Yamahoko & the Townspeople

(draft — to be rewritten from the ledger) In the medieval period the Gion Matsuri passed into the hands of the townspeople. The Onin War broke the festival, and in 1500 the machishu — the merchant houses of Kyoto — brought it back themselves. A festival that returns by the hands of the people even after it breaks: that is the mechanism that lets a festival last a thousand years. The floats took on imported textiles and became what is now called a moving museum.