Three Thousand Men Pull a Seven-Tonne Rope Down a Closed Highway in Kagoshima on the Twenty-Second
The rope is braided the same morning and cut at the end, so a new one has to be made every year.
The Kawachi Otsunahiki is held on 22 September, a public holiday, on a closed stretch of National Route 3 in central Satsumasendai, Kagoshima.
The rope is 365 metres long and weighs about seven tonnes. It is braided on the day from 365 separate ropes by around 1,500 people, among them Self-Defence Force personnel, construction workers, high school students and residents, over roughly half a day.
About 3,000 men take part, bare-chested in a sarashi waistcloth, divided into an upper side and a lower side. Each side has four units. Ten drummers to a drum strike together to cue the pull. Pullers haul on ropes tied into the main one. Pushers charge the opposing side to break up its pullers, which is the part people come to see. Wasa handlers, in light blue headbands, fix a loop over a wooden stake to stop their own side being dragged further, and whistle spectators out of the way.
At the end the judges cut a notch in the rope, and whichever side holds the centre section wins. Because the rope is cut, the whole thing has to be made again from scratch the following year.
Last year's was the 426th. It was designated a National Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in March 2024, and in September last year the rope procession was certified by Guinness, with 782 people carrying it.
It is free to watch. Last year the roads closed at six in the morning, the braiding started at nine and the main pull at quarter past eight in the evening; the 2026 timetable had not been published at the start of this month.