45Teppō and Keyari (Firearms and Feathered Spears)
During the Edo period, firearm and feathered-spear brigades served as foot soldiers for Yatsushiro Castle and as county riflemen for Yatsushiro county. Although this practice was discontinued with the abandonment of Yatsushiro Castle in the Meiji period, it was restored based on a scroll in 1990.
Today, students from local Syugakukan High School participate in the Shinkō procession to transfer sacred objects in a portable shrine to another shrine or ceremony, and it is possible to view the dignified line of the firearm unit carrying 40 guns and the feathered-spear brigade carrying 24 Nagara spears.
