Obon - Festival of Ancestors
The summer festival honoring deceased ancestors who return to visit the living.
Obon is the midsummer festival when ancestral spirits are believed to return home. Families clean graves, make offerings, and perform bon-odori dances. Lanterns guide the spirits, and at the end, fires or floating lanterns send them back to the spirit world.
During Obon, the veil between worlds thins, and our ancestors return to receive our love.
Obon combines Buddhist and Shinto elements in honoring the ancestral dead.
Folk traditions
Written about in
- What Shinto says about family and ancestors
At Obon in midsummer the ancestors are said to return home. Lanterns are lit to guide them in, and at the end fires or floating lanterns send them back.