Obon

When the ancestors come home

Obon is an annual Buddhist observance for the dead. The spirits of ancestors are believed to return to their families for a few days. Lanterns are hung to guide them home, offerings are placed at the household altar, and families travel back to their home towns to visit the family grave. At the end, floating lanterns are set on rivers, lakes and the sea to guide the spirits back again.

Most of it happens indoors and in cemeteries. The public parts — bon dances in the evening, lanterns hung up or set afloat — are only its visible edges.

Two months, one observance

Obon is kept in two different months because of a calendar change. When Japan announced its move to the solar calendar in November 1872, some places kept Obon in the seventh month as the new calendar numbered it — July — while others moved it to the month matching the old reckoning, which is August.

Neither is a variant of the other. Most of the country keeps 13 to 15 August. Arita, in Saga, keeps 13 to 15 July, unusually for its region. And some towns follow their own windows: in Tanashi, now part of Nishi-Tokyo, Obon ran from 30 July to 1 August, a time chosen because families raising silkworms could take the days off.

For a visitor

If you are in Japan at Obon you will notice it mostly as a travel season, when trains and roads fill with people going home. It is a time to be quiet and considerate around cemeteries and family gatherings, and a good time to find bon dances in towns across the country.