It began as a way to quell a plague. Kyoto's Gion Matsuri, one of Japan's three great festivals, is a long rite that fills the entire month of July. Its origin lies in 869, when an epidemic struck the capital and people raised sixty-six halberds to pray for the disease to depart, a tradition continuing for more than eleven hundred and fifty years. The climax falls on July 17, the procession of floats known as a "moving museum" of lavish wheeled shrines making their way down the great avenues. The most thrilling moment is the tsujimawashi, turning a massive-wheeled float ninety degrees at an intersection, bamboo laid down, water poured, men hauling the ropes as the wood groans. The night before, lanterns glow and folding screens are displayed, and the town becomes a festival evening. A prayer against disease, turned over a thousand years into beauty. A UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.