The Onbashira festival has confirmed its status as the most dangerous religious rite in Japan, with the deaths of two participants this year!

The festival is held once every 6 years, with the highlight of the event (and the part which causes the most injuries each year) involving 16 carefully selected fir trees that are brought out of the mountain forests and slid down steep slopes. After a Shinto purification ceremony, local men climb aboard the massive tree trunks and attempt to hang on as they make their way down the mountainside, a ceremony known as “Kiotoshi.”

Being killed by one of the trees is considered to be an honorable death. The two-month-long Onbashira rites can trace their history back more than 1,200 years–a long time to be religiously sliding down trees.

 Would you be brave enough to participate?