They beat on barrels. At the Kiryu Yagibushi Festival in August, the whole town rings with yagibushi—empty barrels struck like drums, singing, dancing, the native rhythm of the northern Kanto plain. Kiryu was a weaving town, spoken of in the same breath as Kyoto's Nishijin: nishijin in the west, kiryu in the east. The textile workshops prospered, people gathered, and the festival grew with them. The town was made, you could say, of thread and cloth. The yagibushi melody is simple, easy enough that anyone can join within minutes. People ring a tower, form a circle, repeat the same steps, and even the onlookers find their hands moving before they notice. The sound of the barrels carries through the night—plain and strong, nothing refined about it, a festival that smells of earth. The weaving town, dancing all together, in the heat of summer.