A woman visiting Nara Park in Nara, Japan, offers a treat to one of the park’s thousand friendly wild sika deer and in return she receives respectful bow!
Nara Park is a public park located at the foot of Mount Wakakusa and is one of the oldest parks in Japan. There are over 1200 sika deer that roam around the park. Some, as you have seen in this video, are quite docile. Visitors to the park can purchase special “deer-crackers” (鹿煎餅 Shika-senbei) to feed the deer.
Sika deer used to be considered sacred in Japanese mythology. According to Wikipedia, killing of one of these sacred deer was punishable by death up until 1637. The deer lost their sacred/divine status after World War II, but they were designated as national treasures and are a protected species.
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