Setsubun (節分) is the Japanese "bean-throwing" festival, held on the eve of the first day of spring in early February, when people scatter roasted soybeans to drive out bad luck and welcome good fortune for the year ahead. It is a lively, slightly comic household ritual (a father in a demon mask fleeing his own children), with old roots in seasonal purification.
The turning of the season
The name means "seasonal division." Setsubun originally marked the eve of each of the four seasons, but came to refer to the most important one, the start of spring in the old lunar calendar. It worked as a kind of New Year's Eve: a threshold where the year turned and evil spirits were thought to slip through. Rituals to cleanse and protect the home clustered around this dangerous seam in time.
Bean-throwing and the demon
The central custom is mamemaki (豆まき), scattering roasted soybeans while shouting "Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi!": "Demons out, fortune in!" The oni (鬼), a horned demon, stands for misfortune and disease. Often one family member puts on a demon mask so the others can pelt him with beans and chase him out of the house, flinging beans at the door and out the windows. Afterwards each person eats the number of beans matching their age (plus one), for health in the coming year. A newer custom, spread nationwide from the Kansai region, is the ehō-maki (恵方巻): a thick uncut sushi roll eaten whole and in silence while facing the year's lucky compass direction, making a wish. Big temples and shrines hold public bean-throwings where celebrities and sumo wrestlers toss beans to huge crowds.
Words & idioms to take away
Idioms & proverbs to carry away
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鬼は外、福は内 (oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi): "demons out, fortune in," the chant shouted while throwing beans; the single phrase everyone associates with Setsubun.
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鬼 (oni): a horned ogre or demon of Japanese folklore; here the embodiment of the bad luck and illness being driven out of the home.