For at least six centuries, inhabitants along mountain lakes in Central Japan marked the depths of winter by celebrating the return of a natural phenomenon once respected as a path to wandering gods.
It only appears a few days after the extremely cold temperatures freeze Lake Swa in solid white sheets. First, people purred loudly at night. Dawn broke, revealing its source: the long, narrow ridge of jagged ice that had been mysteriously happening on the surface of the lake, bends like the back of a twisted dragon.
This is a miwatari and means a sacred crossing. This was left behind by the gods of beliefs in Japan’s native Shinto. Its appearance not only caused awe, but also hosted a ceremony in honor of what was considered a visit from the supernatural, venturing onto the ice. In the unusual Winters, where no ice ridges appeared, the absence of God was seen as a warning that the natural balance was unbalanced.
Very important was the Miwatari, where residents recorded whether it appeared, the condition of the lake and the historical events that accompanied it. They have faithfully written these accounts every winter since 1443, creating amazing archives that prove the monotonously cold winter for centuries.
But recently, Swa’s Chronicle tells another, more surprising story. During the past seven winters, the Miwatari could not appear because the lake had not frozen. Sometimes there were no ice-free years, this lack of length only happened once in the archives, but it was in front of the semi-millennium.
In fact, Lake Swa has not completely frozen what locals call “open seas” for 18 of the last 25 years. Miyasaka, a priest at YATSURUGI Shrine, who has been obliged to maintain records for the past three and a half centuries, says Ice has not appeared regularly since the 1980s. He and other locals have condemned the disappearance of the ancient rhythm of climate change in the world.
“In the past, open seas were seen as a bad forehead,” said Miyazaki, 74. “We’ve heard about the ice caps and melting of Himalayan glaciers, but our own lake is also trying to warn us.”
At most dawn from January to early February, Miyasaka and dozens of parishioners gather in the parking lot at the edge of the lake to see if God has passed in the middle of the night. For years, they found only disappointment.
Only parishioners in their 60s and older remember that they were loud enough to make the sound that Miwatari could wake up at night. When the ice ridge last formed in 2018, it was only six inches tall.
“When I was a child, the ice spikes rose higher than I did,” said 81 (81), a retired car company worker. “We made a sound like Taiko’s drum ‘Gongong!’ so we knew when it came out. ”
Recently, Miwatari has lost much of its religious significance. The inhabitants of Swa, a small sleepy town wrapped along the edge of the lake, consider it a local winter ritual. The city mayor joins the gathering on a cold morning alongside the lake.
“Continuing the tradition for 580 years brings together our community,” said Yukari Kaneko, 66-year-old mayor.
Science also robbed the ice ridges into mysterious mysteries by explaining how they occur. When Lake Swa freezes, its surface hardens into the slab for two and a half miles. Especially on cold nights, ice contractions open cracks filled with lake water, which also freezes. As the temperature rises again, the slab returns to its original shape and pushes the newly formed ice upwards onto the wall of the wall.
Similar Iceridges appear elsewhere, such as Lake Mendota in Wisconsin. However, records rarely return to this day.
“We’ve seen a lot of experience in the world,” said Dagomar Degroot, professor of environmental history at Georgetown University. “This is an example of a cultural heritage that may slip and not come back.”
Miyazaki feels disappointed that the ice ridge has not returned, but he intends to continue updating the archives.
“We can’t stop what has been around for over 580 years,” said Miyazaki, who has been the chief priest position for five generations of his family. “I’m not going to be the one to finish it.”
His parishioners say he will continue to take part in checking the lake on winter mornings. “I feel a responsibility to maintain this history,” said Okazaki Hiroyuki, a 63-year-old carpenter.
Neither Miyasaka nor his parishioners believe that they were in fact abandoned by God. Japan is becoming too secular for this. They don’t even know which god to cross the lake. The ancient records are not named. Shinto is a form of animism that believes in the countless gods behind the power of nature.
In modern times, the story of a man’s god crossing the lake to visit his wife has appeared, but Miyazaki said this is the job of an enterprising local business owner to use romance to attract tourists. He also said that some locals will add an extra “O” to the front of the miwatari to make the sound more modern.
The priest read all entries in the Chronicle, including the oldest entries currently stored in the museum. Most pages are written in brush and ink and are bound by hand-written books, which tells us that miwatari manifests itself in comfort regularity. Throughout the 17th century, Ice Ridge was not shown twice.
In 1986, his father taught him how to hold a ceremony to celebrate Miwatari’s appearance. There, he led the parishioners into the frozen lake, waving Holly branches as the ice creaked beneath his feet. At the time, Miyazaki thought he had to do this every year.
Instead, he has only led the ceremony nine times since.
“When our ancestors made these records centuries ago, we never imagined that they would tell such a story,” Miyazaki said. “They are becoming a warning of global warming.”
