Kite Battle: Tradition and Acculturation

抄録

The kite is a toy made of a thin bamboo frame covered with paper, that you fly in the air at the end of attached long strings. One of how to play kite is trying to drop other kite by cutting the string of it. It is called “kite battle”. Kite battles are popular in Japan. In this paper, I consider the tradition and the transformation of Sanjo-Ika-gassen (the Sanjo great kite battle) as one example of kite battle in Japan. Sanjo-Ika-gassen is a kite battle with big hexagon kite. It takes place on the first weekend of June In Sanjo city, Niigata Prefecture. Hexagon kite is original style of this area and can carry easily by drawing out the bone and rolling it. Therefore this style kite is called Rokkaku-Ika (hexagon kite), Maki-Ika (rollable kite), and Rokkaku-Maki-Ika (rollable hexagon kite). Participants of Sanjo-Ika-gassen have pride at the birthplace of hexagon kite as their tradition. The other hand, they are trying to transform the Sanjo-Ika-gassen into resource for tourism. Sanjo-Ika-gassen is a good example of Japanese ethnic sport aiming at coexisting of preservation and transformation of tradition.