For over 100 years, every January, a ritual has been performed to predict the coming year's rice harvest. In the dead of night, farmers gather at four shrines in Wanouchi to witness the ritual. Rice is steamed together with hollow, slender stalks of bamboo about 20 cm. in length. When the rice is ready, a priest slices the bamboo lengthwise. The amount of rice that has been cooked inside the stalk is believed to indicate the abundance of the next year's harvest.
