This festival has been passed on since ancient times as one announcing the arrival of spring in the Mikawa region. Myths are incorporated in dengaku festivities with each behavior connected with the festival's origin story.
The story is reenacted during the climax on the 11th, an event known as the "Teasing of the Tengu and Red Demon". A tengu—a mythical, long-nosed creature—fights with a red demon, disciplining it for all its mischief. The red demon fights back time and time again but to no avail, and realizing its fault, makes amends to the villagers with rice flour mochi and grain powder in its possession, dispelling with all sin and impurity.
The expectorant candies thrown out at the event were originally mochi, and the red demon offers them before the shrine shouting "Aah-kaah-ii!". Then, he throws the candies out with white powder as he runs from the shrine all around town. Eating the candies is said to do away with misfortune and stave of summer colds and illnesses.