Onbashira

The are four wooden posts or pillars that stand on the four corners of local shrines in the Lake Suwa area of Nagano Prefecture (historical Shinano Province), Japan. The largest and most famous set of are those that stand on the four shrines that make up the Suwa Grand Shrine complex.

By custom, the are replaced every six (traditionally reckoned as seven) years, in the years of the Monkey and the Tiger in the Chinese zodiac. In Suwa Shrine, this occurs during the , which also functions as a symbolic renewal of the shrine's buildings. During the festival, sixteen specially chosen fir trees are felled and then transported down a mountain, where they are then erected at the four corners of each shrine. Festival participants ride the as they are slid down the mountain, dragged to the shrine, and raised, and the festival has the reputation of being the most dangerous in Japan due to the number of people regularly injured or killed while riding the logs. This festival, which lasts several months, consists of two main segments, and . traditionally takes place in April, and takes place in May. For 2022, the portion has been cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but the is still scheduled to begin on 3 May.