🍱 Hatsu-uma Dango

From the Meiji period to the early Showa period, sericulture flourished in a lifestyle of self-sufficiency. As a domestic activity that provided valuable cash income, many families in Gifu Prefecture, in areas suitable for sericulture, raised silkworms, harvested cocoons, and shipped them out. On the first horse day of February, before the mulberry leaves that silkworms will eat are prepared, people offered cocoon-shaped dumplings called "Hatsuuma-dango" to the gods and eat them, hoping that cocoons would be of high quality and produced in large quantities. In Shirakawa Village, not only are Hatsuuma-dango offered to the gods, but there is also the Kogai Festival to pray for a good harvest of silkworms, and the traditional performing art of "Harukoma Odori" is performed. The Harukoma Odori is a celebratory dance in which residents disguise themselves as the seven gods of good fortune and dancers. In recent years, the dance has been performed not only at the Kogai Festival, but also on special occasions such as New Year's and weddings.