Tsuyuharai

The tsuyuharai (lit.: dew sweeper) is a term used in sumo to describe one of the two attendants that accompany a yokozuna when he performs his dohyo-iri or ring entrance ceremony. The other attendant is called the tachimochi.

During the ceremony the tsuyuharai will precede the yokozuna into the ring. He will usually be following the gyoji who leads the three wrestlers, or rikishi to the dohyo. As the yokozuna performs the cermony he will squat on his left hand side. After the yokozuna has completed his cermonial dance the tsuyuharai will once again precede him away from the dohyo

The tsuyuharai must be a makuuchi ranked sumo wrestler (or rikishi) and is, if possible, from the same training stable (or heya). If there are no appropriate choices from within the stable then the tsuyuharai will normally be from another related stable (from the same stable grouping called an ichimon). All three wrestlers will wear a matching set of kesho-mawashi beloning to the yokozuna during the ceremony, and as the cermony is directly after the ring entry ceremony for the makuuchi division wrestlers on a tournament day this means that the tsuyuharai will also wear the yokozuna's kesho-mawashi for his own entrance.

A wrestler who is scheduled to fight the yokozuna on a particular day of a honbasho (or tournament) will not act as his tsuyuharai.

In normal circumstances, the tsuyuharai will not be another yokozuna or an ozeki. An ozeki can act as a tsuyuharai during a wrestler's very first dohyo-iri, held at Meiji Jingu in Tokyo. A yokozuna will only usually fulfil this role at another yokozuna's retirement ceremony, or at a special event after the other yokozuna has announced his retirement, but before the final ceremony.