Hirohata Hachimangu

 

An hour or so after setting out from my hotel on my walk from Ine to Akiyoshidai I came across the first shrine of the day.

Yet another Hachiman Shrine.

This one was said to be a branch of the original Hachiman Shrine, Usa Hachiman, in what is now Oita. The date given is 732.

The shrine has been at its current site since 1660. It had moved several times before.

In 1221, following the Jokyu War, a new samurai lord took over the area. Unusually, he chose to make this Hachiman shrine his tutelary shrine, rather than establish a new one, which was normal.

The kami are Ojin, Jingu, and the three Munakata Princesses. This seems to be the norm for Hachiman shrines in this area.

In 1752 a Tenmangu Shrine was established within the grounds....

The main shrine was rebuilt in 1769, and in 1770 the shrine grounds were expanded and reforested.

The previous post was on the walk from Mine to Akiyoshidai, during which I stopped in at this shrine.

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Hara Hachimangu & Jingukogo Shrine

 

While walking from Chofu to Mine I stopped in at a couple of shrines. The first a Hachimangu in the village of Hara.

It is said to have been founded around 1420 as a branch of Hakozaki Shrine, the famous Hachiman Shrine involved in the defense against the Mongol invasion in what is now Fukuoka.

As well as the standard Hachiman trio of Ojin, Jingu, and Chuai, it also enshrined the three Munakata princesses.

The shrine has three huge trees, a Gingko, a Sugi, and a Mukunoki, and it is the one of the most interest.

It is the third-largest tree in all of Yamaguchi with some impressive statistics....it is 27 meters tall, with a trunk diameter of 5.3 meters. It is in remarkably good condition and is said to have been planted when the shrine was established, making it about 600 years old. I recently posted about another sacred Mukunoki tree in my neighbourhood.

The shrine is home to a unique dance, Iwato Mai. In the mid Edo Period two men from the village travelled all the way to Izumo to be taught a sacred dance based on the Iwato Myth. I suspect that must have been Sada Shrine near Matsue, the origin of much of the kagura performed nowadays.

The next shrine was Jingukogo Shrine, literally "Empress Jingu" Shrine.

One source says that originally it was a Hachiman Shrine, but in the early 15th Century the spirits of Imimiya Shrine were transferred here.

The main kami is Jingu along with Chuai, Ojin, the Sumiyoshi kami, and Emperor Nintoku.

Whereas Imimiya Shrine is the spot where Chuai fought against the Kumaso, this spot is said to be where Jingu gathered her army for her invasion of Korea.

The grove of trees surrounding the shrine is distinctively very different from the surrounding area and is beleievd to be between 300 and 500 years old.

The oldest tree is said to be a huge Yew tree..... It and the grove are registered natural properties

The previous post in this series was on the walk the day I visited these shrines

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Imimiya Shrine

 

Imimiya Shrine in Chofu is quite a large shrine with roots in the mythic past.

According to the myth-legend, Emperor Chuai and his consort Jingu stayed here during their campaign to subjugate the Kumaso people of Kyushu and erected a shrine and performed rituals here.

Later, in 728, the spirit of Chuai was transferred here from Kashii Shrine in what is now Fukuoka.

Jingu and Ojin, were enshrined as comanion shrines and so there were three seperate shrines.

Following one of the numerous fires that destroyed buildings, the three were  combined together and the shrine renamed Imimiya.

One of the major secondary shrines within the grounds is the Arakuma Inari Shrine.

A champion sumo wrestler, Kaiketsu Masaki, used to pray here every year before the Kyushu tournament, and later another wrestler, Ono Kuniyasu, was also assoiated with the shrine.

Consequently, there is a small sumo museum next to the shrine, and may explain the small sumo wrestler-like stone figures.

Other shrines within Imimiya are a Wakamiya Shrine enshrining Emperor Nintoku, a Takara Shrine enshrining Takeuchi no Sukune.

There is a Yasaka Shrine which, along with Susano and his family, also enshrines 42 other kami from the time of "shrine consolidation", the offiial name for the program that closed local shrines. There is a Soja Shrine, which was a shrine where all the kami from the area were gathered to enable the local governor to avoid travelling to perform his duties, and another shrine to Ojin.

Two small islets just off the coast, Manju and Kanju, linked to another myth about Empress Jingu, are also considered part of the shrine precincts.

Imimiya Shrine has a whole slew of festivals throughout the year, but the most interesting is the Kazukata Garden Festival held in August. It is referred to as the "strangest festival in the world", although I have been unable to find the exact source of this accolade.

To understand the festval we must refer to another myth-legend, that of Jinrin. Jinrin is one of most popular kagura dances in my area, though I must admit I never delved into the story before, other than the good guy-bad guy motif.

While encamped here, Emperor Chuai and his army were attacked by the Kumaso. It is said that this was at the instigation of Jinrin from Sila, one of the three kingdoms on the Korean Peninsula. It is also said that Jinrin led the attack, and was a fearsome figure that killed many of  Chuai's soldiers, and so Chuai himself took up a bow and arrow and slew Jinrin.

The head of Jinrin, with the visage of a demon, was buried here and the emperor's soldiers danced round the spot with raised spears. The stone covering the buried head is the Oniishi in the shrine and the focal point of the festival.

During the night of the festival, women and girls carry lanterns, and the men and boys carry banners atop bamboo poles, and everyone dances around the Oniishi.

So far, nothing seems to explain why this might be considered a strange festival, until you consider that some of the bamboo poles are 30 meters high and weigh up to 100 kilograms.

There is a photo at the end of this post showing some of the poles, and a link to a video of the festival...

The photo below is a monument to silkworms. According to the myth, a Chinese Emperor brought silkworms with him to this spot, and so sericulture began in Japan.

The previous post was on the nearby gardens and mansion of the Mori Clan

Below is a photo I took on an earlier visit to the shrine during August. Unfortunately we could not stay until the evening to watch the festival, but could see all the huge bamboo poles used in the festival. Here is a link to a youtube video I found on the festival.

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Onbara Hachimangu

 

After walking through the small settlement of Onbara on the bank of the Gonokawa River, I stop in at rhe local shrine.

It's a Hachimangu, not surprising, and appears to be a fairly typical local shrine of the area...

However, with a bit of digging I was able to find a few stories in its history.

The Hachimangu was established in 1603, but prior to that the villagers were parishioners of an Amatsu Shrine which is about 4 kilometers upriver and on the opposite bank. That in itself is quite unusual, though Amatsu Shrine was obviously fairly important as it is ranked as a Sannomiya.

For those villagers that couldn't make the journey to Amatsu Shrine, they would gather on this hill and set up altars and perform rituals to worship it from afar, so it looks like the establishing of the Hachimangu was on a site already with spiritual significnce to the villagers.

In the 18th century someone stole the goshintai of the shrine, the object inside the honden that the kami inhabits when visiting. No info is given on what the goshintai was, though it was often a Buddhist statue or sometimes a rock. Nowadays, we are told that goshintai are supposed to be a mirror, though that is a largely modern "tradition". A new goshintai was enshrined. However, in the 19th century the old goshintai was discovered in the grounds so it was enshrined in a new structure named the Old Hachimangu. It now stands next to another small shrine, a Yama Shrine that used to be located at an old mine nearby that closed down.

The previous post in this series on my walk up the Gonokawa River to its source was on my walk into Onbara.

if you would like to subscribe by email just leave your email address in the comments below. It will not be published and made public. I post new content almost everyday, and send out an email about twice a month with short descriptions and links to the last ten posts.