Pāntu, a strange festival held on Miyako Island, Okinawa Prefecture.
This is a traditional event in which a god covered in mud goes around the village to drive away evil spirits by applying mud to his body.
It has been handed down in Shimajiri in the former Hirara City and Nohara in the former Ueno Village. The Shimajiri area is held for two days in September of the lunar calendar, and the Ueno area is held on the last ox day of December of the lunar calendar.

In the Shimajiri area, three masquerade gods appear, wearing masks, smeared with mud all over their bodies and wrapped in shinokikazura vine grass. Pahntu is a god of exorcism, and by smearing mud on his body, he prays for the purification of newly built houses and for the health of children. He wears mud from the bottom of a well called "marigarh (birth well)" and goes around to each house making strange noises. Children and tourists run around screaming and laughing at the sight of mud being applied to anyone and everyone. This is the most famous Pangtu.

In the Uenobaru area, an elementary school boy wears a mask and is followed by a drummer, a conch shell player, and a woman with a black mulberry and seninso (a type of Japanese knotweed) wrapped around her head and waist and holding branches of yabunikkei in both hands.

Both are designated as national Important Intangible Folk Cultural Assets.

Each is a once-a-year opportunity,pros and consthat (someone or something distant from both speaker and listener, or situation unfamiliar to both speaker and listener)We hope you will come and visit us for the time of the year,Important Intangible Folk Cultural AssetsPāntu (dynasty of India, approx. 317 BCE-420 CE)Please touch on the following