| Description |
The community transmitting Chakkirako is located at the tip of the peninsular and developed as a town of a fishery harbour as well as a military port since the twelfth century. It is also a harbour from a storm for civil ships of other areas.
The repertoires transmitted to-day are six, as generally called Chakkirako. Some of them were popular dances in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, and others were created in the early seventeenth century.
Mariners visiting the harbour demonstrated dances of other local communities, and the people of this community transformed them with their ideas into the dance to mainly celebrate a happy new year.
The dance of Chakkirako is performed on January 15th every year at the shrine, indoors or before the houses of the community in order to celebrate a happy new year and pray for a bountiful catch of fish, an abundant harvest and prosperity of each family.
In Chakkirako sing five to ten women at the age from 40s to 70s while dance ten to twenty girls at the age from 5 to 12 to the songs. Some lyrics of the songs derive from popular ones of the twelfth to the fourteenth century, and others from traditional ones of the early seventeenth century. The girls are well dressed up with colourful kimono, which are worn on the New Year’s Day or other special celebration days.
The girls dance face to face in two lines in the four repertoires out of six. They dance in a circle in another repertoire, and dance face to face or in a circle in the remaining one. They dance with one or two folding fans in their hands in the five repertoires.
In one of the face-to-face dances they dance with a thin bamboo of twenty-five centimetre length in each hand, making light sounds by clapping these two bamboos. This performing art was named Chakkirako after the sound of this clapping; it sounds to the people chakkirako, and became popular in the mid-twentieth century. No musical instruments are used in Chakkirako except for these bamboos.
Chakkirako is regarded as one of local distinctive cultures transmitted for a long time as a celebration of a happy new year or as an entertainment by the local people. Chakkirako derives from dances and songs performed in other local communities of Japan. Designated as Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1976 by the National Government, it is currently recognized as such an element of important cultural heritage as widely indicates the transition of Japanese life style.
Found in Chakkirako are some essence of songs and dances popular in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries or in the early seventeenth century. It became girls’ dance by the mid-eighteenth century at latest.
Chakkirako has been performed as dances to celebrate a happy new year. Because it is colourful and brilliant dances by girls, it has been also performed at the celebration of a new construction of houses or a bountiful catch of fish. Chakkirako is one of entertainments to the people of the community accompanied with celebration.
Only in the early twentieth century its aspect of praying to a deity was emphasized while dancing. Girls wore a shrine-style kimono at that time. Back to the basics later, they resumed to wear a colourful kimono to-day.
Until the late twentieth century, Chakkirako was performed by the limited people of the small community. Then, people in the surrounding communities have also participated in its transmission and open performance.
Today, Chakkirako is certainly performed to the public on January 15th every year. Therefore, the performers concentrate on practices and rehearsals from one week before the day. Elderly women instructed girls, and thus it is transmitted from generations to generations.
The transmitters’, or practitioners’, groups of the performance and the people living in those communities are proud of it before other communities’ groups or societies, and they consider it to be one of their own distinctive cultures. The transmission and the performance of Chakkirako before the public would reconfirm the identity of the transmitting groups and communities, and thus contribute to the continuity of those groups and communities.
Chakkirako is a folk performing art transmitted by ordinary local people for a long time and still performed to-day. Its music and dances retain old performing arts which were once popular in local communities. Through this performance can been found the Japanese sentiment on performing arts which was gradually formed up for a long time. The background of the transmission and the performance of Chakkirako indicate the interaction between a local community and performing arts.
As mentioned above, Chakkirako has a significant meaning in today’s Japanese society and culture. The transmitters as well as practitioners of the performance are eager to transmit what they have inherited to the future generation. |
| Social and cultural significance |
The dance of Chakkirako is performed on January 15th every year at the shrine, indoors or before the houses of the community in order to celebrate a happy new year and pray for a bountiful catch of fish, an abundant harvest and prosperity of each family.
Chakkirako is regarded as one of local distinctive cultures transmitted for a long time as a celebration of a happy new year or as an entertainment by the local people. Chakkirako derives from dances and songs performed in other local communities of Japan. Designated as Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1976 by the National Government, it is currently recognized as such an element of important cultural heritage as widely indicates the transition of Japanese life style.
Found in Chakkirako are some essence of songs and dances popular in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries or in the early seventeenth century. It became girls’ dance by the mid-eighteenth century at latest.
Chakkirako has been performed as dances to celebrate a happy new year. Because it is colourful and brilliant dances by girls, it has been also performed at the celebration of a new construction of houses or a bountiful catch of fish. Chakkirako is one of entertainments to the people of the community accompanied with celebration.
Only in the early twentieth century its aspect of praying to a deity was emphasized while dancing. Girls wore a shrine-style kimono at that time. Back to the basics later, they resumed to wear a colourful kimono to-day.
