In Japan, it appears that a feasible lake and God absent is an old warning

For at least six centuries, the population along a lake in the mountains of the center of Japan was distinguished by the depth of the winter by celebrating the return of a natural phenomenon one day of reverence as a path to God the street.

It will only appear after the cold temperatures that freeze the Sawa Lake in a sheet of solid eggs. First, people woke up at night because of a loud roar. Dawn exploded to reveal its source: a long, narrow chain of serrated ice that originated in mysterious circumstances across the surface of the lake, pinging like the various background of the twisted dragon.

This was Miwatari, and this means that the sacred crossing, which was left by the local belief by a transient deity of the original Shuinto belief in Japan. His appearance sparked feelings of dread, but also reassurance among the population, who ventured the ice to perform a ceremony honoring what they saw as a visit from the super. In the rare winter when the ice hills did not appear, God’s absence was seen as a warning that the natural world was unbalanced.

It was extremely important Miwatari recorded by the population, whether it appeared, the case of the lake, and what are the historical events that accompanied it. They have written these descriptions every winter since 1443, creating a wonderful archive that attests to centuries of cold, cold winter.

But recently, Sawa records have told a more worrying story. Over the past seven winter, Miwatari has failed to appear because the lake has not frozen. Although there are cross years without ICE, the absence of this length occurred only once before in the archive, and that was before half of the millennium.

In fact, the Sawa Lake has not completely freeze – what the locals call a “open sea” – for 18 years of past 25 years. Kyuchi Miasaka, chief priest of the YatsUrugi mausoleum, who has been over the past three centuries over the past centuries, said that Ice has failed to appear regularly since the 1980s. He and other locals blame the disappearance of ancient rhythms on global climate change.

“In ancient times, the open sea was considered a bad omen,” said 74 years old, who was the gateway to his traditional mausoleum and wooden buildings with a wooden ceiling. One mile from the lake beach. “We hear about the melting of the ice caps and the ice rivers in Himalayas, but our lake is also trying to alert us.”

Each dawn during most of January and early February, Mr. Maysaka and dozens of dioceses gather in a car park on the edge of the lake to verify whether God has passed during the night. For years until now, they only found disappointment.

The parish sons only remember in the 1960s or larger when Miwatari was still large enough to make a sound that could awaken them at night. The last time that a series of ice hills was formed in 2018, it was barely six incoers.

“When I was a child, the ice rose above my height,” said ISAO Nakazawa, 81, a retired car agent. “We knew when it appeared because it made a sound like Taiko drum,” Gon-Gon-Gon! “

These days, Miwatari has lost many of its religious importance. Residents in Sawa, a small, sleeping, wrapped city along the edge of the lake, see as local winter rituals. The mayor of the city joins the gatherings in the cold morning alongside the lake.

Mayor Kaniko, 66, said: “Continuing to tradition for 580 years links our society together.

The flag also stole the ice hills from its mystery by explaining how it appears. When the Sawa Lake freezes, its surface hardens in a board about 2 and a half miles. On particularly cold nights, ice contradicts the cracks that fill the lake water, which also freeze. As temperatures rise again, the slab dashed again to its original shape, pushing the newly composed ice to the top.

Similar ice hills appear elsewhere, including Mindota Lake in Wisconsin. But the records are rarely returning to now or in detail as in Sawa.

“This man is very special because people registered the same way in the same way for several centuries,” he said Daymar DegroogProfessor of Environmental History at Georgetown University. “It is an example of the cultural heritage that slides and may not return.”

While Mr. Maysaka says he is frustrated by the failure of the ice to return, he intends to continue to update the archive.

“You can not only leave something that has been present more than 580 years ago,” said Mr. Maysaka, whose family occupied the position of chief priests for five generations. “I will not be the person who ends it.”

His diocese says they will continue to join him in examining the lake in the morning morning. “I feel the responsibility for preserving this date,” said Hiroyuki Okazaki, a 63 -year -old carpenter.

Neither Mr. Mayasaka nor his diocese say they believe that they have already been abandoned by a god – Japan has become very secular for that. They even do not know which God was supposed to cross the lake. The old records do not give a name, and Cinto is a form of spirituality that believe in an endless gods located behind the forces of nature.

In the modern era, a story from a male deity crossed the lake to visit his wife, but Mr. Maysaka said that this is the work of the adventurous local business owners who use romance to draw tourists. He said that some local population also add “O” to the front of Miwatari to make the word look more contemporary.

The chief priest has read all Chronicle entries, including the oldest stored in a museum. Most pages, written in brushes and ink and are linked to manual SEWN books, tell about Miwatari that appears comfortable regularly. During the entire seventeenth century, the ice failed to appear only twice.

In 1986, his father taught him how to perform the ceremony to honor the appearance of Miwatari, as he led the diocese of the diocese to the frozen lake and waved the Holly branch while the ice was wandering under their feet. At that time, Mr. Miasaka assumed that he would have to do this every year.

Instead, the ceremony has only led the ceremony nine times since then.

“When our ancestors made these records centuries ago, they never imagined that they would tell such a story,” said Mr. Maysaka. “They have become a warning against global warming.”