There’s nothing like being back home for a weekend to remind me of Japan. Quite a non sequitor, you think, but up to a few months ago I would never have dreamed about going home for the weekend. Japan was my home, and my Indiana home was a vacation house. Now I just hop in the car and in just about the same time it used to take me to get to Tokyo by bullet train, I’m back in Fort Wayne. It boggles the mind.
This weekend is the Johnny Appleseed Festival in my hometown, a time for craftsman and school fundraisers alike to dress up in pioneer clothing and hawk their apple related wares to the visitors milling about. Inevitably there will be a child walking around with caramel apple sauce in her hair, and another with a cider-stained shirt.
This event brings to my mind the puzzle of how the term “festival” in the United States bears no religious connotation, while that which we translate as “festival” from the Japanese, “matsuri,” is actually the noun form of the verb that means “to worship or venerate.” While it would be a strain to call some of the festivals in Japan religious, 99% of them were begun as a serious events to appease, entertain, or celebrate the gods. To this day, most of the neighborhood festivals are held at shrines and temples and involve carrying around portable shrines, purifying the crowds, and putting on performances to entertain the gods, and of course, the crowds. Like the United States, however, most of the participants don’t know what the meaning of the festival is: they just come for the festival food, the games and entertainment, and to share in the community comaraderie.
So, what I really want to know is, what is the origin of the festival in the United States?
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