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A performer wearing a lion mask performs the Ise Daikagura lion dance at the remote village of Yamanawa on February 08, 2021 in Ryuo, Japan. Ise Daikagura is a group of traditional Lion Dance performers who pray in front of farmers houses and businesses for good grain harvests and disease-free lives. Performers play sacred music using drums and flutes with two lion mask dancers. A lion mask is considered a symbol of God, who enters the house and performs in front of the Shinto God, a statue placed inside the house, mostly in the kitchen. These prayers are called “Kamodo Barai”. After the prayers, they are gifted with money, rice, sake and Japanese sweets from the householders. A group can travel for more than one hundred days to thousands of households and businesses throughout rural-villages in western Japan, and pray to those who are unable to visit the country’s most sacred shrine, the Grand Ise Shrine in Mie Prefecture. The group started its performance in the Edo era between 1603 to 1868 according to Japanese history. The Japanese government designated it as an important folk cultural national property in 1981. (Photo by Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images)
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