Japan's 'Naked Men': Ageing Population Forces Closure of Historic Ritual After Last Performance

A steam of sweat rose as hundreds of naked men tussled over a bag of wooden talismans, performing a dramatic end to a thousand-year-old ritual in Japan that took place for the last time.

Their passionate chants of jasso, joyasa (“evil, be gone”) echoed through a ceder forest of the northern Japan’s Iwate region, where the secluded Kokuseki Temple has decided to end the popular annual rite.

The Sominsai festival, regarded as one of the strangest festivals in Japan, is the latest tradition impacted by the country’s ageing population crisis that has hit rural communities hard.