Welcoming the ancestors home
Obon (or Bon) is a Japanese Buddhist custom of honouring the spirits of ancestors, who are believed to return to their family homes for a few days each summer. It shares its roots with the Ullambana festival kept elsewhere in East Asia. Many people travel back to their home towns for Obon, making it one of the busiest times of the year on Japan’s trains and roads.
When it happens
Most of Japan keeps Obon from 13 to 16 August, sometimes called Hachigatsu Bon. Parts of eastern Japan, including areas of Tokyo, keep it in July instead (Shichigatsu Bon), and Okinawa and the Amami Islands follow the lunar calendar (Kyū Bon), so their dates move each year. This countdown follows the most widely kept dates: from the start of 13 August to the end of 16 August, on your own clock.
Fires, dances and lanterns
On the first day, families light mukaebi, welcoming fires, at their gates or at the cemetery to guide the spirits home. Graves are visited and cleaned, and offerings are set out on household altars. Communities hold bon odori, circle dances that were once for the ancestors and are now among the best-loved summer festivals. On the last day, okuribi send-off fires light the spirits’ way back; in Kyoto, the Gozan no Okuribi bonfires are lit in giant characters and shapes on the mountains around the city on the evening of 16 August. In some places paper lanterns are set afloat on rivers and the sea, in tōrō nagashi.
A family occasion
Obon is a time of reunion and remembrance. Visitors are welcome to join public bon odori and to watch the okuribi, but cemeteries and home altars are private family spaces.