Beautiful Folk Songs Passed Down in Miyagi Prefecture: A Collection of Masterpieces that Play the Heart of the Hometown
The many folk songs that live on in Miyagi Prefecture are sonic treasures that vividly reflect Tohoku’s culture and the lives of its people.
From mountain songs set against majestic peaks to fishermen’s songs praising the bounty of the sea, the rich voices born from the land and people’s way of life can still be heard across the region.
This article brings together folk songs from Miyagi, centered around Sendai.
Why not lend an ear to the gentle melodies imbued with the feelings of our forebears—melodies that evoke the changing seasons, the bustle of festivals, and the joys of farm work?
- Miyagi Songs: Popular tracks that celebrate famous sights and specialties, and timeless pieces filled with love for home
- Beautiful Folk Songs Passed Down in Miyagi Prefecture: A Collection of Masterpieces that Play the Heart of the Hometown
- Folk songs, children's songs, and nursery rhymes of Iwate: the heart of the hometown passed down through song
- [Folk Songs and Children's Songs of Akita] A curated selection of local masterpieces that evoke love for one’s hometown
- Folk songs, children’s songs, and nursery rhymes of Kumamoto: the enduring spirit of our hometown passed down through song.
- Folk Songs, Children's Songs, and Nursery Rhymes of Aomori: Japanese Songs from Tsugaru and Hachinohe that Resonate with the Heart
- Tokushima’s Folk Songs, Children’s Songs, and Nursery Rhymes | Traditional Songs Rooted in the Region, Including Awa Odori
- Folksongs, children's songs, and nursery rhymes of Fukushima: the heart of our hometown passed down in song
- [Folk and Children's Songs of Hokkaido] Songs of Hokkaido that continue to be loved across generations
- [Folk Songs of Yamagata] The Heart of Our Hometown Passed Down in Song: Feelings Woven into Nostalgic Melodies
- Songs of Iwate: The Heart of Our Hometown Passed Down in Song | A Collection of Classics to Enjoy While Thinking of Iwate
- Niigata’s folk songs, children’s songs, and nursery rhymes: the heart of our hometown passed down in song
- [Japanese Folk and Regional Songs] A Collection of Beloved Masterpieces from Across Japan, Brimming with Local Pride
Beautiful Folk Songs Handed Down in Miyagi Prefecture | A Collection of Masterpieces that Play the Heart of the Hometown (11–20)
Hounen Koikoi Bushi (Abundant Harvest Koikoi Song)Yuri Kitani
Ho-nennen Koi-koi Bushi is an arrangement of Koi-koi Bushi that was sung by itinerant door-to-door performers.
Until around the late Taisho era, it is said that each spring a troupe of such performers would visit farmhouses around Sendai to pray for a bountiful harvest, parading along to the lively accompaniment of gongs and shamisen while chanting, “Honen mansaku, sassato koi-koi!” (“Bountiful harvest, come quickly!”).
Summer Mountain SongAkemi Mizuho
This is the folk song “Natsu no Yama-uta” (Summer Mountain Song), hummed while cutting miscellaneous firewood in the rural mountain villages of Kurokawa and Monou District.
It is said that as the jinku verses of a sake-feast song came to be sung outdoors, the melody took on a more relaxed phrasing.
Before the war it was called the “Grass-Cutting Song,” and it is a kind of “Grass-Cutting Packhorse Driver’s Song” that was sung in farming villages in the Miyagi, Monou, and Kurokawa district areas during summer grass-cutting trips.
Jūsan-hama Jinku
This is the folk song “Jūsanhama Jinku,” handed down in the Jūsanhama area facing Nabeuri Bay in Ogatsu Town, Monou District, on the northern part of Kinkasan Island, which floats in the Pacific off Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture.
The song was sung by fishermen as a raucous drinking song.
It is a type of “Hama Jinku” known throughout the Sanriku coast, and is closely related to other Miyagi folk songs such as “Tōjima Jinku.”
Miyagino Bon Song
Miyagino Bon Uta is a song created shortly after the war by Chūichirō Takeda, a folk song researcher from Iwate Prefecture who lived in the Miyagino Housing Complex in Sendai.
Long ago, due to the misconduct of the third head of the Date clan, Tsunamune, the succession was passed to Kamechiyo, who was only two years old.
As a result, in the Date domain, events such as Bon dances were banned, and almost no Bon dancing could be found throughout the prefecture.
For this reason, this later-composed song has become a valuable Bon song.
Nagaochi-uta (Long-Mochi Song)
It is said that the “Nagamochi-uta” originally was the “Kumosuke-uta,” songs sung by itinerant men known as kumosuke—homeless porters who carried palanquins and stayed around post stations in the Edo period.
Farmers conscripted as laborers for the daimyo’s alternate attendance learned these songs, and after returning home, passed them down; this is what came to be known as the “Nagamochi-uta.”
Miyagi Horse-Driver’s Song
It is said that Miyagi Mago-uta (Miyagi packhorse driver’s song) originated when the folk song Komoro Mago-uta from around Komoro City in Nagano Prefecture was brought in and became adapted as Miyagi’s mago-uta.
After the popular folk singer Masao Akama—known for his powerful low voice—recorded it in 1962 (Showa 37), it became one of the Tohoku region’s representative mago-uta.
Beautiful Folk Songs Passed Down in Miyagi Prefecture | A Collection of Masterpieces That Play the Heart of the Hometown (21–30)
defining clause
This is a song passed down at Jogi Nyorai on the outskirts of Sendai, sung to pray for romantic ties.
On the eve of the temple fair held on the seventh day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar, a fresh, youthful scene unfolds as two people promise to meet, depicted over a gentle, conversational melody.
Though it has seldom been widely featured in the media, that very fact allows it to stand as a representative Miyagi folk song, rich with the pure wishes of locals rooted in their community.
As you listen quietly, let it call to mind Tohoku’s abundant nature and the subtle flutter of a festival night.