Farewell to Groom-Tossing

We have known for long enough, of course, about the potential effects of climate change. But it only really strikes home when it effects something close to you, a place or a tradition which will never be the same again. Such examples seem to arise every day, most recently in Tokamachi in Niigata Prefecture, where global warming is threatening a hallowed custom - the Bridegroom-Tossing of Matsunoyama Onsen

There's a picture story about it in this morning's Yomiuri. The tradition, known as mukonage, dates back 300 years to an era when locals in the isolated mountain village would take revenge on men from other communities who had moved in on their scarce stock of women folk and married within the village. These days it's more playful, but still seems to have a bit of an edge to it. "I was half happy, half scared," the Yomiuri is told by 30-year old Akihito Mari, one of two grooms thrown into the snow this year.

This is the kind of thing that I love about Japan.

But now mukonage is threatened by the dwindling of the snows. This year there is half as much as usual, barely a soft landing for a bulky newly-wed. If the planet continues to warm up, ritual groom-tossing will soon be no more than a memory.

Comments

[Durf]

I imagine they could borrow snow-making equipment from a local ski area if things got really dire, although that stuff isn't nearly as fluffy as the natural snowfalls the Japan Sea coast generally gets.

I miss snow. My skis sit in the corner and cry.