Passing by Kawamoto

 

Kawamoto is the biggest town on the Gonokawa River since leaving Gotsu ate the mouth of the river about 35 kilometers downstream.

The river does a more than ninety degree bend here and the town is all on the inside of the curve, with the outside being steep cliffs and mountainside.

However, I choose to walk along the embankment and therefore completely by-pass the town itself.

Photo 6 shows Senganji Temple on the mountainside overlooking the town. I visited it earlier as it is one of the temples on the Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage and that post has several photos looking down on the town.

The town has a big town hall, Police Station, Indoor Swimming Pool and primarily serves as a shopping and services centre for the surrounding rural and mountain communities.

The previous post in this series walking up the Gonokawa River to its source was on the Imbara to Kawamoto section.

Japan Sea Coast Kute to Hane

 

After leaving Kute, a line of small hills separates the road from the sea and inland a largish area of rice paddies.....

This was a brackish lake that has been drained by cutting an opening through the hillside allowing the land to be reclaimed and planted in rice. This was done quite a long time ago in the Kamakura Period.

I am not at all sure where the lake originally drained, but where it now reaches the sea is a spire of rock called Kakedo Matsushima.

It once had a pine tree standing on top of it, and maybe I am misremembering, but I seem to remember it was still there when I first passed by on a train more than twenty years ago.

It is very much a miniature version of Candle Rock, the iconic sight in the Oki Islands.

There is a small harbour then a beach and tucked up against the sheer cliffs the main harbour of Hane.

Hane was at some point a small beach resort and there are still a couple of ryokan operating.

The train line got here in 1912 so it may have started then, although it has the feel of the 1960s about it.

The cliffs are quite impressive and there is a lighthouse on top.

From here there is no access to the coast fo the next 5 kilometers until the mouth of the Tagi River, the old boundary between Iwami and Izumo, so I took thebtrain home from here and will start from Tagi on the next leg.

The previous post was on the previous section of coast from Torii to Kute.

Oda Omoto Kagura a vestige of shamanism in Japan

 

A few weeks ago I posted on a small altar to Omoto in a neighbouring village and asked if anyone would be interested in seeing the shamanic kagura that is associated with Omoto. On person said yes, so this is for them. I apologize for the quality of the photos and videos. They are from twenty years ago.

It all begins in the small community centre in front of the Omoto Altar where the villagers have made a new rope "snake" representing Omoto, a female land kami widespread in the area. Up in Izumo the similar kami is called Kojin and is also very widespread.

Omoto is carried to the village shrine, a Hachimangu at the far end of the village. Omoto Kagura was introduced in to the area by yamabushi and they took the same form of shamanic rituals all across the country. I have found remnants of yamabushi kagura throughout western Japan and Kyushu, and am reliably informed it was also widespread in the north of Japan. When the yamabushi and their shamanism was outlawed in the late Meiji period it disappeared everywhere, except in this remote part of Shimane.

Omto is then placed on an altar in the shrine. The shelves with white cloth are for the offerings that will later be ceremonially offered to Omoto by the villagers and priests. I have seen the offering for normal annual matsuris, and for the Omoto rituals there are 3 to 4 times as many offerings.

Many shrines in the area do not have a full-time shinto priest, but for Omoto all the priests of the county take part. Omoto Kagura takes place either every 4, 5, 6, or sometimes 7 years, depending on the village tradition. A similar shamanic kagura takes place in Hiba, high in the mountains of Hiroshima near the Shimane border, but only every 33 years.

An altar is set up in the corner of the ceremonial space, under the tengai, the canopy over the dance area. I believe this altar is in the NW corner but I could be mistaken.

Masked, theatrical kagura is performed as an interlude while the priests retire and rest. This was the origin of the theatrical kagura now commonly performed. It was in between the shamanic dances performed by priests, ne shugenja.

More rituals, many involving a very large Onusa, a kind of purification wand, and then Omoto is taken dowm from tha altar and the priests perform Tsunanuki wherein Omoto is taken on a figure 8 route around the sacred area.

The video below is from a different performance at a nearby shrine on another occasion.

More theatrical dances and then my favorite, the Tengai dance.

The tengai is the canopy above the dance area and the streamers are what the kami descend through to animate the dancers in nornal kagura. For Omoto there are a series of boxes with scrolls attached within the tengai and the priests operate ropes that allow the boxes to descend and ascend.

As the dance progresses the boxes begin to swing more violently and by the end of the dnce ripped pieces of the tengai litter the floor. This is by far my favorite of the various Omoto dances and I am not aware of anything even remotely similar anywhere else in Japan.

Not all the kagura dances by the villagers are masked and theatrical. Some dances, called shinji, are ritualistic in origin and include several purification dances etc. Another is the sword dance pictured below.

As the night progresses there are several more masked dances and several more ritual Omoto dances like Yudate and the Mat Dance, my second favorite dance.

The final dance, just before dawn, is the Jyoju, and this is when possession is most likely to occur. Some villages have the tradition a villager is chosen, always a male, sometime before the festival and will undergo numerous purifications and preparation. many villages however just leave it up to the kami to choose who to possess.

Omoto is once again taken down from the altar and then suspended diagonally across the area from the Omoto altar to the opposite corner. The priests then start to swing the rope back and forth picking up speed and then slowing down. As with the tengai it gets quite violent and pieces from the tengai fall around. On one occasion I saw the tengai itself semi-collapse.

The next day Omoto, as represented by the new rope snake, will be taken to the altar behind the community centre and wrapped around the base of the tree. All across Izumo and the Oki Islands you will also find such rope serpents wrapped around trees.

This is just a very brief introduction. I have witnessed Omoto kagura numerous times and have an extensive collection of much better photos that I will get round to posting eventually....

Washibara Hachimangu in Autumn

 

Washibara Hachimangu Shrine is located at the base of the mountain that has Tsuwano Castle on top.

It was established in the 13th Century by the warrior ancestor of the Yoshimi Clan who moved to what is now the Tsuwano area and established this branch of the Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine of Kamakura.

In 1387 the third head of the family moved it to its current location.

A Yabusame training ground was built at this time and it remains the only original Yabusame grounds in all of Japan. Yabusame takes place here on the first Sunday in April and can be viewed in this earlier post.

During the Yabusame festival the shrine grounds are filled with blooming cherry trees, but in the Autumn, the combination of Maple and Ginko trees make for a splendid sight.

There are numerous secondary shrines in the grounds, the most interesting being a branch of Awashima Shrine.

The head Awashima Shrine in Wakayama is famous for its collection of dolls that have been left at the shrine, and many Jaoanese find it quite eery.

The Awashima Shrine here at Washibara Hachimangu also has quite a collection of traditional dolls that have been left.

The Washibara Hachimangu was established at the same time as the first castle on top of the mountain, and when the castle was attacked in 1554 the shrine and all the other temples and shrines in the immediate vicinity were burned down.

In 1568, Yoshimi Masayori rebuilt the shrine. The current thatched tower gate dates from this time.

In 1711 Kamei Tsunechika did major renovations, and the current main hall dates from this time.

The Tower Gate, Worship Hall, and Main Hall are all National Important Cultural Properties and are fine examples of late Muromachi Period shrine architecture. They are all currently undergoing refurbishment.

Between the tower gate and the worship hall is a small pond with a kiyosaibashi bridge across it.

Outside of the yabusame festival in April, the shrine gets very few visitors as it is somewhat out of town, but well worth a visit in the autumn.

These last seven photos were taken on a later visit to the shrine....

The previous post in this series on Tsuwano was on the Yabusame here.