Sanuma Deer Dance is a folk performing art handed down in the northern part of Miyagi Prefecture. In the period when the area including present Hasama, Minamikata and Semine towns was called Sanuma County, there were four dancing teams to perform the deer dance. They performed it once a year by turns at Sanuma Castle.

The dancers wear wooden deer head with deer horns, a drum at the abdomen and a long bamboo stick called “Sasara,” which is 3.6 m long, at their waste. As one dancing unit is composed of eight dancers, it is also called “Yatsu-shika Odori (the eight deer dance).” It is a kind of lion dances that have been handed down in the Tohoku region.

The deer dance once disappeared from the Sanuma area in the early Showa period (1926-1989), but it was revived in 1996 by the effort of the local people, who wished to preserve this precious traditional performing art.