Disappeared Japan Kirobara Shrine

 

After leaving Kawamoto and passing the Higashi Ohashi Bridge, I headed upstream to the little settlement of Kirobara, and I was excited to revisit a huge sacred tree. I was disappointed to see it had recently been cut down as it had become unsafe. The following pics are from a much earlier visit.

The tree was a Mukunoki, in English, the common name is Scabrous Aphanathe. It is said that in autumn, the leaves can be used as sandpaper. This one was thought to be about 300 years old and had a base circumference of more than 8 meters. The tree was considered to be the community's shrine.

In the first 2 decades of the twentieth century the government began a "shrine consolidation" program that, in esence, closed small local shrines and moved them to a larger shrine in the area. Before the program ended they had closed 100,000 shrines in Japan, about half of all shrines.

The primary reason was to shift people's focus from local, nature-based shrines to the national shrines like Hachiman or Tenmangu, Kasuga, etc. Another reason was that in the old days, Japanese in the countryside.... the vast majority of Japanese.... would take the day off work for matsuris, and in any small area there could be many small shrines each with its own festival day. Not good for the work ethic the government was trying to instill in the population. Western observers in the Meiji Period said that Japan could never industrialize because the population was quite lackadaisical in their work ethic and time keeping.

Yet another reason was that these local shrines were often set in a grove of old, large trees, and once the shrine was closed the trees were able to be cut for lumber. This point was strongly taken up by Japans first "enviromentalist" Minakata Kumagusu.

When the locals here expected their shrine to be destroyed they very quickly installed a small Tenmangu Shrine, pictured above, and their shrine was spared. My own village was not so lucky. The section of forest immediately behind my house used to be the local shrine. It was moved to the next village and since then no-one visits it. The shrine consolidation program is little known but was almost as big a factor in the creation of the modern Japanese religious landscape as the equally destructive separation of the Buddhas and Kami.

The previous post in this series documenting my walk up the Gonokawa River to its source was on the last bridge I passed, the Kawamoto Higashi Ohashi.

Sakakiyama Shrine, The Brush Shrine

 

Sakakiyama Shrine is a large shrine in Kumano, Hiroshima, the brush capital of Japan.

It is said to have been founded in 933 when the spirit of Hachiman was transferred here from Usa Hachimangu.

It was called Omiya Hachiman Shrine, but in 1713 a major fire destroyed the shrine and all its records so little is known of its history before that.

The shrine was rebuilt in 1724 and the current honden dates to that time. It is considered unusually large and is often claimed to be one of the biggest hondens in Japan.

Until 2024 there was a huge Sugi tree in front of the shrine. Said to be about 800 years old.

However, only the stump remains now as it was in danger of falling, so was cut down

The current Haiden (main hall) is also quite large and dates to 1870.

The shrine is most famous nowadays for the Fude Matsuri, the Brush Festival held around the Autumn Equinox.

At this time brushes are hung around the shrine entrance, the women perform a Fude Dance, caligraphers create large works, and old brushes are ceremoniously burned. along with all the other activities normally associated with a matsuri.

The matsuri began in the 1930's when the town was wealthy from the trade of brushes and most of the townsfolk were engaged in the industry. The brush industry is much smaller now, but Kumano is still the Brush Capital of Japan.

There are numerous secondary shrines within the grounds, including a Suwa Shrine and a Sakakidani Shrine.

There is also an Aragami Shrine and an Inari shrine.

The largest secondary shrine in the grounds is a branch of Kumano Hongu. It was established about 800 years ago.

There are quite a lot of intricate carvings on the honden, attributed to the master craftsman Torii Jinbei.

The interior of the Haidan has a lot of large Ema paintings.

The previous post in this series on day 15 of my walk along the Chugoku Kannon Pilgrimage was on the walk up the valley to Kumano.

Tozenji Temple 74 on the Kyushu pilgrimage

 

Tozenji Temple, number 74 on the Shingon Kyushu pilgrimage, is in Nakazatacho, a rural community north of Sasebo in Nagasaki.

On the previous day's walk I visited temple 66, also called Tozenji, to the east of Sasebo.

The temple was established here in 968, but its origin can be said to lie almost three hundred years earlier in tye very early 8th century when the famous mink Gyoki visited the area and carved a statue of yakushi Nyorai.

That statue was enshrined on top of the mountain in what is now the temples Okunoin and the statue is the honzon of the temple.

I visited very early in the morning and there was no one about so I didn't go inside and see the statue.

The temple grounds are dominated by a huge Camphor tree.

Thought to be 600 years old, this ancient tree has a trunk circumference of 8 meters and is twenty meters high.

The previous post was about the first temple I visited on this, the 67th day of my walk, Korin-in.

Nakayama Shrine

 

It is said that the torii at Nakayama Shrine is unique. At the time of my visit i didn't notice, but now I can see it.

An Ox statue usually signifies Tenjin, the deified spirit of Sugawara Michizane, and he is not one of the main kami enshrined here, but there must be a secondary Tenjin shrine.

Nakayama Shrine is located north of Tsuyama in the area of Ichinomiya, so named because the shrine was the ichinomiya, highest-ranked shrine, in Mimasaka Province.

The Shinmon gate was relocated here from Tsuyama Castle when the castle was dismantled in the early Meiji Period.

Nakayama Shrine was founded in 707. For much of its history it was known as Chuzen Shrine.

The three main kami enshrined are Kagamitsukuri no kami, Ame no nukado no kami, and Ishikori-dome no mikoto, with the first and third of these being associated wit mirrors. In the meiji period the names were changed but then changed back after 1946.

The shrine was destroyed by the Amago Clan in 1533 when they invaded and took over the territory.

Amago Haruhisa rebuilt the shrine in 1559.

The main buildings date from this time and are considered to be nakayama-zukuri, a style unique to the immediate vicinity.

The previous post was Tsuyama Snapshots, photos taken on my way to the shrine.

A large sacred keyaki tree, zelkova in English, is said to be 800 years old. It has a trunk diameter of 8 meters.

Higashikawanobori Kifune Shrine

 

Kawanobori is the last settlement along the old Nagasaki Kaido in Takeo before it comes into Ureshino. In Higashikawanobori I was surprised to find a Kifune Shrine, a branch of the famous Kifune Shrine in the mountains north of Kyoto. Banners were raised telling that a matsuri was in session.

Kifune Shrine enshrines Tamayorihime, the mother of mythical emperor Jimmu, and is said to be a kami of water and rain, so it was not surprising that this Kifune Shrine backs onto the river rather than up against the mountainside like most shrines.

Architecturally it was almost identical to the previous shrine, Uchida Tenmangu,  with a pavillion-style main hall and also a large sacred Camphor tree. The ceiling of the main hall also was covered in small paintings.

The original Kifune Shrine near Kyoto is famous for two things. One is that it is considered the origin of ema, the votive plaques found at most shrines and some temples. According to the story, the Emperor used to donate a horse for sacrifice to the shrine, a white horse to pray for rain to stop, and a black horse to make rain. Later a painting of a horse was used, and these became what are now ema.

The other things strongly associated with Kifune Shrine is in many senses a kind of Japanese voodoo called Ushi no Toki Mairi which involves nailing a straw figure to a tree at the shrine. The story has complex roots but is mostly known through the Noh play Kanawa.

While I was visiting a ceremony was taking place. The men taking part were dressed in everyday work clothes so I suspect it was some kind of Spring agricultural ritual.

The previous post was on Uchida Tenmangu.