Japanese for "Hoyaku matsuri"


What is the Japanese for "Hoyaku matsuri", a festival in Kunisaki, Oita
prefecture for Taishakuten? (According to the NHK documentary "Seasoning the
Seasons", episode "The Kunisaki Peninsula: Mystical Festivals in a Spiritual
Land", "Hoyaku" means "lewd and vulgar").

Googling in English for hoyaku matsuri only got [one
hit](http://www.pref.oita.jp/uploaded/attachment/182140.pdf), and googling in
Japanese using either "ほやく 祭り" or "ほうやく 祭り" (in case the long vowel got lost
when translating into English) didn't seem to get any relevant results.
Searching ほやく and ほうやく in jisho.org names dictionary didn't get anything
either.

It's possible the festival isn't large-scale enough to have any hits on
google, or that maybe "Hoyaku" is a nickname, rather than the formal name of
the festival.




Apparently, it is written as 「ホーヤク[祭]{まつり}」.

According to the official sightseeing information website for Oita Prefecture,
「ホーヤク」 is a dialectal word meaning "impurity", "obscenity", "absurdity", etc.

After the festival, men are given rice cakes shaped like something feminine
and women are given its "male counterpart". The website does not say exactly
what those are (and I am too inexperienced to take a guess).

Because the word sounds, however, like the word 「[豊作]{ほうさく}」 (= "good
harvest"), the festival is meant to pray for that.

Everything I have said here is from the website, not my own knowledge.

<http://www.visit-oita.jp/event/event0303.html>




Apparently, it is written as 「ホーヤク[祭]{まつり}」.

According to the official sightseeing information website for Oita Prefecture,
「ホーヤク」 is a dialectal word meaning "impurity", "obscenity", "absurdity", etc.

After the festival, men are given rice cakes shaped like something feminine
and women are given its "male counterpart". The website does not say exactly
what those are (and I am too inexperienced to take a guess).

Because the word sounds, however, like the word 「[豊作]{ほうさく}」 (= "good
harvest"), the festival is meant to pray for that.

Everything I have said here is from the website, not my own knowledge.

<http://www.visit-oita.jp/event/event0303.html>

