snake bite

Last night we went to Yasukuni Temple, not far from our apartment, for the Mitama festival. This festival is one for the souls of the dead, for the thousands of war dead enshrined at Yasukuni, for their worship and commemoration. The shrine has also been the subject of some controversy due to Koizumi visiting despite the 14 war criminals enshrined there as well. Though, last night, there seemed to be little controversy among the dance and music and feasting of the Mitama festival. Thousands of people strolled through the lanes, taking in the magic, dance, and 29,000 paper lanterns. There were indeed, that many lanterns, and an equal number of light bulbs casting a harvest moon glow among the revelry.

We wandered about ourselves among the forest of sweating, smiling faces, taking in the the painted lanterns, and joining in a dance that we could hardly follow, swaying and stepping slowly, not gracefully, but to be part. The night was enjoyable and pleasant even in the heat.

Around nine-thirty, things began to slow down and the crowd thinned. We decided to take one last walk through and as we did, from behind the food stalls, we could hear music; we drifted back to see what we had missed.

In the back corner of the complex, not hidden, but partly away, were two large tents; one a haunted house, and the other some kind of stage show. We stood outside the Haunted House for a few minutes, watched children cry, girls scream, and boys spastic shock, and decided to go in. The House was a small maze of dark passages inhabited by ghostly figures in black, grabbing for us, growling under their breath and screeching in our ears, shocked by the little old lady sitting in the dark swinging a dismembered head at our surprise. She was so still; she was probably ninty years old. She scared us there in the dark.
We finally emerged into the air, darkened now by the night, still carrying screams and from the other tent, rock music. We ambled to the other tent. A man in a suit spoke into a microphone, and around his wrist coiled a snake. It's fake I thought. We learned that it was an erotic burlesque show, or something, and decided to go in.

We were ushered quickly and told to squeeze in to the group already in the tent. It was hot and everyone sweats. We were right in the middle. A man with black fishnets and facepaint barked into the microphone, instructing us to get closer, to move in. We did as we were told.

A woman in red came on stage. She ran a ball-chain through her nose and out her mouth and lifted a bucket with it. The act looked painful, and she drew the chain fast from her nostril, squinting gagging. She looked like she might throw up, but she didn't. Instead she picked up a snake. I heard she would eat it. I thought she would just swallow it and bring it up. She held the snake out for people to touch, and it writhed around, obviously real. The snake was squirming in her hands as she stretched it long in front of her mouth, and the snake continued to squirm as she bit hard through it's body. Before anyone could speak, the snake was in two pieces, and the head was on the ground, flopping about, confused by it's sudden immobility. The rest of the body spasmed in her hands and she put the dribbling open wound to her mouth and held the tail up in the air, draining the blood down her throat, and finally chewing off a piece of flesh, crunchy with bones, pulling hard like a girl eating licorice.

The blood was bright on her pale face, and it seeped from the points of her smile. She bowed, and we clapped, unsure of how to react, stunned, repulsed, thrilled. They suggested that if we thought we might vomit, that we should do it on stage. That may have been an appropriate way to react.

The rest of the show was utterly tame in comparison, though still bizarre; it was dance and psychedelic and swallowing more things and a pathetic boy and a woman in charge, levitation and magic. Slowly we were edged out of the scene and made our exit back into the night. The air was different now, and there were no more screams, just a silence and a slight chill. The only people still around were kids drinking and smoking, yamanbas and hair; the people who don't go home early.
It was time, and we walked back into the usual streets, digesting our evening, and wondering where they had come from.