Watching Children Perform a Story About “The One Left Behind” in Nagahama

In the first piece about the Nagahama Hikiyama Festival, we got to know this small town’s spring celebration: one of Japan’s three great hikiyama festivals, where gold‑leafed floats move slowly through the old streets and, over the time it takes a stick of incense to burn down, children’s kabuki lights up the entire city.

In this second piece, we zoom in a little closer. Following this year’s play—“Heike Nyogo no Shima: Shunkan”—we trace a path from the small town on the shores of Lake Biwa back to late Heian‑period Kyoto and out to the seas south of Kyushu.

For the 2026 Nagahama Hikiyama Festival, the kodomo kyōgen (the traditional local term for children’s kabuki) repertoire includes several classics, but the heaviest and most moving of them is “Heike Nyogo no Shima: Shunkan.” Originally written as a ningyō jōruri puppet play by the Edo‑period dramatist Chikamatsu Monzaemon and later adapted for kabuki, it is usually performed in the truncated form of the “Kikaigashima” or “Shunkan” act, and is often referred to simply as “Shunkan.”

The monk Shunkan on stage is no fictional figure. He really was active in Kyoto at the end of the twelfth century, and he really was exiled to a volcanic island off the coast of Kyushu.

Who Was Shunkan? From Kyoto Monk to Island Exile

Historical sources describe Shunkan as a high‑ranking Shingon monk in the late Heian period, serving as shigyōsō (administrative head) of Hosshō‑ji Temple. Hosshō‑ji was an imperial vow temple founded by Retired Emperor Go‑Shirakawa, and the shigyōsō was roughly equivalent to today’s temple director or chief administrator.

His sphere of activity corresponded to what is now the Okazaki district of Kyoto—around the area of Heian Jingū and the city’s main art museums. For people of his time, Shunkan was a man of good background, with his own estates and disciples, free access to the center of cloistered imperial government—in short, a member of the “religious aristocracy.”

The turning point came in Angen 3 (1177), in the incident known as the “Shishigatani Plot.”

By that year, Taira no Kiyomori’s power had swollen to the point that even Retired Emperor Go‑Shirakawa felt oppressed by it. A circle of close retainers and monks around the emperor began secretly plotting the downfall of the Taira clan in a valley in Higashiyama called Shishigatani.

On a summer night, they gathered at a mountain villa now remembered as the “site of Shunkan’s mountain retreat.” Inside were figures such as the emperor’s confidant Saikō, the court noble Fujiwara no Narichika and his son, the judicial official Taira no Yasuyori, and Shunkan, the shigyōsō of Hosshō‑ji.

They drank as they talked, but the mood was heavy. Cups in hand, they sketched lines on the ground, working out routes of action: they would take advantage of the unsettled atmosphere during the Gion Festival, mobilize troops, and march straight on Rokuhara to topple Taira rule at a stroke.

That secret meeting would later be known as the “Shishigatani Conspiracy.”

From the Shishigatani Villa to Kikaigashima

The plot never reached the stage of execution.

Before anything could happen, the warrior Tada no Yukitsuna reported the conspiracy to Kiyomori. That very night Taira forces surrounded the Shishigatani villa and arrested everyone present.

Punishment was swift, but not simply brutal.

Saikō was taken to a major thoroughfare in Kyoto and beheaded as a warning to the populace. Fujiwara no Narichika was nominally exiled to Bizen Province, but killed in secret soon after. Shunkan, Fujiwara no Naritsune, and Taira no Yasuyori were sentenced to lifelong exile on Kikaigashima, a volcanic island far to the south of Kyushu—generally identified with one of the islands in today’s Ōsumi or Satsunan chain.

If you spread out a map, the route is clear enough: from Shishigatani in Higashiyama, Kyoto, down the Yodo River into the Seto Inland Sea, then southward, around Kyushu, to the open sea beyond. Shunkan’s mountain villa in the capital and the volcanic outcrop of his exile are linked by the single line traced by a convict transport ship.

The kabuki play “Shunkan” takes as its focus the endpoint of that line.

On Kikaigashima, “the One Left Behind”

On Kikaigashima, Shunkan lives together with Fujiwara no Naritsune, Taira no Yasuyori, and a diver girl named Chidori.

