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 The Hounen festival at Tagata shrine is one of the most famous (or infamous?) festivals in Japan. Every year on March 15 a huge two and a half meter wooden phallus is carried the short distance between two shrines attracting visitors from all over Japan and international media attention. The festival is fun with a lot of sake drinking; however the background of the festival is rather more serious.

Hounen means bountiful year and like many cultures, Japan had numerous fertility rituals appealing to gods or spirits for a good harvest. Spring is the time of regeneration where seeds sprout and dormant trees and plants that seem to be dead come back to life.

The Hounen festival pays veneration to a female deity, Tamahime-no-mikoto, embodying agricultural fertility. Every year at the height of winter a new phallus is made from a single Japanese cypress tree and carved according to strict ritual. According to Shinto traditions newly made objects posses vitality. The phallus is a gift to the deity, which accompanies her visiting husband once a year.