Until the late twentieth century, Chakkirako was performed by the limited people of the small community. Then, people in the surrounding communities have also participated in its transmission and open performance.
The transmitters’, or practitioners’, groups of the performance and the people living in those communities are proud of it before other communities’ groups or societies, and they consider it to be one of their own distinctive cultures. The transmission and the performance of Chakkirako before the public would reconfirm the identity of the transmitting groups and communities, and thus contribute to the continuity of those groups and communities.
Chakkirako is a folk performing art transmitted by ordinary local people for a long time and still performed to-day. Its music and dances retain old performing arts which were once popular in local communities. Through this performance can been found the Japanese sentiment on performing arts which was gradually formed up for a long time. The background of the transmission and the performance of Chakkirako indicate the interaction between a local community and performing arts. |
| Transmission method |
The community transmitting Chakkirako is located at the tip of the peninsular and developed as a town of a fishery harbour as well as a military port since the twelfth century. It is also a harbour from a storm for civil ships of other areas.
The repertoires transmitted to-day are six, as generally called Chakkirako. Some of them were popular dances in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, and others were created in the early seventeenth century.
Mariners visiting the harbour demonstrated dances of other local communities, and the people of this community transformed them with their ideas into the dance to mainly celebrate a happy new year.
In Chakkirako sing five to ten women at the age from 40s to 70s while dance ten to twenty girls at the age from 5 to 12 to the songs. Some lyrics of the songs derive from popular ones of the twelfth to the fourteenth century, and others from traditional ones of the early seventeenth century. The girls are well dressed up with colourful kimono, which are worn on the New Year’s Day or other special celebration days.
The girls dance face to face in two lines in the four repertoires out of six. They dance in a circle in another repertoire, and dance face to face or in a circle in the remaining one. They dance with one or two folding fans in their hands in the five repertoires.
In one of the face-to-face dances they dance with a thin bamboo of twenty-five centimetre length in each hand, making light sounds by clapping these two bamboos. This performing art was named Chakkirako after the sound of this clapping; it sounds to the people chakkirako, and became popular in the mid-twentieth century. No musical instruments are used in Chakkirako except for these bamboos.
Found in Chakkirako are some essence of songs and dances popular in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries or in the early seventeenth century. It became girls’ dance by the mid-eighteenth century at latest.
Chakkirako has been performed as dances to celebrate a happy new year. Because it is colourful and brilliant dances by girls, it has been also performed at the celebration of a new construction of houses or a bountiful catch of fish. Chakkirako is one of entertainments to the people of the community accompanied with celebration.
Only in the early twentieth century its aspect of praying to a deity was emphasized while dancing. Girls wore a shrine-style kimono at that time. Back to the basics later, they resumed to wear a colourful kimono to-day.
Until the late twentieth century, Chakkirako was performed by the limited people of the small community. Then, people in the surrounding communities have also participated in its transmission and open performance.
Today, Chakkirako is certainly performed to the public on January 15th every year. Therefore, the performers concentrate on practices and rehearsals from one week before the day. Elderly women instructed girls, and thus it is transmitted from generations to generations.
It has been transmitted by girls and elderly women of the limited community of Misaki in Miura City. Later the transmission faced the crisis of perishment because of the change of people’s consciousness, the decrease in the number of children, and also decrease of the population by moving out to other communities under the major social transition. In these circumstances, however, the transmitters endeavoured to succeed and transmit the performance as one characteristic culture which could strongly combine the people of the communities.
Indication of the importance of Chakkirako by people outside the community reinforced their endeavour to transmit it. The modern academic researches on folklore and folk performing arts began in the early twentieth century in Japan. Researchers were also interested in Chakkirako after it was performed to the public in Tokyo in 1931. The outcomes of their researches made clear its importance in the history of Japanese performing arts and its folkloric characters, motivating successors very much to continue to transmit it to the next generation.
The local government of Kanagawa Prefecture designated it as intangible cultural property of Prefecture in 1965. The National Government designated it as Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1970 for which a measure should be taken for recording and documentation, and later as Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1976.
Such designation as cultural property means an official recognition of the importance of the performance. Thus, indication of the importance by non-transmitters or by non-transmitting communities motivates the transmitters very much to continue their transmission.
Indication of the importance as mentioned above has a significant impact upon not only performers but also the people who sustain transmission. Chakkirako is also sustained by many people inside and outside the community who understand activities of transmitters and support the transmission and the public performance of it. In the twentieth century Chakkirako was transmitted by not only the limited families but also by people of the community who regarded it as important. |
| Community |
Association for the Preservation of Chakkirako |
| Type of UNESCO List |
Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity |
| Incribed year in UNESCO List |
2009 |
