaining.

──Sounds like you faced some difficult times.

Back in the day, there was a large road where we practiced the drum using buckets. After getting yelled at by the old men in the neighborhood, we decided to go up Mt. Akahage to practice. There wasn’t a road like what we have today, and worrying about how cold it would be on top of the mountain, we practiced in a wide road along the way. But since we had already reached our twenties, it wasn’t easy to learn how to play.

──Maybe the children today go up Mt. Akahage to practice too.

I wonder. But that reminds me, we recently made an “Island Study Abroad” program, and last year students on that program came to practice Minaichi-odori too.

──The Island Study Abroad program is where children in Tokyo and other cities spend a semester in the islands, right?

I believe there’s a student from each grade: 5th and 6th year of elementary school, as well as 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year of junior high school. Last year these study abroad students started practicing Minaichi-odori, and as the MC of the event, I introduced these students to the audience. Even the study abroad students had learned it well, and I think I’ll make sure the audience knows that this year.

While drinking coffee Mr. Ijiri’s wife kindly prepared for us, I spoke to him for an hour. A truly hospitable man, Mr. Ijiri prepared many stories to share with us. At the end of our conversation, Mr. Ijiri even invited me to take part in the evening taiko drum practice. “You should come if you want. You’ll get to really know what it’s like,” he said. I went, of course. As for the sounds of the taiko, I will describe them in the “Afterword,” so please give it a listen.