The Hakata Gion Yamakasa festival, dedicated to the worship of Hakata’s guardian deity enshrined in Kushida Shrine of Fukuoka city, is held every year in July. Large decorative floats known as kazari yamakasa, bearing elaborate hand-crafted Hakata dolls, can be seen throughout the city during the festival. This year, kazari yamakasa float No. 9 of Tenjin 1-chōme will be on display at the entrance hall of Kyushu National Museum until March 2024.

Front: Strife of unification (tenka fubu)

Puppet artisan: Nakamura Shinkyo

About the end of the sixteenth century, warlord Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) fought under the banner of tenka fubu to promote his vision of national unification through military might. Along with Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu, Nobunaga is regarded as one of the three Great Unifiers of Japan, restoring peace and order by the beginning of the seventeenth century.

Reverse: The Battle of Nagara River

Puppet artisan: Shirouzu Hideaki

During the Battle of Nagara River, Saitō Dōsan (1494-1556), a prominent feudal warlord of Mino (present-day southern Gifu), was defeated and killed in a coup d’etat staged by his eldest son, Yoshitatsu. The feud between father and son had led Yoshitatsu to kill his younger brothers, adored by Dōsan, and culminated in the clash of the two armies near Nagara River in 1556.