The Gion Festival's "Toro Yama Hozonkai," a preservation society for the Toro Yama float, located at Nishinotoin-dori Shijo-agaru, Nakagyo Ward, Kyoto, created a "Warabe-uta," or children's song to be sung while selling "O-mamori" and "Chimaki," two types of amulets. Presumably there was a song originally, but it wasn't orally passed down during the float's century-long inactivity. The new song is hailed as "the latest children's song" with such special lyrics incorporating "Kamakiri Omikuji," or mantis' written oracle.

The Toro Yama returned to the Yamahoko procession in 1981, but it was without a children's song. The society decided to make a new song two years ago, after having sung its own original lyrics to an existing nursery rhyme of a neighboring Yamahoko community for the past three or four years.

The society commissioned composer Kazuhiko Onoue from Nara, an alumnus of Horikawa High School Department of Music, now the Kyoto City High School of Music. After he transcribed other Yamahoko communities' songs for selling Chimaki as a reference, Onoue explained that he "found that in some parts of the songs, the intonation differed slightly from that of the local accent, and decided to make full use of the softness of the typical Kyoto dialect in the melody of the Toro Yama song."

The lyrics of the first half of the song are almost identical to those of other Yamahoko communities' songs. In the latter half, while many other songs' lyrics mainly focus on candle selling, these introduce the newly famous Omikuji handed over by an animated Kamakiri, that sings, "♪Kara kara karakuri karakuri omikuji kamakiri omikuji dou dosue," or animated written oracle, animated mantis giving you a written oracle, how about one? Additionally, modern versions of divine gift items, such as T-shirts, have made an appearance.

There are many children residing in the Toro Yama community, as it is dotted with family-type apartments. They are practicing the new song in preparation for the Chimaki selling to be held July 14-16. "Although the float has been restored, some things are still scarce or insufficient. The children's song was one such example, and it is so good that it's been completed," said Motoyasu Motoi, a society council member. Photo= Children spiritedly singing the Toro Yama's new children's song (Toro Yama Kaisho, Nishinotoin-dori Shijo-agaru, Nakagyo Ward, Kyoto)