Yabusame in Kamakura

For the outside world, the name `Samurai` is synonymous with Japan - films like `The Seven Samurais` and `The last Samurai` have glorified the skill and courage of these erstwhile warriors.Samurais belong to a group of military nobility and the word samurai means `servants of God`. For more history check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai

In present day Japan, we seldom get to see any male in traditional looks leave alone the possibility of meeting a samurai. All of my Japanese team mates swore that they do not possess a kimono and have not worn one in their lifetime. So where are the samurais ? Where are those war skills? After many prolonged searches in the internet, I zeroed in to `Yabusame` or `The horseback archery festival` in the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu shrine in Kamakura.

The annual three day festival of this shrine ends with Yabusame display and luckily it fell on a saturday. I headed straight to the shrine and then settled down in the viewer's area beside the track. I had about 2 hours and 45 min to kill before the event start. But, you got to be there to get a place just near the target and in the front row. The wait was long . . . . . .

Yabusame (流鏑馬) is a type of Japanese archery,that is performed while riding a horse. The archer shoots a special "turnip-headed" arrow at a wooden target.This style of archery originated at the beginning of the Kamakura period (1185 - 1333 A.D.). A consoling fact of this festival was that due to the presence of large number of foreigners and a big press community from outside Japan, the commentary was in English also.

The ceremony started with the head Shinto priest leading the 'Servants of God' to the shrine to pray to God and offered all the samurais, the japanese Sake. This Sake is holy and is beleived to purify the souls of the archers and bless them to perform their best.

The track is 254m long and archer has to hit three targets in such a small span. The central target is the most difficult to hit, as the speed of the horse is maximum. Sidding beside the central target, I was really lucky to watch the treat . . . U blink your eye and the samurai is gone...zooooooooom after hitting the target. One of the archers split the target into two and I got that action frozen into my CCD (See Photograph).

The archers were formed into groups based on their schools . For each group, the event started with an introduction procession , then Yabusame and ended with an applause/appreciation procession.

All the archers were part-timers and most of the archers were old and the evident truth is that this art is dying......Our so-called development is erasing the traces of history once for all.