Kannonji Temple 27 Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage

 

Kannonji is located in Gotsu Honmachi, the old, original town, slightly upstream from the mouth of the Gonokawa River.

Overlooking the old part of town, it is a Rinzai Zen temple, but can find no other information at all

This was the final stop for day 37 on the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage, and day 18 on the Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage. This was the last day I walked them both concurrently. From day 38 I will be back to just walking the Chugoku.

The previous post was on the walk along the beach into Gotsu.

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Along the Beach to Gotsu

 

After the temple and shrines in Tsunozu, the next stop is a temple in Gotsu Honmachi and so head off down the small coast road rather than the main road.

When I can I opt to continue along the beach rather than the road....

It's late November and the sea is much more active than usual.

Most of this post will be shots of the wavy sea.....

I pass Majima where I had stopped and explored at the start of the days walk....

The final few photos are not seashots.... peering inside a collapsing wooden garage I found this incredible old American car of some kind..... so much rust that I doubt it could be renovated.....

As I get cose to the mouth of the river a Heron......

And then the final photo, one of the few traditional buildings left in Gotsu. A traditional confectionary-cake-dessert shop..... never actually been inside, though it does garner rave reviews....

The previous post in this series on day 37 of my walk along the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimge was on a couple of shrines in Tsunozu.

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Kakinomoto Shrine & Tsunozu Otoshi Shrine

 

Kakinomoto Hitomaro is the greatest of the ancient poets and is worshipped as the kami of poetry.

He was a low-ranked bureaucrat from Yamato who was posted here as acting governor around the end of the 7th century. He maried a Tsunozu  girl known now as Yosomi no Otome. Whereas Kakinomoto is considered the most prominent of the poets in the Manyoshu, Yosomi was the female poet with the most entries in that anthology.

There is actually very little known for sure about Kakinomoto. One historian I like  suggests that being sent to Iwami was an exile for being on the wrong side of a succession dispute at court. He suggests that he was poisoned while here and as it was a political murder Kakinomoto was elevated after death to placate his angry ghost.

There used to be a huge, old pine tree here but it was cut down not too long ago for safety reasons. A cross section of the trunk is on display inside one of the shrne buildings. Masuda, down the coast aways, claims to be where Kakinomoto died. There are several of his poems that have been inferred to have been wriyyen about the Gotsu area, including one spot just downriver from my place. Kakinomoto and Yosomi are mascots for Gotsu.

From here it is just a short walk to the main shrine of Tsunozu, yet another Otoshi Shrine.

I have been here quite a few times for their annual matsuri parade. A video and photos of the Miko Mai dance is here. I met the priest soon after moving to Shimane, and am still using the desk he gave me.

In front of the shrine are a couple of small Buddhist altars with colourful statues. They are part of a miniature 88 "temple" pilgrimage around the town and hills.

According to the shrine records it was established in the late 9th century. It moved to its current location in 1711. It is one of the half dozen Otoshi shrines in the region that might be the one listed in the Engi Shiki.

An ancient ritual called Yatate that dates to the time of looking out for signs of Mongol invasion. Samurai would shoot an arrow at a target on a pine tree at the entrance to the shrine. The ritual was discontinued in the Meiji Period.

Sunsiduary shrines in the grounds are Kotohira Shrine, Omoto Shrine, and Itsukushima Shrine.

Like most shrines in the Gotsu area, but not inland in the mountains, there is a Kaguraden. All-night kagura takes place on October 31st and mikoshi parades and miko mai on November 1st. Kids get the day off school.

The previous post was on Taiheiji Temple not far away, just across the river in Ninomiya.

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Taiheiji "extra" Temple Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage

 

Tucked away in the outskirts of Ninomiya, Taiheiji is a surprisingly substantial temple.

It is a Soto Zen temple, but I could find no other historical info.

Except that just over the hill is Tabato Shrine, the Ninomiya, second-ranked shrine, of Iwami, and that Taiheiji, under a different name, was one of five temples connected to the shrine.

Of course in 1868 they were seperated.

I have no idea what was inside this tree "room"....

From the temple I cross over the tiny river and thereby enter Tsunozu.

I quite like Tsunozu. It has an old town with lots of alleys and old buildings....

I head for the first of two shrines in the town....

The previous post in this series on day 37 of my walk along the Chugoku Lannon Pilgrimage and day 18 of Iwami Kannon Pilgrimage was on Uyagawa and the Kuroki Shrine...

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Kuroki Shrine & the Enshrinement of Regular Folk

 

Coming down from Tsuto Shrine, I pass through a small park before reaching the main road that goes over a small rise into Uyagawa.

A statue of some old guy wearing a suit with tails. Undoubtedly some minor, local elite working for the state, quite probably.y a mayor. During Meiji they became obsessed with making government officials into heroes.

Dikapidated, collapsing farm buildings are everywhere...In England you could sell this for big bucks and convert it into a luxury dwelling.

The Uyu River from where the town of Uyagawa gets its name. Between Hamada and Gotsu I think it is the biggest river.

On the bank of the river and close to Route 9, the national highway that is equivalent to the old Sanin-do, is Uyagawa Hachimangu.

Upriver a ways is the shrine  I am most interested in Kuroki Shrine. Enshrined here is a 19 year old, local maiden by the name of Kawakami Tsujuro. In 1725 she was working as a servant for a wealthy family further upriver in Arifuku.

Someone, it is not said who, built a weir upstream of the village and diverted the water to their paddies. The weir had guards suggesting it belonged to a powerful group. There was a drought and the village downstream had no water and was in danger of dying and losing their livestock.

Tsujuro damaged the weir allowing water to flow downstream and save her village. The guards pursued her and lopped off her head. The villagers found the head and enshrined it in what is now Kuroki Shrine.

This story fascinated me because in my area we also had a shrine for a peasant who stood up to authority and was executed. I had been interested in the enshrinement of the powerful. At the start of the Edo period Tokugawa Ieyasu had himself deified and enshrined, but I had not come across example of lesser people being enshrined.

Later, in the Meiji Period, many lower class people were enshrined as kami, most notably at Yasukuni where everyone who died fighting for the Emperor are enshrined. Also during early Meiji the government went on an orgy of enshrining anyone in history who could be perceived as being pro- the imperial system.

I often remark how well-kept the roadside altars are in Japan. While heading towards Ninomiya I passed this example which is the exception to the rule...

The previous post was on Tsuto Shrine and an associated legend.

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