Karuta Hajime-shiki (First Karuta Ceremony)

Yasaka Shrine's Karuta-hajime-shiki is offered by the Kinki branch of the All Japan Karuta Association on the Noh stage. It traces back to the poem the shrine's deity Susanoo-no-Mikoto composed when he married Kushinada-hime — said to be Japan's first thirty-one-syllable poem. Children and karuta princesses in Heian-period dress play the One Hundred Poems: the reader recites the first half of a poem, and the players race to snatch the card with the second half, the number of cards deciding the winner.