From the middle of November through to the beginning of February, in eighteen settlements around Takachiho, dancers called hoshadon perform all thirty-three numbers of the kagura, starting in the evening and finishing near midday the following day.

The venue is the kagura yado, the kagura lodge. The local deity is invited into the house, so serving as the lodge is a considerable honor. It is also a considerable expense, since it may involve rethatching a roof or replacing tatami, and increasingly the community hall is used instead.

Visitors can attend. Register at the reception and you become an ujiko, a parishioner of that shrine, for one night. The customary offering is two or three bottles of shochu, or two to three thousand yen as hatsuho-ryo.

Somewhere in the long night there is naorai. Gods and villagers eat together and become, for that stretch, one thing. Some lodges bring out onigiri and nishime for the spectators as well. Which is how an outsider ends up sitting on a tatami floor at three in the morning, eating simmered root vegetables out of a shared dish, having been made a member of that parish a few hours earlier for the price of two bottles of shochu.