They cut firewood, gather seaweed, sell sulfur, and pass their days amid sea winds and the smell of volcanic gases. Kyoto’s power struggles reach them only as fragments, drifting in with the occasional boat or rumor.

Then one day, a ship from the capital appears on the horizon: an amnesty boat.

At first the three merely watch it from afar. Gradually they realize the ship is headed for their island—it might mean they can return to Kyoto. As the vessel draws near, an official steps ashore and begins to read out a list of names. One by one they are called, and then they discover that only Fujiwara no Naritsune and Taira no Yasuyori have been pardoned. Shunkan’s name is not on the list.

The line repeated again and again in the play—“Not there, not there, mine alone is missing”—springs from this moment.

Of course Shunkan understands the cruelty of power, but only now does he fully grasp that he has not been forgotten; he has been deliberately excluded.

The plot moves on. When an official tries to keep Chidori from boarding the ship, Shunkan kills him, taking the blame on himself and forcing the authorities to let the others go. He remains behind on Kikaigashima, choosing a fate of “never returning to the capital.”

At this point the stage lights begin to dim.

On the children’s kabuki stage of the 2026 Nagahama Hikiyama Festival, boys between the ages of five and twelve have to travel this entire emotional arc in the space of a single stick of incense: the hope when they first see the amnesty ship, the sinking despair as the names are read, the terrible resolve in killing to protect their companions, and finally the lonely figure standing on the rocks, watching the boat disappear.

Their voices still carry the softness of childhood, yet they are asked to shout the anger and regret of a middle‑aged man. That dissonance is part of what gives spring in this small town of Nagahama an indescribable weight.

Tracing Shunkan’s Footsteps Around Kyoto

If, like me, you come away from Nagahama’s “Shunkan” with your curiosity stirred about this late‑Heian story, you might set aside time in Kyoto for a short “Shunkan route.”

Okazaki: From Hosshō‑ji to Mangatsu‑ji

From Higashiyama Station on the subway, it is less than ten minutes on foot toward Heian Jingū and the Kyoto City art museum area to reach today’s Okazaki district.

In the Heian period, this was the site of Hosshō‑ji, the imperial vow temple of Retired Emperor Go‑Shirakawa, where Shunkan served as shigyōsō. The temple itself has long since disappeared, leaving only place‑names and scattered records.

Within the grounds of nearby Mangatsu‑ji, however, stands a stone monument marking “the former residence of the monk Shunkan.”

The inscription is brief, but compresses his life into a few lines: a high monk of Hosshō‑ji, participant in the Shishigatani affair, and criminal exiled to Kikaigashima. Standing before the stone, it is hard not to imagine his daily life—perhaps just a robed monk coming and going through the power center of cloistered rule in this area, with no one yet suspecting that his life would end on a remote volcanic island.

Shishigatani: The Mountain Villa Where They Plotted

Walking on toward the foot of Higashiyama, you arrive in the Shishigatani area.

Beyond a quiet residential quarter, near the southern base of Ryōgan‑ji, a modest stone marker stands inscribed with the words, “The site of Shunkan’s mountain villa lies up this valley.” Following the path into the hills brings you into the place where the “Shishigatani Plot” is said to have taken shape.

According to tradition, this was where Shunkan, Saikō, Fujiwara no Narichika and his son, and Taira no Yasuyori sat together by lamplight, drinking and laying plans to overthrow the Taira.

Because of this episode, the valley is also known as “Dan‑gō‑dani”—literally, “the valley of consultation.”

Today’s Shishigatani is mostly bamboo groves and stone steps. Occasionally a hiker passes by, but few people think of the fact that eight hundred years ago it stood on the edge of a political upheaval.

If you have just returned from Nagahama with images of Kikaigashima on the hikiyama stage still vivid in your mind, it’s worth lingering here a little longer. On one side you have the moss and bamboo shade of Kyoto’s Higashiyama; on the other, the black lava rock off southern Kyushu. What links them are the decisions made in this mountain villa long ago.

Naritsune and Yasuyori: The Ones Who Made It Home

The kabuki “Shunkan” ends with the island, and the audience never sees what life was like for Fujiwara no Naritsune and Taira no Yasuyori after their return. History, though, leaves them a sliver of space.

