Kami no Miya Kojin Shrine

On the nearby guide map this little shrine is called Kari no Miya Kojin Shrine, but in the torii and shrine building it is called Hachidai Aragami Shrine.

Many shrines had their names changed in the early Meiji Period, to remove any buddhist influence from the shrine ( a process akin to unscrambling eggs), and to add an Imperial identity.

After WWII when the states grip on shrines was loosened many shrines chose to revert to their earlier identity.

Aragami is a term often translated as "rough deity", but I have come to prefer the word "turbulent" over rough. Aragami are often "Earth" kami, ie natural forces that can be dangerous and violent. Kojin is certainly an aragami, though at this shrine there was no rope snake typical of other kojin shrines in Izumo.

The shrine is located on a small hill in Taisha Town between Izumo taisha and Inasa beach.

There were a couple of small Inari shrines in the grounds.

A Walk to Suga

The weather during May remained unseasonably cool, so I talk advantage and went on another exploratory walk. I started in Nogi, now little more than a suburb of Matsue. A cookie-cutter town of convenience stores, pachinko parlors, and drab, utilitarian buildings.

My route was to roughly follow Route 24 up the Inbe River and over into the watershed of the Hi River around Suga.

After about 30 minutes I was in the foothills on narrow lanes with mostly older, more traditional houses. The person in this house is obviously really into bonsai!

As usual I stopped in at all the shrines along the way.

In the village of Noshira I found this that looks like a shrine, but is in fact a "kyo", translated as "church". Its a branch of Izumo Yashirokyo, a religion started by the then head priest of Izumo Taisha in the late 19th Century when the state basically told priests to stop preaching or dealing with "religious" matters. If they wanted to deal with religious issues they should found their own churches. The state had appropriated the Torii symbol, so only "shinto" shrines could have a torii, so many of the shinto-based Kyo simply use a simple gate with one crosspiece.

Also in Noshira I found an interesting shrine with a huge mask of Uzume or Otafuku. As Uzume is one of the kami enshrined here it is most likely her.

And then, paydirt!!!!! I found 2 examples of something I search for and hope to find on my backcountry explorations, a pair of Phalli!

I chatted for a while with a lady visiting the shrine, but she professed to not know anything about them, which may be true, but its more likely that she didn't want to talk about them with a foreigner.

I have an extensive collection of photos from small fertility shrines I've visited, but I've hesitated to post any as about half the visitors to this blog are from a certain North American country wherein many citizens react strangely to such topics. They either get offended and indignant, or they react like giggling Elementary schoolgirls.

Anyway, to have found these two really made my day and my steps had more spring to them.....

Route 24 is a fairly busy, 2 -lane road, that has been straightened a lot and bypasses many smaller settlements. I chose to walk the old sections of road that snake along the river. Its a longer walk, but there is almost no traffic, often the things to be discovered are in the small villages, and I'm more likely to meet friendly people. Sure enough I soon came upon a small unmarked shrine to Kojin with the rope serpent wrapped around the base of a tree. It looked like nobody had visited the shrine in a few years.

There were a lot of snakes of the non-rope variety out and about. This one was a bit over a meter in length. No idea what species it was, though if it was a 4-lined Rat snake I wouldnt be surprised.

Golden Week-end walk day 2

I was up walking at first light. Not sure of the time as I havent owned a watch in more than 20 years. In the shrine at Mitsu I found a small but interesting Kojin.

From here I headed inland, south towards Matsue. The road sign said 10 kilometers, but I would be following a zig zag route to visit small shrines up in the hills.

I stopped in at Sada Shrine, once the most important shrine in Izumo until Izumo Taisha took that role in the late heian period. This is the home of Izumo Kagura, believed by many to be the root of all the kagura in western Japan. Excavations in the area around the shrine have found the earliest traces of the Yayoi in this part of Japan.

By 7 the paddies were a hive of activity, with planting or preparations for planting underway. In my village because of the strange weather we are still a week or two away from planting. I also noticed someone unloading bamboo shoots from their bag. This year there are none in my area yet.

At an old temple, numbered 27 on one of the pilgrimage routes, I found this lovely wooden Jizo. Most Jizo are stone.

The morning got hotter as I approached the city. Lots of traffic and convenience stores.

I hit the shore of lake Shinji about 2k along from Matsue. The road around the lake was a non-stop line of traffic. This is Golden Week.

The first place I headed was the ashi-yu ( foot bath) outside of the Ichibata railway terminal. My feet appreciated the soak in the hot water. Ashiyu can be found in many onsen areas, and I imagine they are from the time when most people in Japan travelled as I have been, on foot.

It was noon, 24 hours exactly since I started my walk. I had visited 16 shrines, a couple of which that were not marked on the map. Now its time to sit down and find out about what I have seen.

Adakaya Kojins

The main kami in my area is known as Omoto, and is represented by a straw serpent. Up in Izumo a similar kami goes by the name of Kojin, and it is also represented by a serpent made of rice-straw. In the Higashi izumo area these straw serpents have developed into large sculptural forms. The 2 pictured here are from Adakaya Shrine.

You won't find Kojin in the ancient chronicles as it has nothing to do with the ruling classes or the political Shinto of the shrines. It is a "folk" kami, which simply means it was/is actually worshipped by people. It is a kami that combines elements of ancestor and nature worship.

Though now in the grounds of Adakaya Shrine, these 2 altars would have been moved here during the late Meiji Period when the government closed down half the folk shrines in the country and moved them to state shrines.

The number of gohei in front of the altars, as well as the care and attention that goes into creating these straw serpents attests to the continued importance of Kojin to the local people. The only other place I have seen such large Kojin was on the eastern side of Dogo, the largest of the Oki Islands.

Iwaishima kagura

This short video is of a kagura performance on the small island of Iwaishima, or as some people say, Iwaijima, off the southern coast of Yamaguchi.

If you compare it to some of the other videos of Iwami Kagura, you will see some differences.

The music is different, and the costumes are much simpler.

This is the first dance of 33 that were performed over a 3 day period as part of Kannmai Matsuri held every 5 years.

The opening dance features Kojin, the local kami of the island, though the mask look a lot like a Tengu, or even Sarutahiko.

Kojin is equivalent to the kami Omoto in my area, and is known as an Aragami, "rough kami", though I prefer turbulent kami. In this dance the priest pacifies Kojin.

The kagura dances are performed in a temporary structure with grass roof and walls erected near the harbor

The priests come from northern Kyushu, which has its own kagura traditions, so I don't know whether these performances are from that tradition or the southern Yamaguchi kagura tradition.

The masks are wooden, and so are simpler than Iwami Kagura masks.

Kannmai Matsuri

This short video was shot 2 weeks ago on the small island of Iwaishima. It shows the beginning of the Kannmai matsuri, as 2 rowboats, accompanied by a flotilla of gaily decorated fishing boats, head out to see to meet 3 boats coming from Kyushu carrying priests.

The priests are from the village of Imi in Kyushu, and come here every 5 years fro the matsuri.

The priests boats land on a beach in a bay on the other side of the island and perform a ceremony. In 886 a delegation of villagers were travelling back to Imi from Kyoto and were hit by a bad storm. They took shelter on Iwaishima and in gratitude for the help they received from the people on Iwaishima they performed ceremonies for the local kami, Kojin. This was the start of the Kannmai Matsuri which now occurs every 5 years.

After the ceremony the boats form a convoy and head back to the harbor on the other side of the island. I counted more than 30 boats in total.

At the harbor the villagers wait to greet the priests. The older women play shamisen, the young boys play drums, and there are 4 miko. All the men of the village are on the boats.

There now follows 3 days of kagura performances.

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