Fêtes et communautés urbaines dans le Japon médiéval. La fête de Gion à Kyôto

Festivals and Urban Communities in Medieval Japan: the Festival of Gion in Kyoto. Wakita H. First of all, Wakita Haruko demonstates how and why the Japanese historians of the post war period neglected the field of the urban studies during the Middle Ages. She analyses the process of the birth and growth of the cult of the deity Gozutennô and the Gion festival with the social transformations of Kyoto. During the end of the Heian period, the god protects the people of the capital against epidemic diseases and the cult is managed by the Gion's sanctuary. But the deity becomes also the protector of the growing classes of shopkeepers during the Muromachi period. During the festival, each year, the city people organize a parad through the streets of the city and so the deity can visit particular places downtown. The Gion festival describes a symbolic geography of the struggling powers for the control of the capital. But taking control of the parad by the growing urban classes during the 15th and 16th century means also that they expel women and parias groups of the festival, reflecting by the way a keynote of the modern Japanese society.Haruko Wakita, Souyri Pierre-François. Fêtes et communautés urbaines dans le Japon médiéval. La fête de Gion à Kyôto. In: Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales. 52ᵉ année, N. 5, 1997. pp. 1039-1056