Looking back from the Shishigatani villa site, we know that in a later general amnesty their names did make the pardon list. They left Kikaigashima behind and returned to Kyoto.

Behind Yasaka Shrine in Higashiyama lies a small temple called Sōrin‑ji. Within it stands a modest hermitage named “Kagetsu‑an.” Legend has it that the poet‑monk Saigyō, the exile Taira no Yasuyori, the poet Ton’a, and others once lived in seclusion and built huts here.

The stone marker and little hall are far from spectacular, even plain. But if you come with Yasuyori’s story in mind, another picture rises easily to the surface: a middle‑aged man returned from Kikaigashima, living far from the centers of power, quietly composing poems, copying sutras, and appreciating flowers as he lets the rest of his life unwind.

These scattered traces are enough to make some things clear. Some were executed on the dry riverbed at Rokujō in Kyoto. Some died on distant islands of exile. Some came back to Kyoto and lived low‑key lives on the margins. And Shunkan was the one man deliberately left out of every pardon, the one whose name could only be called back again and again on the stage.

Back to the Nagahama Hikiyama Festival With These Stories in Mind

When you take with you the stone in Okazaki, the bamboo in Shishigatani, the little hall at Sōrin‑ji, and then return to the Nagahama Hikiyama Festival, the stage before you looks different.

You realize that the Shunkan shouting “farewell” from the float is not just a character on the page, but a monk who really walked these places and ended his days on Kikaigashima.

You also begin to see that the children hauling the floats and performing on them are not just “cute actors.” They have spent an entire year of their free time on this play, drilling lines and movements over and over, so that on a few brilliant days in spring they can tell this late‑Heian story anew to everyone gathered there.

If, in the first piece, the Nagahama Hikiyama Festival was a “small‑town version of the Gion Festival,” then in this second piece, “Shunkan” is the core program of the 2026 spring celebration.

And when you come back from the mountain paths of Shishigatani in Kyoto to the shores of Lake Biwa, and watch a group of children who have spent a year honing every word and gesture until they can give the story everything they have on the float stage, you may suddenly understand this:

Tradition is not only something lined up in museum cases. It can also be that small point of light, passed from hand to hand through the crowd each spring, carried forward one generation at a time.

Nagahama Hikiyama Festival 2026 (live broadcast)

https://www.youtube.com/live/lzvpwosLPak

Date and time: April 15, 2026Venue: Nagahama Hachimangu Shrine, Shiga Prefecture, Japan

Outline:This spring festival in Nagahama has continued for more than 450 years and is associated with Lord Hideyoshi. Gorgeous Hikiyama floats, designated as an Important Intangible Folk-Cultural Property of Japan and registered as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, and brilliant Children’s Kabuki performances will be streamed live.

The festival started about four hundred and fifty years ago, when Hideyoshi, an up‑and‑coming warrior and the first lord of Nagahama Castle, gave congratulatory money to the townspeople to celebrate the birth of his first son. With that money they made Hikiyama floats and pulled them around the town.

● Tachi-watari (sword-wielding parade)A solemn, traditional parade by the Naginata group, representing the original form of the festival.

● Okina-maneki ceremonyA member of the Naginata group holds a long bamboo pole with a name plate reading “Naginata-gumi first,” shakes it three times to invite the deity, and then points the pole toward the first float.

● SanbasoA celebratory dance marking the beginning of the festival’s dedication Kabuki performance.

● Children’s Kabuki performanceOne of the highlights of the festival is Kabuki plays performed by boy actors on the stages of the floats. After days of hard training, their splendid performances attract the audience and receive generous applause. The order of the dedication performances is decided at Kujitori-shiki, a Shinto lottery ritual held on April 13.

● Hikiyama floats and the festivalDecorated with elaborate carvings and luxurious tapestries, the floats are called “Moving Museums.” The Hikiyama festival has been selected as an Important Intangible Folk-Cultural Property in Japan and registered as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.

● San yaku (three key roles)The “choreographer,” who instructs the children’s Kabuki performance, the “tayu,” who narrates joruri, and the “shamisen” player are collectively called san yaku (three roles).

● Shagiri (festival music)The festival music ensemble uses shinobue bamboo flute, shimedaiko drum, oodaiko large drum, and surigane gong.