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- 2019 Dori Whale Festival
2019 Dori Whale Festival
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Last updated:
Jul 17, 2019
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About the writer:
Nagato Tourism Convention Association
Japanese Boat Rowing
On Sunday, July 14, the 2019 Dori Whale Festival was held in the Dori district of Aomi Island, Nagato City.
Although the weather was unfortunately cloudy, the temperature was calm and very comfortable.
The first event was the "41st Dori Area Japanese Boat Rowing Competition.
Divided into an elementary school division, an inter-branch division, and a vocational/group division, a total of 17 teams competed for the best time over a distance of approximately 100 meters and back.
Accelerate with the sound of banging on the frying pan and shouting in unison with your breath.
In the U-turn, people on the outside rowed hard and turned the Japanese boat around.
The best time was 1:16.84, and the "Nishimachi Soft Team" won the vocational and group division.
Other results are as follows
| Elementary School Division | |
| 1st place | Red Team |
| 2nd place | White Team |
| Chapter Competition | |
| 1st place | Blue Branch |
| 2nd Place | Red Branch |
| 3rd Place | Yellow Branch |
| 4th place | White Branch |
| Professional and Organizational Division | |
| 1st place | Nishimachi Soft Team |
| 2nd place | Otonoshin River Crawling Team |
| 3rd place | Shinyukai Team |
| 4th place | Nagato City Council Team |
| 5th place | Nagato City Youth Team |
| 6th place | Dori Elementary School Team |
| 7th place | Senzaki Junior High School PTA Team |
| 8th place | Yamaguchi University A Team |
| 9th place | Okada Hospital Team |
| 10th place | Asian College Team |
| 11th place | Yamaguchi University B Team |
A powerful demonstration of old-style whaling
The next event was a "demonstration of old-style whaling.
Two first graders from Tori Elementary School signaled, "Here comes the whale! and the demonstration began.
The whale (model) is 13.5 m in length, and four ships are heading toward it.
Riding on board are about 40 men dressed in red loincloths, including local volunteers and members of the general public from within and outside the prefecture.
The men surround the whale from offshore to drive it into the bay and release a harpoon into the whale.
The sight of such a harpooner is very powerful as he dives into the sea with great vigor.
When the fish are driven to the bay, they are netted and the climax is reached.
Hazashi" jumps on the whale with great vigor and performs a final nose slice, causing a blast of red tide.
Then, "We caught a whale!" in a loud voice, and the whole crowd of men cheered.
Whale song with gratitude
The whale is returned to land.
It is said, "If one whale is caught, Nanaura will be crowded with people," and the sight of the men's joy upon their return is very impressive.
When a calf was found among the whales caught, the whale songs "Shukue meadeido" and "Asa no mezame" were performed by members of the Whale Song Preservation Society, with hand clapping to express gratitude and offerings of blessings.
500,000 visitors are received.
On this day, a commemorative ceremony was held at the " Whale Museum " in the Tori district of Aomi Island, Nagato City, to welcome the 500,000th visitor to the museum.
The 500,000th visitor was Mika Egashira, Kainagi, and Tame, a resident of Lyon, France, who had temporarily returned to Japan, and their father and son, who were presented with a bouquet of flowers and commemorative gifts by Nagato Mayor Kurao Onishi and Curator Hayakawa.
The Nagato City Whale Museum opened in November 1993 and exhibits 70 of the 140 pieces of "Whaling Tools of Nagato," a nationally designated Important Tangible Folk Cultural Property, as well as about 270 other items such as old documents, photographs, whale bones and whiskers.
