Of Gender, Gods, and Radishes

February 16 in Ōno City of north Fukui prefecture means its time for “Isekō,” a radish-eating extravaganza for men with an alleged 300-year-old history. Ōno City is a modern municipality of just over 30,000 residents (and steadily declining), a postwar merger of the Edo-period castle town of Ōno and a handful of nearby villages. Lining Ōno’s northeastern horizon line are the frosted peaks of Mt. Haku (lit. “White Mountains”), a National Park reputed as one of Japan “Three Great Sacred Mountains” (alongside Mt. Fuji to the southeast and Mt. Tateyama further northeast). A ring of mountains wraps all around the city, in fact, and the region was not easily accessible until mountain tunnels were blasted in the 20th century. A beautifully scenic and rather isolated place, to say the least.

In the city’s Tsuchifugo ward (once an independent hamlet), at the confluence of three rivers (Kuzuryū, Mana, Akane), local men gather on this day to munch on “logs” of miso-simmered radish. This is Ōno’s annual Isekō. The name of the rite comes from the associations people formed in the Edo period (1603–1868) to realize the costly dream of pilgrimaging to Ise Shrine in Mie prefecture (members contributed to a general fund each year then took turns making the long trip). The purpose of the rite is twofold: to ward off flooding in river-hugged Tsuchifugo and to celebrate the legend of the village being saved during a flood by a pile of driftwood that gathered at the riverside shrine, called the Isedō, and redirected the flow of muddy water. Three men are decided by lottery each year to prepare the radishes, which they harvest from cold winter fields, cut into log-like chunks, and stew overnight in red miso. The morning of the 16th, a group of local men gathers, dressed in formal suits. They offer the edible “driftwood” to the gods, along with rice wine and prayers for sound health and no flooding. The suited group then partakes of the offerings themselves, devouring the daikon logs with exaggerated bites. The men conclude the event by drawing straws of rice to determine who will take charge of the radishes the following year.

Women may not participate in the event, nor are they permitted to even touch the radishes. “The kettle that simmers the radishes breaks if a woman is present,” it is said. Later in the day, after the rite’s “success” has been affirmed, women and children may also eat the radishes. The city officially recognized the event as “Ōno Heritage” last year.

Giant radishes, a food long touted for its immunity boosting properties, play a starring role in other winter rites throughout the archipelago. The most famous is Kyoto’s December Daiko-daki Festival, when thousands of people line up at Buddhist temples to eat boiled white radishes and ward of bad luck and health. Women serve as the primary “daikon handlers” in this case, though. But at least one other male-only daikon-related rite exists. At the November festival at Hakubai Tenmangū shrine in Kumamoto, for example, shrine devotees and other visitors enjoy a super spicy dish called “Fujin daikon,” which men alone prepare. Explanations range from chivalry and protection (i.e., men created the festival and the dish to care for women and children, who easily fall ill) to generosity (i.e., men free women from household work on this one day a year) to the idea that the enshrined male deity (Sugawara no Michizane, who people all over Japan today revere as the god of learning but who in times past was worshipped for his plague-protecting powers) only wishes to be served by men—anything but discrimination.