Kyoto's Gion festival: a longue durée history of patronage, piety, and play

Abstract

The Gion festival of Kyoto has a relatively well-documented history of more than a millennium. This article uses historical sources to investigate the dynamic between patronage, piety, and play diachronically, from a longue durée perspective. Political and economic patronage took radically different forms in subsequent stages of the festival's development. Surviving sources offer more insight into structures of patronage than into piety and are even more terse when it comes to play, but even with these limitations, it is clear that shifts in patronage have had a defining impact on both. Vice versa, both piety and play have generated renewed patronage, at times inspiring concerted action to revive the festival or prevent it from collapsing. Kyoto's Gion festival offers a unique archive that allows us to study how historical circumstances have shifted the dynamic between political and economic patronage, piety, and play in one of Japan's most influential festivals.