Historical Japanese Lion Dancers Summer Performance

KURASHIKI, JAPAN - JULY 30: A woman wearing protective face mask lets her daughter’s head bitten to Shishimai, for child happiness and good luck during the Ise Daikagura folk culture journey at the remote coastal town of Shimotsui on July 30, 2021 in Kurashiki, Japan. ‘Ise Daikagura’ is a sacred Shinto music and historical ‘Shishimai’, Lion Dance performers pray in front of farmers houses and businesses for good grain harvests and disease-free lives. These prayers are called 'Kamodo Barai', after the prayers, they are gifted with money, rice, sake and Japanese sweets from the house holders. The ‘Morimoto team consist of 9 members who will travel more than two hundred days to thousands of households and businesses throughout rural-villages at five prefectures in western Japan, and pray to those who are unable to visit the country’s most sacred shrine, the Grand Ise Shrine in Mie Prefecture. According to Japanese history the group started its performance in the Edo era between 1603 to 1868 , 400 hundred years ago. The Japanese government designated it as an important folk cultural national property in 1981. (Photo by Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images)