On our sail through the Seto Inland Sea, whenever we pull into a harbor for the night, we never know what to expect. At Shiraishi Island, we found people wearing deer skins, blowing though bull horns and shooting arrows into the air. What's this?

The islanders were having a festival to honor Kobo Daishi, the founder of Shingon Buddhism. At the temple where the ceremony took place, we were welcomed with "tsukemono" and a drink of "amazake." Invited to observe, we took a place with the locals standing around a heap of green tree branches that would soon be lit into a blazing bonfire. Around this circle was passed a long "juzu" rope with wooden beads the size of tennis balls, and each person passed the beads from hand to hand to the rhythm of three priests chanting sutras.

As a torch lit the greens, smoke furled from the heap, and one man wearing a deerskin flicked a bundle of wooden sticks into the fire one by one with his left hand while holding a large knife in his right hand. Each piece was inscribed with a message of hope from one of the worshippers. Around and around the circle the juzu beads traveled as more and more sticks were tossed into the fire, and the flames grew so hot that people turned their faces away from the heat. Last into the fire were old scrolls, masks and other traditional household decorations, no longer wanted but still too sacred to throw in the trash. I wondered how many of Japan's antiques had gone up in flames in ceremonies such as this.