Hashi Beach, Harbour, & Tsuto Shrine

 

After leaving Kushiro, the old San-in Do is a narrow, single-lane road that runs near the rail line and  comes into the back of Hashi completely avoiding the new and busy Route 9

Home to a pretty good "Oceanarium", the beach is part of the Iwami Seaside Park and is very popular in summer.

At the far end of the beach is the tiny harbour for Hashi.

On the hillside up above the harbour is Tsuto Shrine.

This is the main shrine for the town, although just over a hundred years ago an Otoshi Shrine and an Inari Shrine were merged with it. It is yet another local shrine listed in the Engi Shiki.

It is believed that the ruling clan, an offshoot of the clan that colonized the Iwami coastal region in ancient times established a shrine to their ancestors here. Their ancestral deity was Komemochitsuki, and in some way he is connected with mochi rice cakes. They are connected to the clan who founded Kushiro Shrine, and the shrines down near Masuda.

This seems to be the eastern limit of their territory. They were obviously placed here by the Yamato as a check on the power of Izumo. Further East and into Izumo it seems the Mononobe were the clan sent for the same purpose.

In 889 the clan enshrined Tagorihime, the elder of the three Munakata, daughters of Susano.

A myth/legend has it that as a young girl  Tagorihime was too volatile even for Susano, so she was sent away and came ashore on Hashi Beach. A local couple raised here as their own. She never spoke.

Later, a signal fire lit to warn of an attack on Izumo by a "foreign" enemy, caused Tagorihime to reveal her true identity and a dream of Susano that if Tagorihime returned, Izumo would be successful in defeating the enemy. Tagorihime set off but her foster parents chased after her to stop her. She hid behind a rock at what is now a shrine in Gotsu. Her fraught foster parents passed by her and died on the slopes of Asari Fujisan, a coastal mountain near my place. Tagorihime reached Izumo and the enemy was defeated.

The oldest version of this story dates to the 15th century at Hinomisaki Shrine, though it is probably much older. It is said that this shrine  and the one in Gotsu where the rock is were both territories of Hinomisaki Shrine.

Around the main shrine building are an Ebisu Shrine, a Konpira Shrine, a Yasaka Shrine, and a Tenmangu Shrine. The small shrine slightly above the main shrine is believed to enshrine Komemochizuki.

The previous post in this series on the Chugoku and the Iwami Kannon Pilgrimages was on Majima and the Benten Shrine I stopped in at on my walk to start heading up the coast again from Hashi.

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Majima Island. Westernmost point of the 35th Parallel & Abandoned Benten Shrine

 

Majima Island is an outcropping on the coast between Tsunozu and Waki in Gotsu. It may have been a tiny island at some point, but now it is connected to the land by a sandy hill.

There are a few tiny fishing boats on the beach, but no harbour,

Steps lead up to a first torii with a Jizo statue nearby.

When I first visited Majima it had a Benten shrine on top, but now no maps show a shrine at all, leading me to believe it has been disestablished.

After the first torii sand dunes lead to the path to the "island" itself.

After a narrow ridge connecting to the island some steep steps lead to the top. Erosion has seriously undercut the concrete steps.

A second torii stands near the top, though it has been missing some of its parts  for as long as I have been here.

A pair of ceramic komainu stand guard.

In the last day or so I have come across three different sets of ceramic komainu, all in completely different styles. First there was the pair at Ankoku Temple, then the pair at Kantake Shrine, and now these.

The views from on top are fantastic, looking back down the coast past Tsunozu, Ninomiya, & Uyagawa.

Looking up the coast past Waki, Kakushi, then then "downtown" Gotsu with the huge paper factory at the mouth of the Gonokawa River and then past Asari with the mountains of Iwami Ginzan visible...

A sign on the coast road shows that  Majima id the westernmost point on Honshu of the 35th Parallel .

The 35th Parallel pretty much cuts Hinshu in half and passes from south of Tokyo and then south of Kyoto before leaving Japan at this point.

This is also the spot where local fishermen rescued a couple of hundred Russian sailors from a sinking ship during the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. The story can be found in this old post of mine.

The previous post was on three shrines I visited yesterday.

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3 Shrines Around the Iwami Kokubunji Sites

 

The Iwami Kokubinji and Kokubunniji (nunnery) were located on the high ground just up the coast from Shimoko. Neither still exist, but the area is named Kokubu-cho.

The first shrine I visited was the Otoshi Shrine, which is, I think, the main shrine for Shimoko.

It is up a long flight of steps and on the way up offers views over Shimoko.

The main kami is Otoshi, a son of Susano connected with growing rice and also with immigrant clans from Korea. There are several more Otosshi shrines in the towns further up the coast...

Other than that I can find no history or info on secondary kami.....

A walk east toward the main Route 9 brings me to the guardian shrine of the Kokubunji, Kokubunji Kantake Shrine.

It was moved here when the Kokubunji was moved here. I had always presumed that Shimoko was the capital of Iwami all along, but apparently it was originally further up the coast in the Nima area. It was moved here in the early 9th century I think. I must find out why.

The most striking thing for me at the shrine was the pair of ceramic komainu. Unlike any I have seen before, they are quite cat-like.

The main kami of the shrine is Raijin, the Thunder God. I have always considered Raijin, and Fujin the Wind God, to be primarily Buddhist, as they are often depicted in paintings and sculptures at temples.

However, in Shinto mythology Raijin is equated with Ikazuchi, created out of the rotting corpse of Izanami. Ikazuchi is connected to the Kamo shrines that preceded the establishment of Kyoto.

Due to its importance and connection to the provincial capital, the shrine is listed in the Engi Shiki. Also enshrined is Omoto, the local land-goddess found everywhere in Iwami, and also Ebisu.

After passing the site of the former monastery, I head to Route 9, the old San-in Do that ran from Kyoto to Yamaguchi. The original Sanindo turns off from the new Route 9 and I follow it into Kushiro.

Kushiro Shrine enshrines Kushiroame no Koketsuhiko no mikoto, the son of Ama no Tarashihikokunioshihito no mikoto, the ancestor of the Kushiro Clan who settled the coast of Iwami.

More of that story can be found in this earlier post from down in Masuda.

It is also important enough to be listed in the Engi Shiki.

In the early 20th century with the shrine merger programme, the village Otoshi Shrine was merged with it.

In the grounds are an Omoto Shrine and an Ebisu Shrine.

New growth on a Sago Palm....

The Ebisu Shrine....

I carry on up the coast following the old San-in Do for a while. Abandoned properties are numerous.

The previous post in this series was on two shrines in Shimoko...

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