Splashing out for safety at Nagasaki Jizo festivalーNHK WORLD-JAPAN NEWS #shorts

Children splashed water on a portable shrine with a wooden Jizo statue to pray for health and safety during the “Mizukake Jizo Festival” in Sasebo City, Nagasaki Prefecture. The 500-year-old event stems from a legend in which a temple’s Jizo, a deity revered in Japan as a guardian of children and communities, played in the water with the local kids to drive away a plague. When the temple priest gave the signal, everyone splashed water onto the Jizo, before parading it through the town. People called for the community to stay healthy by splashing water on the statue and the children as they passed by.